TSN Interview

[WesFine]

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Today I’m sitting down with an old buddy of mine Dusty Dave, or just simply Dusty. He is currently the acting head of the Battlefield 2 division over at the Team Sportscast Network, and today we’re gonna take a look at just exactly what the boys over the TsN do and what they have planned for BF2.

-So first question, how’s the kids and the wife? I’m sure Captain Canada over here has been training the son as a future online addict.

Ha, the wife and kids are doing great! The boy get's to play a bit of computer games but his main focus right now is on swimming and baseball, he loves his games of course but it's summer and he's 7 so we hope to not see him in the house until September.... As for the littlest one (3) she spends most of her time finding new ways to irritate her brother so that is always a challenge...

-It's great to hear the family is doing well. Why don’t we start out by explaining exactly what it is that the Team Sportscast Network does?

The Team Sportscast Network is an online broadcast and media organization covering a wide variety of competitions in the world of E-Sports. Since its inception in 1999, TsN has evolved from a small group of dedicated gamers into a multi-faceted company that covers a wide spectrum of the most popular games in today's market. We employ shoutcasters all over North American and Europe providing live coverage of the online culture of competitive multiplayer gaming, TsN offers content in the form of play by play broadcasting of leagues and ladders worldwide, as well as online community interactive shows that discuss new games, competitive leagues and ladders, and upcoming tournaments. In addition to being present at a host of tournaments in the United States, TsN has traveled across the globe to bring live LAN event coverage, including the World Cyber Games World Championships in Seoul, South Korea, the Intel Extreme Edition in Oxford, England, the ESWC UK Finals in Oxford, England, the CPL European Qualifiers, the WCG Canadian Finals in Toronto, Canada, and the ongoing CPL World Tour which is hosted in 10 different countries over the year sponsored by Intel and Nvidia among others. TsN was one of the few online radio stations that started out broadcasting with Battlefield 1942 then later going into the popular mod Desert Combat and Battlefield Vietnam. To this day TsN stands out on the top as being the best online radio station to broadcast Battlefield Series competitions, CounterStrike, CounterStrike Source, Warcraft 3, Painkiller and Call of Duty, and the only one to offer an ingame video stream along with live commentary for many of these games, especially the Battlefield series as there is no HLTV type of service available for the BF games.

-Wow very impressive, TSN has come a long way since I first heard about it in 2002. So looking ahead to the future, and to BF2 what are TsN’s goals in terms of shoutcasting? What new features let's say do you plan on offering players and clans aside from what TsN already provides?

In the past, manpower has been an issue on being able to maintain full coverage across the board from BF192 and BF-V to Desert Combat. We have been aggressively recruiting new casters to prepare ourselves for the expected surge in competion. We have a couple new voices on staff now with many more in the training stages and slated to hit the microphone around the time BF2 hits the streets. As well, we fully expect that many of the other veterans from the TsN staff will make appearances in the BF2 casts as well so basically we are going to be covering as many league/ladder's as humanly possible to bring the best of the competion's live to the community's PC's.

Our TVsN video cast's will be a mainstay of most if not all of the BF2 casts as we have done recently BF-V and DC.

We are currently working with a number of community heads on a pre-release show with possible hardware and software giveaways, our current plan is to make this an all day audio and video event with many surprises that I best not speak of at this time so as not to jinx them... This will take place a day or 2 before the release.

-Very good, is it difficult to find dedicated shoutcasters? There must me a tight schedule to work by and with the upcoming BF2 release I can imagine your schedule will only get more difficult.

Absolutely, being a part of TsN as much fun as it is, is a lot of work. There are maps to learn, teams to become familiar with, different ladders and leagues each with their own set of rules, as well as keeping up on changes in these things and being aware of almost every nuance of the game strategy and technolically. Of course it is not possible for one person to do all of this, so the staff at TsN works together to keep up on all of this information as best we can. Take into account how many different organized competitions there are world wide and you can grasp the immensity of the chore of knowing everything about everything....

As well balancing internet life with real life can as most gamers know be very stressing at times, especially when you look at travelling to various events and the time gaming to maintain visibility in the community.

It is hard to find any one person who can dedicate the time and hardware to shoutcasting, and we are on a constant search for new talent, to be honest, not many who apply actually make it to the casting stage, simply due to time constraints and various real life issues. Those that do make it through the training process are always huge assets to TsN, and it shows in our casts.

-What does it take to get a clan’s match broadcast on the network?

Contact the game lead or one of the casters for the game you would like requested by either our forums, IRC, or email. Emails and private messages can be sent to any staff member through our website.

-If anyone is interested in applying for a BF2 shoutcaster position, what should they do?

http://www.tsncentral.com/staffapp/ <<< click there and fill out the application. Be sure to make a demo and attach it to the app. This is a necessary step and any application without a demo will most likely be moved to the bottom of the stack... Again, being a part of TsN is a lot of work, but the rewards in the end, from being a part of a great group of gamers that are some of the most intelligent, witty, and just plain fun folks that you will ever have the pleasure of knowing, to the opportunity to travel worldwide to promote TsN and competitive gaming, make it all worthwhile.

As well, a presence in #tsn on the GameSurge IRC network is a must, as is a quality microphone, headset, and sound card.

-Now everyone knows that they should be checking the TsN calendar regularly for upcoming shoutcasts, but just in case they don’t know exactly where to look why don’t you go ahead and plug the site and TSN’s sponsors.

Our main site found at www.tsncentral.com is where information for upcoming casts for all the games we cover, schedules for shows such as Bridger and Harlock, a weekly gaming discussion with live call-ins, other shows and any information about the current CPL World Tour can be found.

And of course our thanks go out to Insomnia365, Nvidia, GameComm, our listeners and many others for everthing they do that makes TsN possible

-Ok great Dusty, I know its been a long day for you thanks for taking the time with us. I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys can cook up with the new BF2 division. Keep up the good work.

Always a pleasure, lookin forward to seeing you on the Battlefield come June 21st!!

Be sure to check out TsN and its upcoming events for not only BF2 but also for the rest of the games that these guys cover. If the rest of the staff is anything like Dusty I know they have a great group of guys on deck at TsN. I know personally I'm gonna start checking out and supporting the cause over there, if you got any questions/comments post em up here. Until next time, be sure to keep a look out for my upcoming interview with the talented girls of #clangirlfight.

[420]

Good read. I have enjoyed lots of TSN games and the the guys do an awesome job. Has it been that long already?