Have we lost our way?

[HYP3R]

Instead of capturing the natural excitement of the moment, we're left with the commentator, lost for words, awkwardly saying "What the crap" to remain professional.

I'm extremely confused at this part, the commentator looked pretty excited to me.

 

[Problem2]

Being a watcher of smash bros tournaments since '06 and a participant since '09, I've enjoyed watching the change towards professionalism. I began watching with the MLG vids, so from my perspective, the vids started off as very professional, then went to unfiltered grass root, and now we are returning to professionalism, but at a new level.

 

[Bearbuddy4]

I think that commentating more professionally has no effect on the "grassroots" of smash. It sounds like your typical old school smash group games were hectic and full of commentators and spectators alike yelling out he got *****! or "he was F**ked in the ass"

you can't just yell s**t like that out. If the smash community wants to become bigger we won't be doing so by offending others with foul language.
The thing I hate the most is the term "****" in video game lingo. There are people who actually get ***** in real life. Imagine how they feel when they are at a tournament and then constantly reminded of something terrible that happened to them in the past.

Vulgar language is completely unnecessary and should be used with caution.

 

[TheDuckChris]

I think the comment about hype decreasing is way off base. I agree that more professional streams (such as the one for the MLG qualifier in Illinois recently) have been pretty lackluster, but the clip mentioned was way hype. Bar wars was another good example, where TK Breezy and Phenomenal EE really showed off their commentary style to a wider audience: keeping it hype while keeping it real with the language

 

[pseudomac]

DONT LOSE YOUR WAY

 

[SmashShadow]

Vulgar language is fine as long as it's not offensive. In fact, I would prefer it to having a commentator sitting there like they feeling they can't say what they want so they just supplement it with silence or less interesting commentary. Some people just don't realize the effect that commentators have on the audience. I've seen streams where the commentary was so bad that the comment section was either more interesting than what was going on on stream or an influx of ResidentSleepers. Commentary doesn't need to be extremely hype in order to be good. It does however need to not be boring and/or dragging down the stream experience. But if the day is right, and hype is high, who are we to try to suppress that? It does nothing for anyone.

 

[ranmaru]

I wouldn't drop doubles just for more views

only would do so if the community wanted something else to do besides that. (like crews or EXTRA singles lol) i dunno

 

[Bones0]

I don't think the community has lost its way, but I do believe it is a serious possibility that we, as a community, should be cognizant of. We haven't made any serious concessions for the masses YET, but I have heard some ideas already thrown around that I cannot agree with at all. The doubles thing is the major one. Considering dropping an event just because it's less popular than singles is ridiculous. It'd be like MLG in the old Halo days dropping FFA because it wasn't as popular as 4v4. It's especially ridiculous because the community hasn't, until very recently, taken any steps to even encourage doubles tournaments.

I've also heard talk of stuff like extending sets to bo7 solely to increase the duration of matches. The person in question cited short set lengths and a shortage of content overall as a problem moving forward into a more professional atmosphere. To me, these kinds of decisions directly affect competitors in a negative way by not putting them first. We've also already seen a rise in discrimination based on sponsors where RoM 7 gave beneficial seeds to players solely because they have a sponsor.

Again, these things are extremely uncommon, but these types of things have a way of creeping up on a community, especially one as hungry for the spotlight as Smash fans. It was extremely painful for me, as a diehard Halo fan, to see the community placate casuals and spectators more and more until we were no longer playing Halo anymore. The decreasing quality of the games didn't help, but plenty of gameplay elements were included almost entirely to appeal to new players. Melee isn't at much risk with bad ruleset changes, but casual/spectator influence can crop up in even the most unlikely places, so I think it's in everyone's best interests that we keep Melee competition and Melee content as raw as possible. If we want to get rid of the slurs during commentary and get our players looking more professional outside of the game, I'm all for that. But it also wouldn't kill us to permit the occasional f-bomb or advertise the occasional trash talk.

 

[SmokedCarpenter]

As one of those guys that only watches smash streams and says he wants to get into smash for real but never does, I am honestly ashamed of the way people like myself act in stream chat during matches. Sure, some of the commentators might not be as good as others, but no one that plays smash is a professional commentator, most of them just pick up the empty mic and improvise. It is absurd how immature people act about the commentators calling them this and that and saying "you suck" and "get off the mic." I honestly don't think the smash community has any reason to cater to people like that.

