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I can understand why they want to do their best to make sure this thing starts off on the right track. Ever since things like CAL went under, the overall e-sports scene in NA and the west has gotten a lot less publicity and interest.
In order to create a solid foundation for something that can support other formats and really bring e-sports back into the spotlight, they need to ride the wave that is the tsunami of SC2 (not that they'd prefer another format, it just happens to be the only thing that's stable and growing at the moment with strong communities like this one).
Now in order to make a league with SC2 as the platform and foundation popular, they need to grab attention from new and old fans alike. Well known players are what's going to make this happen. Sad but true. If they started this thing off grass roots and open, it might never take off in this demographic as fast as they like; upsets happen, and if a bunch of people no one knows occupy a lot of player slots, it's going to be a lot harder to get that initial hook and hype to grab the attention of an audience that this is trying to pull in.
Do I personally agree with it? To an extent. To be honest, it's the least risky road for them, and for e-sports. If this succeed and becomes stable, it has the possibility of becoming a foundation for all electronic sports the become legitimized in the west eventually, which is a huge dream for more than a lot of people, not just SC2 enthusiasts. Normally I would be against some sort of non qualifier/merit based league, with team restrictions ect, BUT, we had this merit format in things like CS 1.6 ect. If doing things a little different helps grow the fan-base and opinion that e-sports are a legitimate contender in the west, then at this point I can't argue with this approach. However...
Once this thing succeeds, which I am confident it certainly can, the format will absolutely have to change. There are so many reasons I can't even begin to list them all. Think about Korea, and how none of this would be possible without the scene that started out there. They've allowed foreigners to compete there, of their own merits. If eventually this league becomes a league not based on merit, simply reddit-style market appeal, it will crumble with the hopes of a lot of talented contenders, fans, and enthusiasts for e-sports. There is just too much on the line with this thing than I think people realize.
In the end, I would love to see team competition, as well as team leagues. Obviously everyone wants to see top level play, but what also gets people interested and involved is amateur level play as well. I would LOVE to see something like NASL-O, NASL-IM, NASL-I, ect. And I would love to see team formats as well. Diversifying and giving enough room for a player base is what will help for new talent to come into a new game, and will set a standard for other games as well. A good example is this upcoming TSL. I don't think a majority of people could say they had even heard of someone like cruncher, zeerax, or even nightend or thorzain so much b4 they were spotlighted matches in a tournament. There are lots of great players out there, and new ones will continue to pop up. The more places for them to start, the more "seeds" you plant in hopes of one day having some incredible skill caps at the cream of the crop, and the more room you have to make NASL an enjoyable format from the aspiring amateur to the sponsored pro.
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I was just about to make an article going over the same concept. Would be a little different than what it seems Starcraft players are used to but it would be interesting.
Hopefully I'll have it up in the next day or so.
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actually i only know 3 of the 4 you listed from wc3..
don't play sc2 
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On February 22 2011 18:11 divito wrote:
I was just about to make an article going over the same concept. Would be a little different than what it seems Starcraft players are used to but it would be interesting.
Hopefully I'll have it up in the next day or so.
I look forward to reading it. I think I am going to expand a bit on this tomorrow when I'm not so sleepy after GSL, feel free to pm me any feedback. Normally I suppose I would post in a thread, but going thru 44 pages of re-iteration to simply express an opinion, or get trolled for making a thread about a topic that already exists, seems a little pointless to me. Who knows. Either way, I think I'll try to add to this a bit, since it is my first blog post and something I'm actually fairly passionate about.
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Hyrule19024 Posts
First, On February 22 2011 20:05 ToFu. wrote:actually i only know 3 of the 4 you listed from wc3.. don't play sc2
imposter
Second, as much as I loved CAL, it had a pretty bad format. Open was full of hackers and abusers, and the system encouraged that. M was garbage as it was controlled much more tightly, so most of the cheats stopped cheating and it turns out they were just bad. Then in I most teams that made it were actually decent, but very few were good.
And what does it matter if a bunch of StarCraft players have never heard of a bunch of Warcraft 3 players? There are literally dozens of tournaments for people to play in and get their name out. In fact, your example of all 4 of those WC3 players helps my point. There are low level tournaments, opens, invites, and all sorts of other events every week.
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I really like the format. I think it should be very difficult to win the big one. I think players who feel they should be in the NASL need to get their elbows dirty and make a name for themselves the old fashioned way. Does one get into the NFL without years of training and hopes and dreams?
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I think you need to kind of look at it a little from their perspective.
More open format:
Pros: Unknown story for "underdogs", democratizing the tournament
Cons: Higher cost, less personality control (Imagine someone with 3x the BM of IdrA at his worst, no respect during big matches and 1/10th the skill accidentally qualifying), potentially missing big names.
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This being an invitational rather than a open league kills some of the fun for me at least. I really really hope that after the first season the put a code S stamp in the forehead of the top half of the players and a code A stamp in the forehead of the lover half and then have all the code A guys compete in Bo5's or something like that against challengers with the winner getting code S for next season.
If they do that, and you look at this first season being invitational because they need a foundation of solid players to start with i am fine with it. If this is going to continue being an almost pure invitational i will always choose GSL over it...
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EPT
