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Check out some of Day 9's stuff on team liquid and ustream, he's a good broadcaster and gives a lot of good info out without being elitist and obtuse with his verbage

I would love it if you guys brought Sean Plott onto The Idle Thumbs Podcast. I bet he'd be willing--he's always trying to spread the word about his show. I believe he is a grad student at the same USC program that produced Flower last year, too.

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I'm not a fan of Day[9] so far, he just rubs me the wrong way. Has a perma-smile on his face, fills dead air with crap like "mmm this coffee is so good". And to advanced players, his long analysis of the games might be interesting, but it's just more of what I don't like about him. Also, I'm not a fan of ustream. TBH, there's no point using it unless you're a heavily chat focused show or covering up to the minute events. If you're just talking over a replay, you should just load it up on youtube and get a higher quality video.

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I'm not a fan of Day[9] so far, he just rubs me the wrong way. Has a perma-smile on his face, fills dead air with crap like "mmm this coffee is so good". And to advanced players, his long analysis of the games might be interesting, but it's just more of what I don't like about him. Also, I'm not a fan of ustream. TBH, there's no point using it unless you're a heavily chat focused show or covering up to the minute events. If you're just talking over a replay, you should just load it up on youtube and get a higher quality video.

Yea fuck that guy for being happy and enjoying doing his show! What a dick! I agree with Bury though about how awesome it would be to have him on an episode of The Idle Thumbs, but I don't think those guys ever do skype guests do they? That would probably be the only way it would be feasable

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I understand if you don't find it annoying, but honestly it's just a bit wahjah for me.

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Tobad then cause he and his brother are the very top of the SC commentators every single one who'm trying to compete with them just sucks somuch at it that their casts become to boring. Somany people are just trying to be so knowledgeable about the game and think they can cast just like Sean and Nick plott but non of them comes close.

It takes some real SC players to be casting the way they do.

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I'm not a fan of Day[9] so far, he just rubs me the wrong way. Has a perma-smile on his face, fills dead air with crap like "mmm this coffee is so good". And to advanced players, his long analysis of the games might be interesting, but it's just more of what I don't like about him. Also, I'm not a fan of ustream. TBH, there's no point using it unless you're a heavily chat focused show or covering up to the minute events. If you're just talking over a replay, you should just load it up on youtube and get a higher quality video.

I can definitely see why his casts wouldn't please everyone, but I personally find his energy infectious. For me, Starcraft can be a source of real anxiety and stress IRL, so I actually enjoy the levity he brings to his 'cast. Personally I find his dumb jokes to be pretty funny--he has some dumb 'cast memes just like a certain other The Idle Thumbs Podcast :tup:

I agree that the website he uses--Livestream--is kind of bad, but hey, that company is hosting 1hr casts at the price of like two ads. It's really not that bad of a deal for subpar usability.

edit:

Yea fuck that guy for being happy and enjoying doing his show! What a dick! I agree with Bury though about how awesome it would be to have him on an episode of The Idle Thumbs, but I don't think those guys ever do skype guests do they? That would probably be the only way it would be feasable

I believe Day9 is currently getting his masters in video games from University of Southern California. I'm sure he could find a way to visit SF for a con/interview/daytrip.

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I'm 45 minutes into his 'life of starcraft' bit from boostremo's tweet. Not knowing anything about Starcraft, I'm mainly enthralled by how at ease he is for talking to a camera non-stop for 45 minutes (and the scrubber is less than halfway through). At least with a replay you have something to draw from but man... this is a long time to be sitting alone in a room talking to yourself.

Not a criticism or anything, just weird to think about.

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I'm 45 minutes into his 'life of starcraft' bit from boostremo's tweet. Not knowing anything about Starcraft, I'm mainly enthralled by how at ease he is for talking to a camera non-stop for 45 minutes (and the scrubber is less than halfway through). At least with a replay you have something to draw from but man... this is a long time to be sitting alone in a room talking to yourself.

Not a criticism or anything, just weird to think about.

I just checked twitter.com/boostremo hoping for it to exist, totally forgetting that I knew /idlethumbs did exist. This also lead me to find that twitter.com/hotscoops is not taken.