I like the fact that smash is getting big and outsiders are discovering it like myself through twitch and the documentary, but if a bunch of MOBA loving twitch viewers are just going to come in and complain about how much the commentators suck and they aren't getting the exact entertainment value they want then **** them.

It's really late and I don't remember my initial point, but I think all I really wanted to get across was that most of the people smash has attracted through twitch and big name tournaments are not the kind of people smashers want in their community. (Not all, but a good portion!)

 

[Acryte]

What bothers me is that Toph seems to care so much about not referring to players by their names... and then it becomes awkward as other commentators have to apologize for just doing what's natural to them. Honestly, if you refer to S2J as Johnny etc, and then simply explain that you're talking about S2J, or the way you said it is clearly referencing a specific character in the matchup aka falcon... to me I enjoy that stuff. Getting to learn first names of players and where they're from etc is just another way we bring people into our community and make them feel at home. It bothers me that this is being avoided in order to cater to some false sense of professionalism or something.

 

[ElectroLyte]

I'm very disappointed to see the selfishness of such a large portion f the community who believe that their feelings of hype from certain word use (gay, **** etc.) justify its toxicity to the community. Specifically, these terms are not just less professional but ignorant and hurtful to the gay and snake communities. we know that some people love the game and the community so much that they have continued to put up with the bull**** and maybe even be major icons (prog). do we not respect these leaders? has anyone considered how many potential players we may have lost over the years. and to those who continue to justify this language,
Grow up

 

[TreK]

Wait, "gimp" is a bad word ?
I've never seen it used in its normal context ever (I'm not a native English speaker), so it only means "to succeed a low % edgeguard" to me.
If it is a bad word, then yeah, we should find a replacement for it.
I suggest "to rob" or "to dunk"

 

[HodgyDot]

The Grassroot scene is what keeps this game growing, is it the weekly events Smashers can take friends too and get em hooked. It is the reason the scene stays healthly all these years nothing else comes close. E-sports is great the e-sports money is great as well. No matter what happens at the Big 3 the grassroot scene will be the same.

 

[treemustach]

As a player who has just recently joined in on the hype train I feel like it was the Grassroot scene that has brought me closer to the competitive side of smash. You say that the people who are chatting on the streams continuously say "These guys are annoying", "These guys need to get the f**** off the mic", "These guys are boring" but to be completely serious it will always be that way. Some people just don't like others. What I really don't understand though is why we have to appeal to the outside audience? Wife in this case said it in this way, "One of his reasons was that "doubles" is chaotic, making it messy to commentate and spectate for the average viewer." Yea, so what if the average viewer can't keep up, so what if the commentator can't catch every single area of the match, does that really matter? Take a look at LoL, in teamfights they have 5 vs 5 people in teamfights with 1 man talking. He can only really capitalize of those things that mattered the most and these fights are truly chaotic. Now we are talking about 4 people in one arena...whats the difference? To the "average viewer" they decided to watch it because it was entertaining, why do you need to make it even more simple?

 

[KrIsP!]

Yes, someone on the smash sub reddit criticized the mlg smash fest for having commentators chat and talk about other games instead of analyzing the players in screen. Wtf, they've crossed a line for me. We have not lost our way at the local level though, just as the FGC has annoying stream monsters who spam and make vulgar jokes, we have annoying stream monsters who make demands that their opinion take precedence. I hate it, but I actually go to smash fests where we just play and talk about stupid **** like why it costs so much to get an ADHD test and who has the symptoms cause we all do. That shot has nothing to do with smash until someone makes a joke about falcon having ADHD in doubles.

There's a reason the FGC scoffs at eSports, people pre Evo, please tell me you want lose your flavor, I came here for the community and its mostly still present outside of watching a steam so lets keep it that way and all go get sushi after the tournament.

 

[Shoto]

I mean, some commentators are just complete ****. They say " Look at that U-air" That U-air was actually a F-air. Its just kind of disturbing when you have people who aren't even familiar with the basic moves of the game commentating to everyone on stream. It's not really a turn off to the casual audience because they don't know better, but it disgusts me.

