Week 8

This week on Tribescast, the semi-finals have begun and the moods of the players definitely reflected it as games ran harder and faster than usual. The casting has taken a leap forward as some of the captains that have been kicked out of the competition helped out and discussed more strategy. The viewer count was also noticeably higher as players that were no longer playing were watching to see what happens and possibly learn a thing or two.

Communication was also discussed this week as the casters were talking to other people in many different ways. Some of the most popular ways to communicate are in-game chat, voice over IP (VoIP), IRC, and forums. In-game chat is all text based and usually consists of trash talk before the match begins or complaints about the process taking too long. VoIP is used by the teams to communicate with each other in real-time during the game and facilitates the quick rate of information exchange required to win games. Internet relay chat (IRC) is another popular way for people to discuss things. IRC consists of, basically, instant messages exchanged among a group of people be it the casters when they don’t want to say something or a team’s bench players that want to talk to each other in privacy. IRC is usually one of the most secure methods of communication as well as VoIP. Forums offer a way for players to discuss results of matches during the week as they are optimal for big audience focused, slow moving general conversations. Tribescast, itself is another great example of communication and satisfies the goal of informing the audience of what is going on. Privacy is a big concern when communicating and, as noted before IRC and VoIP is often the most locked down to protect the teams’ strategies. It was also discussed this week that most teams have one or two people watching the Tribescast and reporting it to their teams in an attempt to tell them about things going on that they may not see. This would have to be done discretely as the ethics of these kinds of actions are questionable at best.

The topic of strategy came up heavily this week as the casting captains revealed how they would act on the maps being played out. We managed to get our hands on a 6 page strategy summary for a team in the middle of the tournament and it gave us a lot of insight into all the work and planning that goes into these kinds of events. We will not post this information as it is somewhat sensitive and states what players are on what positions and highlights how they play. Instead we will summarize the format found throughout the document. The strategy is split up by map in the most abstract layer. Next, the offense and defense is separated into separate areas followed by a table mapping each position to a specific player and their role during the game. Finally, an overview of the offensive and defensive strategies is given to get the players in the right mindset. This report is done in a very detailed manner and highlights the time and effort that these teams put into this. It continues to baffle us that this is all being done for no money and no real reward other than bragging rights and the love of the game.