Since I'm running out of other sources of Starcraft I've been watching more of Day[9]. I'm building up a tolerance to his mannerisms, but he's got so much of the grad school/TA vibe it's hard to get past. It's a great voice to use while giving a lecture, and that's largely what he's doing in his videos as he focuses on analysis over entertainment, but it triggers a "you think you're better than me?" reaction. I've heard a lot of people that spend extended times in the academic world have a hard time shaking off this kind of communication style. But what's even more interesting is of course he's better than me. I suck at StarCraft, I really have been terrible at every RTS I've ever played.

He's a nice guy, has a lot of smart things to say, I just need to get over his mannerisms. Which would be a lot easier if he didn't have to fill dead air talking about his coffee.

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I would love it if you guys brought Sean Plott onto The Idle Thumbs Podcast. I bet he'd be willing--he's always trying to spread the word about his show. I believe he is a grad student at the same USC program that produced Flower last year, too.

Yeah that would be awesome and he also not like one of those elitist SC players who thinks every other game is shit and doesn't play anything else than SC.

I'm not a fan of Day[9] so far, he just rubs me the wrong way. Has a perma-smile on his face, fills dead air with crap like "mmm this coffee is so good". And to advanced players, his long analysis of the games might be interesting, but it's just more of what I don't like about him. Also, I'm not a fan of ustream. TBH, there's no point using it unless you're a heavily chat focused show or covering up to the minute events. If you're just talking over a replay, you should just load it up on youtube and get a higher quality video.

He is just very passionate about what he does. If you watch his 100th episode you will probably see why he is like that. About the analysis thing... IT'S STARCRAFT. He doesn't stream on ustream, he uses Livestream but it's almost the same. He also uploads his videos on Blip.tv with a bit better quality but the fact that 2000+ people want to watch his shows live (and it has gone over 9000 viewers when he shoutcasts live matches) is a big point to why he streams.

I'm 45 minutes into his 'life of starcraft' bit from boostremo's tweet. Not knowing anything about Starcraft, I'm mainly enthralled by how at ease he is for talking to a camera non-stop for 45 minutes (and the scrubber is less than halfway through). At least with a replay you have something to draw from but man... this is a long time to be sitting alone in a room talking to yourself.

Not a criticism or anything, just weird to think about.

Well there were about 3000 people watching the stream live so he wasn't technically "alone". I have to admit that manly tears were shed watching that episode. :')

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Hi, I'm here representing Idle Thumbs listeners who don't like Starcraft. We've drafted a statement; here it goes:

STATEMENT FROM IDLE THUMBS LISTENERS WHO DON'T LIKE STARCRAFT

It's a fine idea to have Sean Plott on the podcast.

Please at some point talk about something that isn't Starcraft.

Just say the words "Grim Fandango" like 27 minutes in or something like that. That will be sufficient.

Thank you.

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Well there were about 3000 people watching the stream live so he wasn't technically "alone".
That's where I think the problem is. Streaming is the easiest and the hardest thing to do as a broadcaster. It's easy, because you don't have to edit. It's hard because you have to do something constantly or it's a huge snore-fest. The content these guys are putting out there, would almost always be better if it were edited.

This applies to podcasts too. I'm sure fans of Thumbs will notice things are a lot more entertaining when the hosts aren't constantly worrying about breaking the broadcast or being boring. Post-processes allows you to clean up your mistakes and salvage gems. It's a skill, and takes a bit of time unless you're really good at it, but IMO it's worth it. I'd rather listen to a 20 minute podcast edited to increase quality than a 1:45 minute rant.

Live streaming serves a purpose when you're doing two things: capturing a live event that people would like to get up to the minute coverage on, or interacting with the audience. What I believe is that people grossly over-estimate the value of real-time audience interaction. Look at a show like CO-OP, the show became unwatchable when it went to it's live format. Or consider the awkwardness of any Q&A panel at any convention you've ever seen.

Can you have the best of both worlds? An edited show with high-quality pre-compressed video, and an active chat/twitter interaction? Yeah I believe so, I'm not sure if any of these sites really support it though. Imagine uploading an edited HD video to a site like youtube or *stream, and then setting a publish time so the show can commence at a predetermined time. Then the author could be active in the channel activity while the show is in progress, and even host a post-video Q&A real time with the channel.

