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9070 Posts
Its officially official - Boxer confirmed his switch to SC2. Well, fuck that shit, and let me explain why I dont share the overall excitement of the fact and why I'm rather disappointed about Boxers choice.
Now there are plenty of old bw crooks moving on to SC2, searching for a new "challenge". July and Nada, both legendary bw players are with sc2 pro status already. But there is a crucial difference between these two and Boxer. The Emperor IS the scbw scene, and he is responsible for the success that BW had for the past decade. Nada and July as well played a big part in the history of scene, but in the last year or so, there were clear indicators that both were going to switch to sc2 with no regrets. July never really belonged to a team, so leaving STX was completely logical, as for NaDa, all his motivation to win one more SL died out when his coach and mentor stepped away from the scene about a year ago.
Boxer leaving SKT might be devastating for the team, but the biggest problem I see with him leaving the BW scene is the impact that this is going to have on the sc1 fans in Korea. The symbol is gone, the captain abandons his own ship.
While I can only guess if this wasnt some sort of publicity stunt by Blizzard, luring Boxer to SC2 in order to get more public interest for their new game, it is indeed certain, that there will be a huge migration from the bw fanbase. I know this is pure speculation, saying the Blizzard offered money to Boxer to switch games, but The Emperor playing SC2 is really really huge. And it just might give the extra boost Blizzard needed to win even more ground in Korea.
But what might turn out to be smth great for the young and infant SC2, is in fact devastating for the old BW scene. With nothing being certain about the future of the upcoming individual leagues and PL, Boxer leaving was the last thing the fans needed. Ofc BW was going to die out eventually, no doubt about that, but in my opinion what The Emperor did, will speed up the process.
I wish him all the best with the new game and I hope he wins a lot of stuff, but on the other hand I'm really really disappointed.
  
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SC2 is awesome.
User was warned for this and other low-content posts
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Yeah, it's going to be the true test of whether SC1 PL can truly stand for itself, with its father figure gone.
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A boxer fan wouldnt feel like that, your just angry because BW is going downhill. Blame Kespa not boxer, you should be glad to see more of him by playing sc2 ! 
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I know a lot of people are going to point this out, but Boxer was no longer playing in Proleague. Yeah, he was the heart and soul of SKT, but he wasn't an active player. And I'm pretty sure everybody always wanted to watch Boxer play. I'm not ready to see Boxer be a coach quite yet, and that was looking like how it was turning out, to me.
What better player to lead the way into a new era than the first true dominant force in BW?
I guess I have less attachment to BW, but I think if SC2 started up team leagues, then it'd be just as exciting. Though, I'm not really expecting that to happen any time soon. I guess we'll see there.
I always loved the old players more. Flash and Jaedong were great and all, but I never cheered as hard for them as for Boxer or Yellow, the original TvZ. Yellow beating Jaedong was one of my favorite games ever, just because it was so tense the entire game, with Yellow finally taking the advantage.
On October 10 2010 01:55 PaD wrote:A boxer fan wouldnt feel like that, your just angry because BW is going downhill. Blame Kespa not boxer, you should be glad to see more of him by playing sc2 !
It's perfectly acceptable to dislike the fact that Boxer is transitioning away from the game you love. I'd reckon disciple's a bigger Boxer fan than you are.
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That tinfoil hat sure doesn't suit you :p blizzard offering money to boxer to switch game is one of the most stupid things i've ever heard. I guess your main reason for posting this is just to express concern with the scbw scene and not to introduce a weird conspiracy theory but why do you even consider that a possibility?
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You cant judge a person moving on after the amount of years he invested into something, he poured his heart and his soul into BW and played and watched over it till he was 30. Now he sees a new opportunity that seems interesting and all of a sudden you are disappointed? Really? Who are you to judge what a person wants to do with his life. Its not like he owned BW now and left it to rote. There are still many BW players right now, and they are doing a good job of holding on to what they love. I just dont see why you criticize boxer for such a move. He has to move on sometime, and now is the time he chose. Deal with it.
