Programming for conventions and events
There’s been a lot of talk about how wide open the OWL Stage 3 playoff is going to be, but I have a chart to prove it. In it is everything you will need to know about this weekend.
Continue reading “The Overwatch League Stage 3 Playoffs in One Chart”
Ever wanted to figure out how good a match-up looks on paper in a single stat? Never fear, Overwatch Minus Overwatch has you covered. In this episode we introduce the OHI—the Overwatch Hype Index—in order to help you figure out which games to watch and which games to run errands instead. See the notes below for more!
Continue reading “RECAP: Overwatch Minus Overwatch Episode 2”
As part of Pop Ramen’s Unlocked channel, I’ve decided to share my love of Overwatch-flavored math. Overwatch Minus Overwatch is planned to be a twice-per-stage broadcast applying the same nerdy effort that I’ve used in articles previously here.
My debut episode at the start of week 1 went off with one hitch. I screwed up my math. The Binomial model I used to predict all the games fell apart because I realized how screwed up and complicated it was. As such, it was sacked midway through Week 1’s action and this info about the new model will replace it.
Continue reading “ERRATA: Overwatch Minus Overwatch Episode 1”
Every so often, I find myself realizing that I haven’t updated the site in a while. Part of that, unfortunately, is my nature. MelloPanther Productions isn’t part of my regular routine, and there’s still not really space to insert it neatly into my work/life balance (though that may change this year). However, between work, (lack of) cons and now having a paid game show gig I’ve started watching Overwatch League with more reckless abandon. I like sports very much, and while I still have no real desire to pick up the game, the way OWL is presented is very compelling and it scratches my math itch, so I’ll occasionally post here to scratch that itch. It’s a better use of the space than what it was doing previously, which was nothing.
That being said, I still continue to use this site as a central point for all of my convention comings and goings. Just because I’m going to be out of action until the fall (though I’ll probably be working with Megaroad at Otakon) doesn’t mean I have other things to do. After another successful run of programming at Tekko, Pop Ramen has officially joined the content farm at Unlocked and it’s only a matter of time before I start trying to infiltrate our channel with some of my content. As a side effect of this, I’ve also decided to dust off my more personal Twitter (which was only actually being used to access MikuMikuDance content…don’t ask) and start throwing in some musings that aren’t big enough for blogs.
In summation, the spring and summer may be slow on the convention side, but it’ll be busy on other fronts. I know I want to have another OWL article to put up during All Star Not-Actually-On-A-Weekend (which will be less mathy, I promise) and more will come as it is available and inspires me to post. Thank you for your continued support.
Many sports historians, especially ones who follow baseball, will tell you that one of the many reasons sports are so great is because every day, you’ll see something that’s never happened before in the history of the sport. The final match of the third week of Stage 2 was something we’d never seen before. On of the day before Earth Day, Overwatch League’s first two expansion teams, the Atlanta Reign and Guangzhou Charge, burned about as many CPU’s as a Bitcoin farm in the second and third maps of their match, tallying 28 points between them in an hour-long display that reminded people that are only me of Arena Football or the ABA. It was a match so unreal, I had to figure out how just unreal it was.
Continue reading “It’s Not Called Underwatch: How Atlanta & Guangzhou Broke The Scoreboard”
That script changed in 2017, when the NHL added the Las Vegas Golden Knights. The Knights, thanks to a combination of more lax team-building guidelines and the ability to rally a community behind sports after a tragic incident, went on a tear, setting first-year records for wins and points, and they became the first expansion team in the four North American sports to win their division. Their success carried over to the playoffs, where they were the first first-year team in 50 years to reach the Stanley Cup Finals, losing to the Washington Capitals in 6 games. Despite capturing the hearts and minds of hockey and sports fans everyone, the Golden Knights are still considered a bit of a unicorn.
Until we start talking about the Vancouver Titans. Continue reading “Are The Vancouver Titans The Next Vegas Golden Knights?”
(Note: The quality of this article has been partially affected by flu. Apologies from the management.)
On the last nationally televised game of Overwatch League’s Stage, a worldwide audience finally got to see the expansion Washington Justice win their first match. Even more exciting was seeing Gi Hyeon Chon (Ado), a 2nd-year player, end the league’s longest active losing streak by earning his first W in 37 tries. His former team, the Shanghai Dragons, got off their own schnide two weeks prior by winning their first three maps in their match. With a now 20-team league there are winners everywhere.
Except with the Los Angeles Valiant.
After a great 2018 campaign the team has fallen off the table and is 0-7 after Stage 1. Despite all the excitement and happiness surrounding the new Overwatch season, one has to worry if the Valiant is going to be the 2nd team in OWL history to go 0-28.
The short answer is “No.” The long answer is below.
Continue reading “Are The 2019 Valiant As Bad As The 2018 Dragons? (SPOILER: No)”
It’s all there in blue and white. I hope to see you there for what will be an interesting weekend with some big potential paydays.
It was likely through some combination of skill and luck that my 2018 was somehow more productive than 2017 despite going to less conventions. Want a more concrete recap than the graph above? Here:
All in all, it was a good and productive year. It’s a shame it won’t be that way in 2019.
Otaku are sometimes overly-prone to stricture; things must be a certain way or else that thing is invalid. This often shows itself in vitriolic fandom debates and other dark cervices on the Internet, and while some concepts should be universal (like you should never affix -gate to something perceived as “scandalous”, because 1) making it a -gate is not how that etymology works 2) most scandals of import don’t have -gate on the end and 3) you’re just an asshole trying to harass other people over nothing) there should be room to play.
I had dinner with someone recently and there was a discussion about fidelity to the source material in game shows and it was brought up about how I was a stickler for things. I can’t personally recall anything I specifically did or commented in the past, but I am certainly not that way now. Between my Name That Tune not really resembling any NTT from the past, my Wheel of Fortune subtly changing forms almost every go-round, and variants of Press Your Luck and Pass The Buck that don’t even share the true names of the source, I think I’m more than willing to stray from the source every now and again.
To be honest, my view is that strict adherence to the source material is not a mandate to me, but a conscious choice. If I choose to do something to the letter of the law, it’s because I wanted to do it. Stylistic choices, rules, and rituals are only to be used if they make sense to me and help create a better product. Otherwise, I’m going to do what I can to ape the game show experience, even if it’s not a singular game show experience. For example, my newest passion project involves celebrities, trivia, and bluffing. Now there are several easy options (and one not-so-easy) but instead of resorting to some other format wholesale, I’m trying to take things from other shows and incorporate it into the original format to make it work because a) it’s more fun for me and b) the audience isn’t going to care about the small stuff if the product is entertaining.
Too bad I won’t be doing anything like this for Anime Weekend Atlanta, but there’s always more shows around the bend.