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I recently saw 2 posts on screddit about the lack of amateur leagues and tournaments in SC2. These posts were largely made by ex counter-strike players like myself. I think that the lack of amateur competition in starcraft 2 is a serious hindrance to the scene and needs to be looked into and done something about.
I've started to realize that the majority of lower level players in this game have never had any notable involvement with amateur competitive gaming. I see this as a big problem because I think its a key component to growing the game as a esport, as well as pushing the community to new heights.
Yeah, I love this game. But how much can a guy ladder against strangers day in and day out when he has no real aspirations of becoming a pro player? The game is so big, that laddering and getting matched up against anonymous opponents for hours every day leaves out a key sense of community. Sure you could message people after games, practice with them, chat with them etc. But theres little to no sense of community at this level.
Personally, it also hurts my ambition to practice. What am I practicing for? Hopes of going big in the scene one day? Do I really need a reason to practice, or should I just play my heart out in the search of "becoming a better gamer"?
This may well be where people disagree with me, but I need more. I need to make friends. I need to be involved in a larger scene. I need to make enemies. I love to talk shit, all in good fun. I need competition that I can work for and look forward to. Whether its being streamed and casted, if theres money on the line. That shit does not matter to me.
I played counter-strike for years and years. I played it like crazy, practicing with my same 5 person team day in and day out. Why? Because we loved the thrill of playing matches. It didnt matter that no one watched.
There was no money on the line, just bragging rights. The fact that if you did good, people would start to know who you are. People would recognize you in IRC, in scrims, on GotFrag or the cal forums. You would get a reputation. You keep winning and you get moved up a division, now you're playing even better players. The people that you're playing against now are the beasts that you looked up to when you were just a scrub in the open divison. You're playing against the hot shots that wouldnt even let your team scrim them because they considered it a waste of time.
It was the most beautiful, exciting competitive atmosphere i've ever been a part of.
I think shows like day[9] daily and the like are a great idea, to help players become better. But there seems to be this idea that there is the pros, and there is everyone else beneath them all on the same team, helping each other out and being ridiculously nice to each other in hopes of one day maybe becoming pro gamers together.
I personally find that boring and bland. I want to compete against people that I see posting on TL. I want to talk shit to people that are around my same skill level.
I just need a competitive outlet in this game. I'll never be a pro gamer, but why does that mean that I have to spend all my time laddering alone and watching streams of these idolized keyboard warriors standing on pedestals because of some tournament win that got them a big name sponsorship?
I love watching tournaments, and high level competitive play. But why the fuck is following these teams like a reality tv show how I spend my time opposed to being a member of a community that ACTUALLY COMPETES AGAINST EACH OTHER. Being mannered is great and all, but I just want to be able to stomp some nerd in a match, post the results on a website for all to see, and maybe JUST MAYBE talk some shit to him on a forum.
I'm rambling and way off track by now, I doubt any of you even care about how great I think amateur competition was in cs.
Basically what I'm saying is that I think this game really needs one or two well run, competitive amateur leagues/tournaments. Something that encompasses an entire community for a while, where you have prominent figures that aren't being paid salary by sponsorships. People who can speak their minds, and for the worse players to look at and want to beat. I think that something like this is entirely achievable and would benefit the community in great ways.
If theres any interest in this at all, feel free to send me a PM. I have a lot more ideas and a lot less complaining. I just needed to get this off my chest
 
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What are you talking about? I see several tournaments for players of ANY league on a daily basis and there are threads where you can find players of any race you want to practice with.
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All tournaments that fill up a 64 person bracket, at the very most, with only a handful of players that compete in the tournaments on a regular basis. Tournaments without an active forum community, with maybe 100 people idling their channel on battle.net.
There is no prominent figures in the scenes that go along with those communities. Theres little to no communication between players.
Atleast in my experiences.. i've looked around and played in some dailies, but this is the feeling i've gotten
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There's quite definitely no lack in amateur play.
From Daily Playhem, Z33k, Beyond Gaming, Sticky Flames etc... tournaments, we've also got high amatuer CSL, After Hours Gaming League, Female only tournaments, constant qualifiers for training team spots or invites to things, we've got the ladder itself as a main competitive outlet, 2v2 tournaments, local LANs, Clans that run events...
This moment I could turn on dozens of streams running smaller tournaments and competitions.
What exactly is it we're missing?
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From my experiences, there is little to no active community interaction with those tournaments. Most people have no idea who the players they're playing are, and will probably never come into contact with them again. I feel like there is a lack of long term interaction when it comes to communities centered around these tournaments and leagues. I think that takes a lot out of the whole thing, at least for me. These daily tournaments happen all the time, think of how many players lose in the first round and never try it out again. Its a revolving door of competitors.