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On October 10 2010 01:53 luckySe7en wrote:
SC2 is awesome.
Not really the case for a good number of people (though definitely the minority, I guess.)
It's definitely saddening to see Boxer make the switch, and I agree with you that it may speed up the death of Brood War. It's bad enough that we lost Nada and July already, but as you said, if there is one person that you think of when you hear about Brood War, it's Boxer. He's responsible for so much within the Brood War scene that it's really disappointing to see him go.
From a career standpoint, it's probably the best thing for him; while purely speculation, the competition in Brood War is too crazy at the moment, and old school pro gamers who may have never really done much in the Brood War scene are having fairly good results with SC2; I can only imagine what Brood War's greatest can do with SC2 (though I don't imagine it will ever be as visually exciting to watch.)
Still, it's a very very sad day, even if it's the best move for him personally.
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Come on... I think he tried his best to do something for SKT in BW, but, as we all know, he couldn't.
And in his interview he also emphasized many times the line "progamer into the 30s" which imo is his ultimate goal, and since it's not possible in BW, it has to be in SC2.
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United States12607 Posts
I don't get it: you're disappointed that we're going to see Boxer on TV again? That he'll once again have a shot to be a top player? That he can now innovate in his own games, rather than through younger proteges?
SC2 is a great career move for Boxer. Any true fan would recognize that he's much better off at the top of the SC2 scene than sitting the T1 bench. I can't believe you're disappointed in The Emperor for simply doing what's best for himself.
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I don't know. If BoxeR had plain retired from gaming, BW wouldn't be out very many fans. He hadn't performed well or even had much PL exposure for a long time. BoxeR is different from someone like H.O.T-486 who has no problem hanging up his mouse to be a coach because the team is more important. BoxeR is only a player, and fading away doesn't suit someone like him.
BW still has people attached to it with charismatic personalities. This includes people like YellOw/Reach/Midas who are still around (we are running out of those guys though) and contemporary stars. BoxeR's image is big in the sense that he connected lots of people to the BW scene, but the image of someone like Leta has more to do with actual viewership.
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5003 Posts
Boxer moving to Starcraft 2 means Boxer still cares about the fans who wants to see him play.
The interview makes his position pretty clear, and I completely sympathize with him. I can see why a lot of the old gamers are transitioning -- because they just want to be able to play for their fans. If they were still good and their performance didn't hurt the teams, I'm sure they'd stay in Broodwar. But alot of old gamers are simply mascots and I'm sure they didn't feel like they wanted to be there.
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Why not let him play SC2, he wasn't going to do anything for SKT1 from a performance perspective. This shouldn't affect the viewership for BW at all...
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9070 Posts
Wow, I'm not going to introduce some sort of a conspiracy theory about Boxer's move, but I'm pretty sure GOM were popping some major bottles of champaign, when they found out Boxer is switching for good. While the reason behind it sounds to be rather personal, truth being told it does sound convenient to reason your decision with "the fans want to see me play in my 30, I made that promise".
Besides, a lot of moto GP stars in the past switch to super bike in order to make the new thing more popular. Its completely out of my mind that Boxer will just leave BW, because SC2 is cool to play and because of "his promise" to the fans. I know he realizes his role in the scene was smth completely different.
As for the ppl who dont realize the marketing side of the whole thing, just imagine Sean Connery advertising some new age shaving gel rubbish
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The way I see it though, is that despite Boxer being the symbol of professional BW, Boxer the player hasn't really been responsible for the success of the game for years. Of course we all got excited when Boxer played the great players of the time (and even win like against Savior on Monty Hall, for example) but many other people have been more responsible for keeping the scene alive than Boxer. Boxer as a player isn't relevant at all. A couple special matches here and there has very little relevancy to the scene as a whole even if those special matches might bring in fans all the time.
