Jeeves · @GeneralJeevicus
13th Jan 2023 from TwitLonger
Thoughts on the SA DPC and quite a few mistakes you shouldnt make.
So, with the DPC approaching, and EPL Americas Season 2 in full swing, I got an email asking if I would be interested in casting the Dota2 DPC SA, so of course, being a dota2 caster I responded that this would be great.
I was thinking, yeah I could cast some dota2 on Twitch.tv/GeneralJeeves Division 2, lets go, maybe get a couple of other casters. So I start looking for casters/sponsor for division 2. Then I became aware, thanks to Bowie, that it was also for Division One, which gave me pretty good sponsorship leverage. I thought I was pretty prepared, I had a what I thought was a good lead on a potential main sponsor, and I had a backup sponsor ready.
Then I found out about the other 2 bids. One of them doesnt matter, but Cap touches base and gives a few hints about his proposal, and I am like, omg that sounds amazing.
As its division one as well, I think Hey, I will help my buddies out at EPL, they are great Ukrainian organisation, and I felt this could be a good time for them to move into the dpc, Sorry guys. Anyway Christmas came and went and no word from sponsor, so we start looking at how to do the bid with our backup sponsor, It doesnt look good, but maybe we can make it work. Unfortunately Valve helpfully pointed out that our backup sponsor was sadly banned by them. Big problem, so we continue to hunt for sponsors, but anyone who's ever run a deck, knows you go 3-6 months in advance.
Well ESB stepped in pulling a miracle deal from BetBoom. I managed to retain the majority of talents, and we were ready for the show. Due to the extremely low budget, and very short notice (we had a couple of talents drop/cancel the days before and the day of the broadcast), and the requirement that there be 'no bedroom casts', I put together a jankyass overlay, to cover the aberrations on the greenscreen filters we had to use. I thought it looked cool, but like it was made in paintshop cool. I wanted to go for like a nostalgia vibe or something, I dunno, it didnt work (Someone awesome reached out to me with some actually good art versions of what I wanted to do). I figured I would set up the additional screens and make any fixes to the stream using Slobs Editor.... well I discovered that doesnt work unless you are logged into the account?! so we lacked some key scenes player interview etc.
So I spent the two days preparing for Todays stream, and setting up talent to replace talent we lost, or were too heavily committed elsewhere, and setting up the various screens so we could seamlessly transition.....
this afternoon before stream a few small changes were requested, so instead of saying, Ok production is set, we use these on the next day, I tried to set it all up half an hour before the broadcast, this was a TERRIBLE idea in retrospect. It seemed like it was sort of working for game one. GREAT! Success..... but I think by game 2 we lost all the cam positions and it was back to looking terrible.
Then at the end of game 2.... the streaming computer started to chug, as windows decided to do some background updating. Then a for real update(its set to never?), Great we can come back with fixed cameras, well they died after like one scene. That doesnt even include all the fuckups with hot mic or muted Jeeves, or Loud music over Interviews. Oh dont even get me started on the chain of modding some guy spoiling the score in chat, while obsing, then missing the thread of the game. Basically long story short, I fucked up, a lot.
I think SA DPC deserves better, I think maybe if today had been the intended improvement on Tuesday, I might think differently about it, but the production value was pretty embarrassing.. Also, I dunno, the viewership today was getting pretty high before the crash, imagine what good production would do.
I wanna give the biggest apology to my crew though, they all put on wonderful performances, and sacrificed a lot to be part of the show, especially Kipps, thanks again.. Then to EPL, I am sorry I dragged you guys into this, and ESB thanks for giving the bid a chance, and for your herculean efforts with the sponsor side of things, sorry to let you down so disastrously.