 

[SmashShadow]

Wait, "gimp" is a bad word ?
I've never seen it used in its normal context ever (I'm not a native English speaker), so it only means "to succeed a low % edgeguard" to me.
If it is a bad word, then yeah, we should find a replacement for it.
I suggest "to rob" or "to dunk"

See, this line of thinking baffles me. We've been using gimp for 10+ years now and not a single person that I know of has ever voiced a complaint or even made the connection to the derogatory use of the word. Nobody sees it as offensive and nobody in the Smash community uses it as insult so why change something we've been using for years?

 

[Niko45]

The reality is that there is going to be "selling out" if anything is moving from underground/independent to mainstream, and smash is no exception.

It's not just the casual scrub on twitch that has a problem with doubles. Lots of players simply don't care about doubles. My big problem is that smash tournaments take too ****ing long to execute and the fat needs to be trimmed (whether its pools or doubles...somewhere something NEEDS to be cut). I want to watch SSS, which is a great tournament with high quality smash. But on the east coast that tournament is finishing at like 2-3am on a Sunday night. That's total bull**** and it's because there's too much excess in the current structure of standard smash tournaments. And it's not just SSS by any means, tournaments are universally running too late.

The biggest travesty is when Mango and M2K are playing epic Grand Finals sets in an empty room with the cops on the way. That's just a huge waste. All because we need Project M and Melee Doubles and all this other crap delaying what everyone is really interested in.

There will never be another WOMBO COMBO. Get over it. Embrace it for it's place in smash history. It's a key moment that became a building block highlight clip for creating the level of attention smash receives today. That's fantastic and there is no reason to be upset that it is a dated event, because the community is evolving and changing. Embrace it, don't reject it.

 

[DJ _ICE]

I totally agree. Without swearing and commentary just aimed at being hype instead of breaking things down, where will we get another Wombo Combo?

 

[Archangel]

Talk to em Tafo! Talk to Em!

 

[Mr P]

I agree with the sentiment and i can definitely get behind it being an old school guy who has slept on many floors since 2004.

We should not forget where we have come from and not sell ourselves out for commercial interests, we have proven in the past that we do not need sponsorships or MLG or even EVO to sustain ourselves. We kept ourselves going because we love the game and that includes playing doubles, who are we pandering to here ? The hardcore fans and players who are involved in the community and love the game or corporations like MLG who are willing to drop us at the first instance when they don't think smash is in their business interests any more. Of course the sponsorships and the exposure and the big cash prizes are great, it's what the game deserves but not at the expense of the community itself and we should always remember that. Wife is wrong about dropping doubles, it is an integral part of the game and instead of dropping it we should be finding ways to promote it, make it more exciting and bring it back to the forefront of tournaments because it is fun ! And it can be very interesting to watch, espescially when you have established teams.

I'd also like to also say that it is nice that we have been getting more respect from the fighting game community as a whole because it has meant that smash has had more of an opportunity to expand, but still, **** those neckbeards we don't need them either. As long as people love to play smash we'll still be here.

Don't sell out smashers, respect the game !

 

[KishPrime]

Conversely, I'll note that by "selling out" you can actually start getting prize pools that support your players enough to actually travel more and have a more active and vibrant scene. There are positives and negatives to both.

I don't really understand what the OP is saying. I don't think a "love of the game" approach is different from a family-friendly and professional approach. I always thought FC encompassed both, but maybe I'm wrong.

If time is a problem, then TOs need to step it up. There are plenty of ways to compress tournaments - lower the stock count, Bo3 over Bo5, proper pool management. Even Bo1 for parts of the tournament would be better than losing teams entirely. Tournaments should absolutely finish at a decent hour.

 

[Gravitirax]

I greatly encourage the professional growth of smash, but both professionalism and excitement should have their limits. Professionalism should be limited enough to not make the hype "fake" while the original, hype smash commentary should be able to exist without being held back to extreme levels. Commentators should be able to say whatever they want to create and hold the hype and excitement, but they should still be capable of keeping a professional attitude. Basically what I'm saying is a balance should be kept between the two to try to encourage the professional growth of the smash community while keeping the excitement and entertainment value.

 

[Bean Yak]

It's very possible to keep both the professional and grassroots elements of Smash together, even at the same event.
For instance, bringing the Salty Suite to the professional tournaments for after hours, raw, non-censored Smash goodness.

