Ready Up is Bad Quality

#1 - Sept. 3, 2014, 5:15 p.m.
Blizzard Post

So I decided that I would be interested in hearing the devs talk about the game and give previews to incoming changes in the ready up livestream. But right away I was thrown off by the bad quality. I think the content itself isn’t bad, but it had a “school project” vibe.

-MOST IMPORTANTLY the skill bar. I was excited to see the changes being made to the ranger, but holy crap. The guy reading the script was RIDICULOUSLY bad. He was stopping to squint at whatever he was reading off of, he clearly didn’t know what he was talking about, he was just saying the words. Once again, it seemed like he was a fifth grader reading a speech that he stole from the internet. It was as if you could have replaced all the names of ranger skills with names of mesmer skills, and said “here is the new script for the ranger skill bar” and he wouldn’t have known the difference.

-The keying job of the green screen isn’t atrocious, but it you can see that they are obviously in front of a green screen when you look at the people.

-the two hosts on the episode I watched didn’t know where to look. I guess it was one guys first time or he was new, but it was awkward to watch.

I understand that it is a livestream and you cant edit the video up that well to get some kinks out, but that isn’t the problem. It isn’t even an issue with money. All you need to do is tweak the chroma key settings or whatever key you used for the green screen effect, have your hosts relax, and have the skill bar guy either rehearse his bit a few times beforehand, or at the very least be familiar with the game so he knows what exactly he is saying.

Thoughts?

#15 - Sept. 3, 2014, 7:31 p.m.
Blizzard Post

It’s true we could throw more money at Ready Up to bring up the quality. But we would rather keep those dollars where they belong, in developing the game. Karl would be the first to admit he isn’t the greatest in front of the camera, but he does the Skill Bar because it is something he knows well.

As others have said above, we’d rather have Karl talking about (and showcasing) the changes because, having worked on the changes, he is intimately familiar with them. We prefer this method over hiring somebody who had nothing to do with the changes read them off.

Additionally, Karl and I recorded those segments on a very tight timeframe, sometimes only finishing them the day before or day of the episode they were in, so we didn’t have time for extensive post-production work. We hope to get further ahead of these the next time around, but given that we both have other responsibilities here, there is only so much time to go around.