There isnt really anything wrong with how it is now. I just think it lacks a lot of great experiences that can come with a more involved community and a larger, more tight knit scene
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What you need is something like the D Ranks Team League that Brood War has; team leagues have good communities normally and the teams get quite tight knit, so it's a good way to build the community.
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That sounds interesting..
Another thing is that I realize that matchmaking in a game with so many players definitely causes a lot of anonymity in a community. Its a great system for practicing, but obviously the game will never be like CS where you have to seek out and talk to people at your skill level to get evenly matched competitive practice.
But I think the main thought behind the post is still relevant
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What you are talking about is one of the reason I started the Semi-Pro Gaming League. Lower league players, those that aren't pro but still want to improve really need support from others that feel the same way and an amateur league really supports that way of thinking. As a second point it also let's player A meet player B and they both begin to improve more than they would on just the normal ladder.
It's that atmosphere of competition that builds up better players. You ever wonder why certain areas of the world, or even the country tend to be best for certain sports? It's because of the high levels of competition at those lower levels that keep producing better and better players: Hockey players from Canada and Russia for instance.
But what I wanted to say is I think you should check out the SPGL. We're moving into season 2 and have made a bunch of changes for it based on player feedback.
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When I see topics of this nature, I often agree and wonder why sc2 hasn't already developed something similar. Then I read the comments, and almost all of them speak about daily/weekly tournaments and "viewership", which makes me think they are missing the point.
I play a lot in playhems and z33k tourneys, I play a lot of ladder, I look for events all the time. I just don't see any that are really what I'm looking for. Daily/Weekly tournaments are fun, don't get me wrong, I love the thrill of placing high in them, but I don't get any lasting pleasure or memories from them.
I feel like it's so hard to find anything close to what we had in CS, there's no IRC for sc2, theres no #findteam or anything like that where teams are actively recruiting. I have no idea where to find teams recruiting, I have no idea where to find team leagues and what not. The closest thing i've come to that is finding practice partners, which is cool and fun.
Honestly though, I think all of that is missing because of the ladder. We don't have to look for practice games (what us cs players would call scrims) ourselves, we already have some "ranking" and for most people that's enough. I guess we're just spoiled.
Regardless, could anybody point me to how to find a team without just finding a random ad, is there some central location that people recruit at?
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You get it. Thanks bru, good luck
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THIS. There are so many great players who really are better than a lot of the established pros but don't get enough attention because it's near impossible to break into the scene without luck right now.
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I see what you're saying and i feel like starcraft2 is really lacking in that right now and it would be nice to see something like it
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Team Liquid itself would have to start its own amateur league in order to have the ideal amateur league. Could they make it work? uhhhhhhh yeah duhhhhh
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As an aspiring pro-gamer who migrated from fighting game, starcraft is severely lacking in its amateur culture. Playhem, Z33k do not count as they are enter, leave and Playhem is a joke as far as helping amateurs get noticed. Name 2 amateur players who have recently won a Playhem in the last 6 months...oh...whats that?...right.
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This is why, at least from what I understand, WC3 was a much better game for competitive amateurs. Automatically generated daily tournaments? I mean that's so fucking cool, and no one these days wants to mess around with a ladder system that isn't built into the game if possible. It would greatly help to foster amateur talent if there was even a small bit of glory on the line, like portraits or a special icon for your buildings/units that count you as a daily tournament champion.
"A man will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." - Napoleon
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Blizzard really should have integrated a Tournament system into Bnet years ago.
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On September 19 2012 10:49 elctrc_wzrd wrote:
As an aspiring pro-gamer who migrated from fighting game, starcraft is severely lacking in its amateur culture. Playhem, Z33k do not count as they are enter, leave and Playhem is a joke as far as helping amateurs get noticed. Name 2 amateur players who have recently won a Playhem in the last 6 months...oh...whats that?...right.
PeGaSuS and SS have won 5 between them, and I doubt you've heard of Turuk or Verdi either (who have won 3 and 2, respectively). Scarlett also made herself known by winning a Playhem qualifier for IPL4
edit: also I can't tell if the goal here is to get amateurs noticed, or to develop an amateur scene. there's a vibrant and healthy amateur scene, but pretty much nobody pays attention to it. the EU scene does a pretty good job, though... things like ZOTAC and MSI Pro Cup and RSL have incredibly high level of play and lots of "unknown" players but nobody watches
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As an ex-CS1.6 player who participated in amateur leagues for many many years, I completely agree with the sentiments expressed by the OP. I don't know if anything like CS1.6's amateur scene could be created in SC2, but even a close approximation would go a long way to making this an eSport for more than the top 1%.
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Playhem has a Cash Daily for almost each league every day. So many options but Starcraft people are extremely picky and don't really like watch players that are worse then them. If we do get more please don't exclude Master's from playing we are just as amateur as the rest of you guys!
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Also CSL is one of the best amateur leagues I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of. So much fun, some of the best memories from freshman year were my CSL team competing together.
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EPT
