ESPN in talks with MLG to televise Starcraft 2, Online Mode Changes for UMvC3

In the Immortal words of Dante “Keepin’ it Stylish!”,  it’s another [e-Sports Dail-e]!

Rumor: ESPN in talks with MLG to televise Starcraft 2

Over this last weekend, Sundance DiGiovanni tweeted on his Twitter account that he was sitting with a television excecutive from ESPN about televising  Starcraft 2 matches on ESPN2. He called on the Twitter and Reddit communities to respond in force and convince the exec that people would indeed tune in. Did you retweet the message, or post something on Reddit?

The implications of this are astounding – have eSports and especially Starcraft 2 matches gained enough of a following to be watched on national TV? It’s going to be interesting for sure, but I do wonder if they’ll stick with proven commentators such as Sean “Day[9]” Plott or Artosis. ESPN has a penchant for using their own commentators for everything, regardless of the event.  I hope they don’t in this situation – I can’t imagine Dave O’Brien or Mike Patrick for example talking about SCVs and zerglings!

MLG Orlando to have more streams – better setups

Speaking of MLG, for this and all future MLG events, there will be 4. Count ‘em. Four Starcraft 2 streams.  Not only that, but there will be two extra PCs on the main stage meaning less down time between matches, and more epic Starcraft 2 goodness, faster for us. It’s great to see MLG taking measures to make the matches more enjoyable and shows that they are serious about supporting the growth of Starcraft 2 as an eSport.

Capcom details Online mode Changes for MvC3

Via Capcom-Unity’s website some of the Online Changes for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 have been detailed. Check out the release below.

“Wondering about how they've improved the online experience for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

#1 Spectator Mode added!

Up to 6 players can watch battles while 2 battle.

#2 Before having a match, you can check out your opponent's information and decide whether you would like to battle against him/her or not for Player Match and Ranked Match.

#3 In the last game, it was difficult to tell who had bad network manners, but in UMVC3 skull, silver, gold icons will be shown.

#4 Looked over the retry features for matching and made matching better than the last game.

#5 In the last game, if matching was unsuccessful, you were brought back to the top menu screen, but in this game, it will bring you back to the screen where you can search again.

#6 In the leaderboards, there's a new button/feature which will take you to the rank at which you are positioned, and a cursor to make viewing easier.

And some other small fixes to improve the online experience.”

Seems to be shaping up quite well.

From the Daigo 50 Man Challenge, comes this epic match between Daigo Umehara and Kazunoko, both noted Yun players. While some find mirror matches boring, this one in particular just screams hype. See what I mean below.

That's it for today's [e-Sports Dail-e]! Tune in tomorrow for another dose of eSports epicness!

Dustin Steiner is GameZone's eSports Correspondent! Follow him on Twitter @SteinerDustin