dont get me wrong i like getawhale i just dont like his casting idk why

!yaknow

lol

Will the maker of I don't know ever be revealed?

"SooOooOoO Here's hellbent, in right on-the-top-of-the head of Nursey, pops her off, uhh nice pop for Nursey, at that. nrhghg I don't know if they can really do anything with this..."

I really wish I hadn't left this stream mid-game

After a while you'd think it's a mix of many castings together. It seems it was just a very complex match to cast. I don't know.

If this video was posted for anything other than its comedic value, I don't know what purpose it had.

It's incredibly easy to fall back on the same phrases espescially with a hot mic and the necessity to talk, I think many people overlook this. I usually listen to all my casts at the gym or on a drive to try to identify these things and eliminate them. It's not easy to do. I've noticed myself doing it in real time, tried to stop it, and the very next time continue to do it. I used to say reciprocate all the time when both teams popped uber and it was a deliberate thing I had to stop.

Don't feel bad about this. Everyone does it in some form, the beauty about what we do as volunteer casters is we get to learn and work on these sorts of things. ZP, the play by play guy for GosuGamers OW, says "that being said" after everything. It's just the nature of the beast, and something we can all work on.

At least you don't have the voice of a 15 year old Brooklyn Italian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgux1WeNnnM

holy shit this. noticing flaws in yr speaking voice is very easy, and most people aren't going to notice them so its whatever. But if you want to be a truly 10/10 commentator/caster, the amount of work you need to put in to what is basically speech therapy is immense. I grew up with difficulty enunciating most consonants, and even now I slur and mumble 24/7, fixing even basic shit like that in an important conversation or speech takes a lot of focus out of me. To do it while analyzing a game like tf2 on the fly requires serious skill.

I'm curious who thinks this is a strange thing.

All hail Lord Getawhale!

The truth of the matter is that nearly every caster has words or phrases they say too much. As for myself, I say "here" far too often, as well as "they haven't found anything" or some variation of that when a team pops uber into the other team and doesn't do all that much with it, or when a player goes in for an unsuccessful sac play, etc. I generally also use a lot of the same adjectives to describe things. There are a bunch more I could list off that I've noted after analyzing my casts, but I think you get the point.

Taking a play out of Redeye's book, I just recently started to tape note cards to my monitor, each one having various words or phrases to describe a certain type of situation that typically occurs in a match. I'm still getting used to remembering to look up at the notes, as I often forget I have them there. But they help a lot when I do remember. Once I use them enough they'll hopefully become a part of my regular vocabulary and won't need the notes anymore.

I'm sure the video was just meant to be a joke, but I know how much it can suck to see these kind of things about yourself as a caster. Don't feel bad guys, everyone really appreciates the work you put in. I think it's best to just take it as a learning experience.

Gecks you're probably my No2 favorite caster in the history of TF2, watching you and Sideshow cast together at i55 was amazing.

That being said, I've noticed that you often use contorted phrases like "he caps the point, stark does" or something along those lines (i cant remember the exact type of phrasing since it's been months since I've seen you cast, but it's something similar to the example i provided and you use it relatively often). It's not a big deal, I'm just pointing it out since you mentioned that you wanted to iron out your flaws.

lol i love how getawhale says i dont know

I don't think that is an issue. Saying "Stark" at the end clarifies who Gecks is talking about.
If it was simply "he caps the point", some viewers might be saying "who is 'he'?".

Obviously this is a moot point if you've watched the game for a while - you can read the killfeed to see who capped - but it is still helpful for an audio context.

I think Gecks, truk, getawhale, etc explain things (including that type of clarification) really well - specifying which team during a sentence instead of "they are pushing"/"they cap it off" helps a lot.

I was talking about the actual phrasing "they win the round, nerdrage do" instead of simply "nerdrage win the round".
Anyway I'll stop talking about this since it's a very minor thing and having a huge discussion over it is pointless

Actually providing specific and critical feedback like these recent posts is super helpful btw. If you notice stuff you should throw it at people in a constructive manner. If the caster thinks it's a moot point or has reasons then they'll ignore your criticism, but if it's useful then it'll help them develop.

This is something I've also noticed when looking back at my casts, and I kind of forgot about it so thank you for reminding me. You both make good points. I think what Sentinel is trying to say is that it would be better to say "Stark caps the point" rather than "he caps the point, stark does", which is totally correct. While saying the latter is better than not specifying who capped the point at all, the former would be the best out of the three options. I try to make it a point to use the first phrasing, and if I realize I haven't specified who, I use the second phrasing.

Edit: RIP didn't see Sentinel's most recent post before I put this up

Also, I agree with Sideshow. It's good to hear this kind of feedback so we all can improve.

I agree, Sentinel. I didn't mean to word it such that your criticism wasn't true - I should have emphasized it as "at least we don't have a lack of clarity". Sorry if I came off as aggressive or trying to put your thought down!

I think the phrasing thing isn't an issue, as long as it doesn't get in the way of your flow/speech.
Keep up the good work, gecks and company.