I definitely agree. though some parts of the Salty Suite were cringey, the event was awesomely entertaining. I think that it helped remind us that hype can be generated by more than loud, vulgar commentary. Instead, they showcased heated rivalries, underdog performances, and that quadruple digit money match.

 

[TravisT]

It's not just the casual scrub on twitch that has a problem with doubles. Lots of players simply don't care about doubles. My big problem is that smash tournaments take too ****ing long to execute and the fat needs to be trimmed (whether its pools or doubles...somewhere something NEEDS to be cut). I want to watch SSS, which is a great tournament with high quality smash. But on the east coast that tournament is finishing at like 2-3am on a Sunday night. That's total bull**** and it's because there's too much excess in the current structure of standard smash tournaments. And it's not just SSS by any means, tournaments are universally running too late.

I think its this attitude that gives many of us concern about Smash "selling out". You mentioned SSS ending too late for EC to watch. SSS normally ends around 11pm PST, which is perfect for players like me, and if that's too late for people in other time zones to watch, well that's just too bad. Why should SSS be expected to degrade the player experience (cutting pools or doubles) for the sake of spectators? I actually agree with you to an extent when it comes to major events like EVO or MLG, but local events need to be about players, especially when its local events that are largely responsible for building our player base.

On a side note, I'd also disagree with you that Mango vs. Mew2King in an empty room for FP4 was a waste. Obviously, that situation shouldn't be the norm, but it was pretty exciting to see smash stripped to its purest form, two top-level playing by themselves in an empty room. It also had the best example of professional-style commentary I've heard. The hype didn't come from yelling, it came from the marriage of knowledge and passion for the game.

 

[Keitaro]

http://youtu.be/vyGFM5CGnoo?t=1m4shttp://youtu.be/vyGFM5CGnoo?t=1m3s

 

[Niko45]

SSS was just an example. Cop out excuse is that it's a local. TNE? Same problem. Not a local. Yes, it's "too bad." But it's "too bad" for everyone, not just me or other east coast viewers because when people have to shut off the stream simply cause bracket hasn't started and it's already midnight here, you're losing out on hundreds of viewers (if not more). Not every smash fan or player is a nocturnal college student.

Would it hurt to run singles before doubles? Then the hardcore doubles fans can still have their doubles but the viewers who don't care for it won't be forced to suffer through it.

 

[SmokedCarpenter]

Would it hurt to run singles before doubles? Then the hardcore doubles fans can still have their doubles but the viewers who don't care for it won't be forced to suffer through it.

Well at my old high school they always put the band before the choir in concerts because 90% of the people there came to watch the choir. It would ensure that the auditorium would be full for band so they didn't feel bad and ****. Not saying that's a good idea at all lol. I don't think smashers care how many people are watching their doubles matches

 

[maweager93]

went to my first tourney today and loved it.

 

[GaretHax]

If the game is to be taken seriously certain sacrifices have to be made, it took a very long time and a lot of very passionate individuals constantly refining, and pushing both, the game, and the community ahead for basketball to become recognized as a sport. And perhaps it will take longer still for video games in general to be recognized as anything of even remote significance.
I miss HomeMadeWaffles commentary a tremendous amount and it would be really nice for us to still be able to keep that aspect of the community alive through the salty-suite, or whatever it needs to be. But if smash is going to set itself up to be the competitive title we all know it can be, some of the ****-talking will have to go. The orient has a far more respected, healthy, and sustainable esports community with little to none of it based on talking smack or hyper-excitable commentary. Granted, once again, I do feel something is missing from commentary these days and the face of smash has changed for the first time in years, but honestly I'm not sure if it is a bad thing as much as it is sudden, and unexpected.

 

[Keebler]

I know that I'm relatively new (very new) to the smash boards community, but I've watched games that I love become popular e-sports in the past, and I can tell you (no offense intended) that this thread is a little melo-dramatic, sure, there's gonna be a bigger crowd, more people are gonna wander into the streams, but that's just it, you're referring to these people as "outsiders" effectively ostracizing them from the "in group." You can't expect the community to grow and prosper with an attitude like that.

 

[Hitzel]

I find it kinda funny that the fighting game community is generally considered to be the least "corporate" and "sterile" esports group, yet the competitive Smash community thinks that learning from the rest of the fighting game community will cause the Smash community to "lose its way."