(btw star-stream would be an amazing name if that site doesn't already exist)

I think StarCraft coverage could be extremely popular even in the mainstream, if a bit of editing was done. Look at the televised poker boom in the past decade. It started as heavily edited tournaments, condensed into a narrative showing the people behind the game, and constantly educated the audience with scripted asides. Think about splicing in a little clip once and a while about simple jargon terms like "rush" "x pool/'racks/expansion" "micro/macro" into the start of a replay while nothing much is happening.

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That's where I think the problem is. Streaming is the easiest and the hardest thing to do as a broadcaster. It's easy, because you don't have to edit. It's hard because you have to do something constantly or it's a huge snore-fest. The content these guys are putting out there, would almost always be better if it were edited.

Yeah but doing a daily ~1h show while going to uni makes editing kinda hard.

Think about splicing in a little clip once and a while about simple jargon terms like "rush" "x pool/'racks/expansion" "micro/macro" into the start of a replay while nothing much is happening.

If you have problems with these terms I'm sorry to tell you that your in the minority and if you are interested in the game to the point that you watch videos like the ones Day9 put out you pretty much already know or would want to find out by your self.

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If you have problems with these terms I'm sorry to tell you that your in the minority and if you are interested in the game to the point that you watch videos like the ones Day9 put out you pretty much already know or would want to find out by your self.
I don't have issues with "flop" "turn "river" or "blind" either, but those videos do a service in poker coverage. I'm not complaining that they don't explain these terms, but that a well produced show would benefit from them. I'm also not expecting anybody to do it on their own, or on a weekly basis. But a weekly or monthly highlights show made by a few contributors would be great. If such a show existed, would you not watch?

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well i have no idea about the star craft my friends are mad to play the star craft game its a real 3d game.
aw shit, now we have to wear glasses just to play?

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Lots of new players thanks to the gamestop beta keys going out. After the new patch I'm a division higher then I was before, in Silver now. Be careful playing ladder if you guys are in gold or higher though, right now theres a quick zergling glitch that blizzard will probably fix by the time you read this, but some people are out there exploiting it.

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Sean Plott knows what he's talking about and is obvious about that, but he's also very self-deprecating and down to earth. Frequently when he is being self-aggrandizing, it is simply in jest. He and his brother Nick are the best StarCraft commentators I've seen, and since Nick isn't doing StarCraft II beta commentary yet, Sean is my current caster of choice.

I've been a fan of his StarCraft commentary for a while, and I coincidentally ran into him at Blizzard earlier this week. He's an incredibly nice guy, very humble, and very thankful for the opportunities he has had.

I'm also glad he doesn't edit or produce his shows. It's important for a commentator to be able to carry himself on a live stream, and doing his daily show helps him stick to those practices. Also considering the volume of material he puts out, having to do post-processing would surely either reduce his output or burn him out. Trust me, I know--even just doing a weekly podcast is extremely draining when it's 100% in your free time.

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I just wish somebody would do it. Day[9] isn't even my preferred caster.

There's potential for so much more than what's out there today.

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Thanks to Gamestop, I am now in the beta. I am very, very bad at this game. This isn't new; I have never been good at RTS games. I usually have trouble even beating the single player campaigns.

The ladder system in this game is really good, though. Even I can win games occasionally, and I do feel like I'm slowly getting better.

If you need an ego boost: DIUM.spiffy

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Whose dick do I got to suck to get a SC2 key? I've been trying for ages, but I can't get a goddamn key anywhere. :(

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Apparently, someone in the beta could have a key to give to a friend. I don't think I do, or if I do I don't know how to get to it. Gamestop also gives out beta keys for preorders (in store or online).

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Whose dick do I got to suck to get a SC2 key? I've been trying for ages, but I can't get a goddamn key anywhere. :(

lol i totaly forgot about our little agreement :P you can borrow my spare one as i said ^_^

---

Maybe the're words which arent as common in a noob's mind but i think if your watching Day[9] to become a better starcraft player you should already start looking on websites and reading up about everything and find yourself a "mentor" instead of trying to find shit out urself cause it will take you years unless your amazingly talented - and if your talented you're able to figure out the meaning of sentences and words alot better and faster also so you wouldnt be complaining

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