It's alright, i wasn't trying to be aggressive either, it's just that neutral statements can sometimes come across as passive aggressive in text :)

Anyway another thing I forgot to add was, the reason I think sideshow and gecks work amazingly together is because they complement each other's style. Gecks focuses on present events, calling out frags and other events, whereas Sideshow offers a more analytical retrospective input (explaining why a push failed, calling out bad positioning or overextension from certain players that hurts their team etc). I think that, for important games at least such as finals or LAN games the organizers should strive to have 2 casters with complementing styles like that. One calling out the current flow of the game and another (an top player) offering a more in depth analysis of what's happening. It really works magically.

That kind of audio filler doesn't really bother me though when you point it out like in this video it's obviously very noticeable. When it becomes a problem is when rather than words it's umming and ahhing. An umm/ahh is quite removed from normal speech and it's harder to segue into a useful sentence whereas something like "I don't know" or "that being said" are mostly unnoticeable when paired with the rest of the sentence and more easily flow into an actual sentence.

Even the reeeally big money guys do it. For example, see: Jon "This Guy" Gruden.

Gruden also happens to be the best Commentator currently in the NFL and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.

Yeah, Gecks is a play-by-play guy, Sideshow is a colour guy. Ideally you'd want all your cast duos to be like that, but due to who's available and what-have-you, I imagine it's not too easy for our TF2 casting boys to always align like that.

Yeah some pairs work well like CommanderX and War but most of the time it's who's available.

Seeing as this has become as a caster flaw confession booth I'll throw my stuff in.

Continuing the 'he caps, stark does' thing when doing play by play the hardest thing in the world is to not correct yourself mid sentence like if you fumble a word or whatever, it just breaks up what you were saying and throws shit off track and when you're trying to quickly explain something in the heat of the moment and you notice you beef you just feel like you have to. I do it ALL the time when I cast because I try to speak as fast and as clearly as possible when I call a team fight in order to make it seem more action packed and explain what like almost everyone involved in the fight is doing and I fumble over words all the time and when I catch myself doing I usually go to correct myself and I know I shouldn't because it breaks up what I'm saying.

Wow that was like the worst way I could've explained that but I hope yous get it.

Also I'm waaaaay to bias for my friends, which personally I don't believe is an issue (why would I not root for my friends like wtf??) but people seem to not like it.
Anything else people don't like about my casting throw it at me so I can maybe one day get caster of the season tyty

edit: I think I say EVERY sniper headshot is a nice headshot

One of the only guys I can think of that doesn't do it is Mike Emrick, who is probably the best play by play broadcaster I've ever listened to. You could make the case that maybe he says "drive!" too much for when someone shoots the puck, but to me that's just part of his style. Maybe he has something else, but I've never noticed it.

As an aside, anyone that has never heard Mike Emrick broadcast, you should. He's a magician behind the mic. The guy used 153 different words to describe puck movement during an olympic hockey game a couple years back. Like how can someone even do that

it's pretty funny that we've entered into a conversation about such banal things like how a play-by-play caster phrases things, when tf2 play-by-play casters, almost to a man, have 2 much bigger problems

1. missing important parts of the action (even though color commentators never seem to)

2. trying to cross over and actually give analysis, even when they're with a color commentator, and failing miserably at it

those are much more widespread and annoying issues to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tak0BV88h1c

1. You're never going to see every important thing that happens in a match as play by play. When the action happens, it happens quickly, and fights are hectic. It's just the nature of casting this game; you're going to miss stuff sometimes. You should be able to catch most of the important things, but it's pretty damn hard catch everything.

2. I think taking the sports broadcasting approach is best here. That is, only doing play by play, and any sort of analysis is short and concise (a general point or underlying theme of the game, something to fill a small amount of time etc.), often used to lead your color guy into a topic of discussion, and have him expand on that point further.

Edit: To further expand on point 1: I think one of the main reasons PxP guys will miss things too is because if they are calling the action in a particular area, that's what they are focused on at that moment. If you are calling a team fight out on 2nd, it can be pretty tough to spot a scout that slipped away and is heading for a back cap, what have you.

Since I've only played at a high open/low IM level, I think that could also be attributed to missing certain plays, but not the reason for every missed play.

It's much easier to fix #1 when you're watching what the viewers are seeing at LAN or something. I notice this a few times where I'm casting with someone and I'm like "why the fuck are you talking about that thing" but you never notice it yourself because when you're focusing on one area of the map you don't see the other action. Hard to improve on without just improving your overall game knowledge and picking moments to prioritise better.

I'm glad we have a thread where we're somewhat discussing feedback. A lot of caster development is self done through reviewing our own casts etc, which does fix some issues, however getting actual feedback can be even more beneficial. It's more beneficial for a few reasons, it points out what we do that annoys some viewers, it can reinforce our views on something we need to fix, and it can open our eyes to something we dont even realize is an issue.

As for my "i dont know" for a while when I was still with EVL I used Fat way too much. I also used systematic failure like 5 times during an ozfortress cast. I'm sure I also have a pile of other ones I haven't even noticed.

I agree. There's a reason sports casting has been around for a long time in that style, it has a formula that works.

No question Doc has an incredible way with words, his ability to describe anything and everything is enviable. But you're right, that even he has his repetition words and phrases, even though he does it less than anyone else.