long post ahead probably
Having commentated in the osu! world cup for several years now, I guess I can share my opinion on the meat of what's been discussed so far in the thread, as well as what I agreed and disagreed on.
I'll start with the preferred style of casting. This is common in e-sports and, hell, regular sports, you have 2 or 3 people casting a game, but they fill different roles. One of them commentates the game at hand, how the players are doing, the score difference, as well as get loud and excited when needed. You'll also need to come up with catchy one-liners and classic sentences that people will throw back at you at every single opportunity. This is play-by-play casting.
Then there's the quiet one, never really gets too excited, this person is here to analyze the games, the maps, how they're going to work between each team, what each player in the game is strong or weak at, basically anything relating to the inner workings of the game. That's your color commentator. He'll try to get in between two of the play-by-play commentator's sentences and give off some interesting insight about the situation at hand. He's also your go-to guy to debrief and analyze between the games, with the play-by-play asking the questions.
This will come as no surprise, but I am not a color commentator, despite the name. I very much thrive in speaking loudly and incoherently about the lights showing up on my screen and having people feel the excitement through my incessant yelling. Jokes aside, that's what I do best. Although if you've heard my type of casting, there's something that probably has annoyed you before and was hinted at earlier; how I cut off everyone. Now, I have to say that as a play-by-play, that can't be helped - if you're having a discussion about the game and all of a sudden one of the teams completely tilts and breaks combo repeatedly, you have to take control and start the play-by-play again. Cutting off people is necessary if you're describing the action. Now, I know I also cut people off at unnecessary moments - That's just me being a dick, but I don't do it on purpose.
Okay, I do it on purpose sometimes, to annoy ztrot. Sure.
The next bit I wanted to talk about is the subject of tournament experience and how good you are as a player. Now, this can be proven elsewhere again (esports, real sports, yadda yadda) but a play-by-play commentator absolutely does not have to have any deep knowledge of the game. I'll take an example in League of Legends since I know the esports scene fairly well, half of the casters in the western regions are not pro gamers. When they stream playing the game they are completely average at it. But they've been around the game for long enough to be able to call the action well without mistakes. Same goes here. Circles get clicked. It's not that hard to describe.
Now the colour commentator thrives on having experience. He loves bringing his knowledge as a former pro. He can notice everything the play-by-play and most of the time, the viewer as well overlook and brings it under the spotlights. I know for a fact that when I casted with Raiku I had immense synergy with him because it was so natural and simple to discuss the maps, the players, their strength and weaknesses, things like handling stress when you're playing, etc. Things that you would only know through extensive knowledge and game skill.
Finally, and this is gonna fondle some robinsons, I have to bring up the issue of "reliability", as it is called. It's been brought up to me countless times behind the scenes. And I have to come clean, I was not the best person when it came to respecting schedules. I was often late, sometimes absent, sometimes I just couldn't cast any of the games during the week-end, and sometimes my voice would get shot. After getting a stern talking-to (this was prior to OWC 2014) I promised that I would do anything in my power to show up to the games on time, cover as many of them as possible on reasonable hours, and if I had to miss any games, warn people in advance so an alternative could be found. Now, I'm sure the people who keep track of attendance will love to prove me wrong on this, but I remember doing a pretty bang-up job, at least in the OWC. The problem wasn't covering the games. I actually started getting blamed for not showing up for enough games towards the end of tournaments. The reason for that is, as you may know, our asian demographic is quite skilled at this game -- and timezones exist. Which frequently meant I was supposed to get up in the middle of the night to cast a game. And, well, that's just not an expectation I could meet. I bailed after the Taiko World Cup, which had EVEN MORE games at inconvenient times, and I guess that was the end of that.
Now, I'm sure I'll get the argument that some people do pull it off - and they pull it off well (s/o to my main man ztrot), but I cannot help but feel like requesting for 24h availability is much too demanding. Especially for play-by-play commentating. You are never going to pull off your best if you have to force yourself out of a night's rest just to catch a game to cast -- You're never gonna be at 100%. I've been there and I've seen the people who do that regularly and I am adamant on this. If you're expecting someone to be on time and fill out the best they can the matches for the day, that's perfectly fine -- the opposite would be suspect. But expecting a commentator to be available and ready to cast at any time from Friday to Monday is just unreasonable. You're probably losing out on a plethora of talented people who would be ecstatic to perform on stage if they weren't bound to a few hours a day. You need different people to fill different timezones. Once again, going back to esports with League of Legends, where casters switch every 3 matches in general. Even with a relaxed schedule like that, casters have had voice issues (i've had my share of them); PiraTechnics, a recent addition to the League of Legends casters was unable to attend its world championship because of it. Montecristo, who casts the Korean league, has had the same issue (although he has a much more stacked schedule). Exerting your voice without restraint over long periods of time will ruin your health, don't take it lightly.
Yeah. I'm not exactly sure what the point of that post was, I guess it's alright insight from someone who's been in the ropes of this for a long time.
And since I'm probably not going to bother to get in game and I know he's around and reading this thread, I might as well. So yeah ztrot I don't know what the sitch is cause I was obviously shown the door earlier in the thread, but if you have a different opinion and feel like having me on for old times' sake i'll be around during the weekends, just hit me up with a match that's in a reasonable time frame and we can bring out all the KFC memes. 👌