I don't know about you, but the past two years where a lot of the "old guard" have withered away on the sidelines like glorified cheerleaders was pretty shit. I don't think any anger towards these guys moving onto SC2 can be fully justified because to abstract them away from who they are as a player into some kind of symbolic figure is inadequate in keeping them relevant to the game. It is painfully obvious that players like Flash, Jaedong, Fantasy, Stork, Bisu, Effort (  ) are more important to the success of the game in both practical and symbolic ways than Boxer has been in any way for the past few years.
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United States12607 Posts
On October 10 2010 02:03 disciple wrote:
Wow, I'm not going to introduce some sort of a conspiracy theory about Boxer's move, but I'm pretty sure GOM were popping some major bottles of champaign, when they found out Boxer is switching for good. While the reason behind it sounds to be rather personal, truth being told it does sound convenient to reason your decision with "the fans want to see me play in my 30, I made that promise".
I'm not sure what kind of "conspiracy theory" can even be suggested here. Like, so maybe GOM went to Boxer and said hey, we'd really love it if you came and played SC2? And Boxer said "yeah, then I can be on TV again"? How would that be underhanded, evil, insidious at all? I don't get what you're driving at. The reason Boxer's decision to play SC2 "sounds convenient" is because it is convenient, for all the reasons everyone has already pointed out in this thread.
To be honest I think you are just upset about BW losing steam in Korea, and are looking for (reaching too far for) rationalizations for your feelings.
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9070 Posts
On October 10 2010 02:02 Milkis wrote:
Boxer moving to Starcraft 2 means Boxer still cares about the fans who wants to see him play.
The interview makes his position pretty clear, and I completely sympathize with him. I can see why a lot of the old gamers are transitioning -- because they just want to be able to play for their fans. If they were still good and their performance didn't hurt the teams, I'm sure they'd stay in Broodwar. But alot of old gamers are simply mascots and I'm sure they didn't feel like they wanted to be there.
This is ridiculous. Its like saying, some government will work hard and altruistic for the well being of the nation, because they made it pretty clear and an interview.
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5003 Posts
On October 10 2010 02:10 disciple wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2010 02:02 Milkis wrote:
Boxer moving to Starcraft 2 means Boxer still cares about the fans who wants to see him play.
The interview makes his position pretty clear, and I completely sympathize with him. I can see why a lot of the old gamers are transitioning -- because they just want to be able to play for their fans. If they were still good and their performance didn't hurt the teams, I'm sure they'd stay in Broodwar. But alot of old gamers are simply mascots and I'm sure they didn't feel like they wanted to be there. This is ridiculous. Its like saying, some government will work hard and altruistic for the well being of the nation, because they made it pretty clear and an interview.
Huh?
I'm just saying I agree with his position. He has made his position clear over years about his relationships to the fans, and I can easily see Boxer having his interaction with fans through games more important than anything else.
It's just who Boxer is.
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On October 10 2010 01:59 JWD wrote:
I don't get it: you're disappointed that we're going to see Boxer on TV again? That he'll once again have a shot to be a top player? That he can now innovate in his own games, rather than through younger proteges?
If I was a golf fan and Tiger Woods would switch to mini golf I would be disappointed as well. I'm sure he would be awesome at it but It still wouldn't be the same.
Anyway, Boxer and Nada are the only reason I will follow the sc2 scene. Maybe TLO as well.
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United States12607 Posts
On October 10 2010 02:10 disciple wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2010 02:02 Milkis wrote:
Boxer moving to Starcraft 2 means Boxer still cares about the fans who wants to see him play.
The interview makes his position pretty clear, and I completely sympathize with him. I can see why a lot of the old gamers are transitioning -- because they just want to be able to play for their fans. If they were still good and their performance didn't hurt the teams, I'm sure they'd stay in Broodwar. But alot of old gamers are simply mascots and I'm sure they didn't feel like they wanted to be there. This is ridiculous. Its like saying, some government will work hard and altruistic for the well being of the nation, because they made it pretty clear and an interview.
Is there any reason we shouldn't believe what Boxer said in his interview?
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