The Smash community should be grateful that they are getting access to mainstream esports through the FGC because it allows Smash to become relevant without destroying the grassroots elements of the community.

Genres like shooters and mobas have competitive communities centered around businesses that drive the competition, which is why they are so sterile and money-driven. Fighting games are still centered around grassroot efforts and the feeling of being "free from esports" is pretty common.

Start watching some fighting game streams, you'll find that the language gets toned down at the most important events, but aside from those the community doesn't put on a persona for the rest of the world. Smash doesn't have to either.

 

[DCeSportsLANs]

Start watching some fighting game streams, you'll find that the language gets toned down at the most important events, but aside from those the community doesn't put on a persona for the rest of the world. Smash doesn't have to either.

This is very true.

In regards to the article, I would say that you really shouldn't worry about what the masses comment on YouTube. Everyone knows YouTube comments is a cess pool of terrible people that are desperate to hopefully get their post upvoted to the top. The community understands who's a good commentator and who's not, and hopefully the ones that are not are getting constructive criticism and not just flamers.

As far as vulgar language and not being able to be hype, I don't know what you're talking about in the TNE video between Lord vs. S2J. The commentator is going crazy, the crowd behind him is going crazy, you could definitely feel the hype there. Hype =/= vulgar language. If he yelled "What the ****?" instead, would that moment be that much better? To say that you can't get hyped without being vulgar is ridiculous.

 

[BIGJOHNSONxPWNS]

This is a very poorly written article. Too scatter-brained to even hold a valid point.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

I'd say we have found our way

 

[Thor]

I don't understand what's wrong with saying "What the crap!?" Does he want the announcer swearing in the mike?

For big events, when they can, just put Coontail and Keitaro on the mike for Brawl (or Sky and Gunblade because Sky and his Snuggie are hilarious https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKSEatZcegs) and Prog/D1 on the mike for Melee and it'll all be good. [If I knew about Smash 64 commentators I'd say something...]

 

[goateeguy]

While "what the crap" is an odd choice of words, I still disagree with Tafo when he says it was awkward or stifled. The excitement in the room was palpable. Cursing isn't necessary for saying exciting things. In fact, it's often a cop-out for dodging the task of inventing more creative, effective ways of generating excitement.

We're not "selling out," or putting financial interests ahead of the competitive and social experience, by suppressing vulgar and offensive language. It certainly makes our material more "professional", or acceptable to corporate entities and the general public, but it does so BECAUSE it makes our material more original and more accessible to all ages.

I agree that cutting doubles is pretty extreme. We haven't given doubles a fair chance yet. But I think the idea to remove it comes from the community's own lack of enthusiasm (whether that's irrational or otherwise is a different subject). It doesn't come from this supposedly powerful, malevolent spectator pressure which everyone seems to be afraid is compromising "the Smash experience"

However strong or misguided this pressure may be, we have proven we can resist it. Many outsiders complain about "tourneyfags" and think we play an inhibited version of the game, but it hasn't changed a thing about our rulesets. The rulesets are in place for good reasons, so we stand by them. Competitive interest still takes precedence over outside pressures.

TL;DR Thus far, we have been good at analyzing and evaluating community changes as they come. There's no need to panic and assume we will suddenly become a stream monster's stereotypical "eSports" nightmare just because we've decided not to drop F-bombs in front of thousands of viewers.

 

[666blaziken]

I totally agree. Without swearing and commentary just aimed at being hype instead of breaking things down, where will we get another Wombo Combo?

Westballz sacred combo?

 

[666blaziken]

The thing that everyone is missing is that it isn't the swear words that makes the matches hype, it's the action in the game and the comentator's hype. Look at westballz sacred combo, that video was just as hype as the wombo combo, yet it didn't have any swearing in it. It was actually funny in that the commentator made a sarcastic joke that somehow it was deliberately planned that a falcon punch was going to happen.

 

[DJ _ICE]

Westballz sacred combo?

That was indeed awesome, but I would've loved to hear commentators really getting into the hype and going wild. Toph acted more appreciative of the combo and was pretty tame.

What made Wombo Combo was everyone freaking out, its hard to have that if its just two commentators not even allowed to swear.