Discussion on Streaming/Spectating, How to Facilitate it

Espion · 2012-06-17, 12:47 AM

I'll start of by saying that in no way can I see this game being an eSport in the traditional sense like SC2, quake, LoL, etc where specific match-ups are cast at a specific time for an audience, nor would I want it that way, and I don't think there will ever be tournaments, LANs, or ladders on a large scale like you see for other popular esports. However, with that said I think it could be very popular to watch in the same way that someone would watch a D3 run-through on hardcore, high elo LoL play, grand master SC2 play, or even how you used to watch your buddies play Zelda on N64. People just like seeing how others play the game and enjoy taking in the action of a more casual experience.

Higby has been throwing out little bits of information on ideas he has to facilitate this**, I have some ideas of my own, and I'm sure there's others here that have their own ideas as well. There's been a few discussion on the topic of esports but none have been very productive, so hopefully this can consolidate things a little.

Streaming itself is not an issue, anyone with a decent PC and connection can grab xsplit or dxtory and broadcast to twitch.tv. The main issue, and one thing that could really help to facilitate view viewer counts is a spectator mode. But how do you prevent ghosting or abuse in such an open-ended game? I think the best bet is allowing individual players to dictate when they can or cannot be spectated, and by who:

Friendlist-Approved Spectators:

Link spectating to the ingame friends list.
Add an "Allow Spectating" checkbox option for each friend (disabled by default)
Players that are currently spectating you are highlighted in your friends list
Can stop being spectated at any time by unchecking the option
Spectators can cycle through all players that are allowing them specifically to spectate at will
First-person only
Information/statistics available to spectator TBD

However, if the game gets popular enough to have dedicated/successful casters making use of the limited friendlist spectator mode, another level of spectating could be allowed by SOE to a few trusted individuals:

SOE-Approved Spectators

Only dedicated, trusted, casters would be granted access.
Would essentially be a spectate-only account, no way to play
Can roam freely around the map as a "floating camera," with the ability to target and first-person spectate any player.
Access to full realtime empire/player statistics

I'm mainly interested in knowing if or how SOE plans on implementing accessible spectating at all, and if so how they plan to balance accessibility and abuse potential, then give feedback on that, but I think something along these lines would be a good start. If the forums can have a reasonable discussion and refine these ideas without too much trolling/adhominem it should be fairly beneficial.

Thoughts?

For those that are new to watching games online, pretty much everything is streamed here:
http://www.twitch.tv

And for some pretty barebones planetside streams:
http://www.twitch.tv/directory/PlanetSide

** On a stream chat earlier he basically said he wants to get view counts high enough to have outfits get sponsored by teams like EG, Liquid, etc. I think that's a little far fetched, but this is where it would start. Most people have probably heard him mention esports in interviews as well, although it seemed like it was used more as a buzzword

Zulthus · 2012-06-17, 01:00 AM

I'm personally against any form of spectating open to the general players. If the spectator was SOE-approved, then it would be fine. It would be abused too much any other way. They already have a way of doing it, since it's F2P people will just make accounts to spy. The majority of people wouldn't use an ability like this for videos, you know that.

Espion · 2012-06-17, 01:02 AM

Originally Posted by Zulthus

I'm personally against any form of spectating open to the general players.

The idea was that you can't spectate a player that doesn't want you to spectate them. They'd have to approve you specifically before you'd be able to spectate them.

Zulthus · 2012-06-17, 01:04 AM

Originally Posted by Espion

The idea was that you can't spectate a player that doesn't want you to spectate them. They'd have to approve you specifically before you'd be able to spectate them.

However there would always be people who don't care/don't know about the option to disable it, which is why I thought it better to be an approved player to spectate.

Espion · 2012-06-17, 01:13 AM

Add an "Allow Spectating" checkbox option for each friend (disabled by default)

^

Zulthus · 2012-06-17, 01:15 AM

Originally Posted by Espion

^

Oh... well then.

fishirboy · 2012-06-17, 02:10 AM

Well it could be automatically off from the start and if you want to you can turn it on. So only people that want to be seen can turn it on. Or even better befor the first time they get into the game they are asked if they can be watched by others and then it's fair.

exLupo · 2012-06-17, 03:42 AM

I'm down with the default disabled friend watch. What I'd also like to see is a random-action cam that just watches and switches, without the viewer's control, between high action areas. I haven't had a chance to check out LoL's dynamic spectator mode with much detail but the streams I have watched using it are promising. Something like that but for PS2 would be pretty bad ass.

Make it web based and I'll keep a window up at work 40hrs a week.

Eishi · 2012-06-17, 03:48 AM

Good ideas in this thread. Giving selective people the ability to spectate anyone is nice. TB doing what he did at E3 but with hundreds of available people? Hell yeah!

Maybe these pre-approved streamers could be empire-specific. Slightly ties into a thread about 'war correspondents'.

Tbh, not entirely sure about even pre-approved streamers having the ability to anyone on ANY empire... Like I mentioned earlier, I think these people should just stream their favorite empire.

DarkChiron · 2012-06-17, 04:09 AM

I like the idea, you just have to be careful about it. Stream sniping on a game like this would be a pain in the ass. Imagine if you can never surprise assault anywhere because some guy on the enemy team is watching your cam streamed and always sees where you're headed. It would suck.

It's kind of made me wonder about my own streaming at some point. How much of a stream delay would it take to avoid being screwed over? And with that much delay, how destroyed would fan interaction be at that point?

It's pretty tricky.

Espion · 2012-06-17, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by DarkChiron

It's kind of made me wonder about my own streaming at some point. How much of a stream delay would it take to avoid being screwed over? And with that much delay, how destroyed would fan interaction be at that point?

I think if you're doing something that requires a ~15min delay then fan interaction is going to be fairly minimal regardless

basti · 2012-06-17, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by Espion

The idea was that you can't spectate a player that doesn't want you to spectate them. They'd have to approve you specifically before you'd be able to spectate them.

That would help, but what would help more is a delay.

Live spectrating or streaming will result in exactly what happend to AT a few days ago: Getting nuked to shreds because the enemy know exactly where you gonna go.

So it really needs a delay.

Espion · 2012-06-17, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by basti

That would help, but what would help more is a delay.

The delay is setup on the streamers end through xsplit or whatever program they're using.

I don't think the free version of xsplit has an option for a delay, but that's kind of irrelevant since in order to partner with twitch you need to have a commercial license anyway (after you get so many followers/views you can partner with them and start making money). Not sure how it works with dxtory though

Top Sgt · 2012-06-17, 04:45 PM

I agree Delay is the Key

I have the pay version of Xsplit but it still only gives me a 3 minute delay option.. i wish it was more than that 5 to 7 mins would be better.

I'm possibly gonna stream my games but just have my room password locked while live and then make the video of the stream available some hrs later

unless something new and ground breaking occurs with this issue.

Espion · 2012-06-17, 05:00 PM

Originally Posted by Top Sgt

I have the pay version of twitch but it still only gives me a 3 minute delay option.. i wish it was more than that 5 to 7 mins would be better.

I assume you mean xsplit instead of twitch? I can't really find any info on this anywhere, all I know is I can set up to 999s of delay and it seems to work, but I could be wrong. The 3min thing might be referring to the old way of delaying (Multistream) which was replaced by the delay server. Also do you have the personal or premium license? Delay is supposed to be premium so maybe personal is limited to 3

Either way I'm 99% sure there won't be an ingame delay since afaik you'd need a demo system that was pretty much always active, which sounds insane