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I am very excited about the news, I think this is a step in the right direction. From now on, eSports will only continue to grow and prosper. One thing I was wondering about, was how to also make laddering and the StarCraft home experience equally as important. As we all know, this starts at home. Anyone can buy the game, start playing right away, and if they are good enough can rise to the ranks of GM or even play online tournaments from the comfort of their own bedroom. It is possible for even a young kid in a wheelchair to become a professional StarCraft player but how to make that more of a possibility? I am not entirely sure how the seeding works for WCS- What if the best person in each of the three sectors that has the highest ranking in GM and not already qualified for WCS was to get an opportunity to play in the championship? If I am playing day and night beating pros left and right with a really high ranking in GM, the highest of all the players not in WCS, and get a message from Blizzard to pack my bags and make my way to WCS at once... I think that would really be magical.
Of course, there has to be that one day where its the last day to qualify for WCS and everyone and their mothers are laddering. To the minute, the cutoff date would be exact. This is the way I perceive it: I am a youngling at a toy store. I am a huge nerd, my parents just bought me my first computer and I want a game for it. I go to the computer games section and see a gold foil sticker on a game called StarCraft. The sticker reads "Qualify for the World Championship Series." I flip out and buy the game, I almost don't care what the game play is and will dive right in. As soon as I take the game home all the info is there in the SC UI including names of all the pros and such. A kid would simply feel like Charlie almost, trying to make his way to the chocolate factory.
Important points:
1. The cutoff date would be exact.
2. Pro players could also qualify though GM.
3. Qualifying accounts will have to be verified and confirmed by Blizzard.
 
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My concerns with giving a seed based on ladder alone:
1. Doesn't the ladder change much too rapidly? Who's #1 on the ladder may become #5 within two hours. Even if you choose a specific day and time to pick the #1 spot, there's no reason to think they're actually better than the other top players in the region. Tournaments allow you to prove yourself in a much more rigorous and difficult scenario.
2. Laddering is very different than playing in tournaments. Many pros don't even bother laddering to obtain the highest rank, because they're practicing privately in custom games with practice partners.
3. Hackers will be more likely to obsess over the top spot, because they're more concerned with getting #1 on the ladder than actually becoming the best player they can possibly be.
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On April 03 2013 23:38 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
My concerns with giving a seed based on ladder alone:
1. Doesn't the ladder change much too rapidly? Who's #1 on the ladder may become #5 within two hours. Even if you choose a specific day and time to pick the #1 spot, there's no reason to think they're actually better than the other top players in the region. Tournaments allow you to prove yourself in a much more rigorous and difficult scenario.
2. Laddering is very different than playing in tournaments. Many pros don't even bother laddering to obtain the highest rank, because they're practicing privately in custom games with practice partners.
3. Hackers will be more likely to obsess over the top spot, because they're more concerned with getting #1 on the ladder than actually becoming the best player they can possibly be.
1. The cutoff date would be exact.
2. Pros already have a means for qualifying.
3. All accounts will have to be verified by Blizzard.
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On April 03 2013 23:51 ViktorSC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2013 23:38 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
My concerns with giving a seed based on ladder alone:
1. Doesn't the ladder change much too rapidly? Who's #1 on the ladder may become #5 within two hours. Even if you choose a specific day and time to pick the #1 spot, there's no reason to think they're actually better than the other top players in the region. Tournaments allow you to prove yourself in a much more rigorous and difficult scenario.
2. Laddering is very different than playing in tournaments. Many pros don't even bother laddering to obtain the highest rank, because they're practicing privately in custom games with practice partners.
3. Hackers will be more likely to obsess over the top spot, because they're more concerned with getting #1 on the ladder than actually becoming the best player they can possibly be. 1. The cutoff date would be exact. 2. Pros already have a means for qualifying. 3. All accounts will have to be verified by Blizzard.
1. What makes you think your spot in ladder is as worthy of a WCS seed as winning a tournament?
2. Everyone already has a means for qualifying. Even if you're not a pro, you can still play in tournaments. Laddering isn't the only way (and it's not the best way) to prove you're better than top tier gamers.
3. Not all accounts can be verified by Blizzard, because people smurf all the time.
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Let the wintrading commence.
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I'm glad to see IIlllIIIl get a chance 
No in all seriousness, there are a lot of GM players out there who I'm thrilled are being given a shot.
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Honestly, I don't disagree with your proposal, but ladder is not entirely trustworthy... the fact that forms of wintrades exist scares me. However, Hacks and Wintrades are detectable, but only if it is obvious. I don't think ladder should be a seeding process but a qualifying process. Have the top 2 seats in each regions ladder playoff (assuming they're not smurfs and/or illegitament accounts and or already seeded or had a chance to qualify via prof. tournaments) then seed the #1 contender into the WCS, or have the top regional non-prof GMs play in a ro8 and the winner is seeded into the ro32 in the WCS prelims.
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On April 04 2013 01:06 Advantageous wrote:
Honestly, I don't disagree with your proposal, but ladder is not entirely trustworthy... the fact that forms of wintrades exist scares me. However, Hacks and Wintrades are detectable, but only if it is obvious. I don't think ladder should be a seeding process but a qualifying process. Have the top 2 seats in each regions ladder playoff (assuming they're not smurfs and/or illegitament accounts and or already seeded or had a chance to qualify via prof. tournaments) then seed the #1 contender into the WCS, or have the top regional non-prof GMs play in a ro8 and the winner is seeded into the ro32 in the WCS prelims.
I agree with you and updated my post. I think cheating in GM is a lot harder than you think. Many of the players in GM are pro players and Blizzard Knights of the eSports round table. They might even be the first to know if someone is cheating and you can bet they will not stand for it.
To qualify, obviously seeding someone into the final match would be unfair. However, to qualify them for their regions final tournament, I think, would be something people can get excited about. In a way, you could say this would be how Team Blizzard could be formed.
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I think its nice of blizzard to try and give nonprofessional players a chance, kinda replacing an open bracket with the ladder.
But still skeptical about maphackers...
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On April 04 2013 01:20 ViktorSC wrote:
I think cheating in GM is a lot harder than you think. Many of the players in GM are pro players and Blizzard Knights of the eSports round table. They might even be the first to know if someone is cheating and you can bet they will not stand for it.
The #1 GM spot has already been held by several hackers and cheaters in the past, and some of these players still aren't completely removed from the game.
And we can't wait for Blizzard to inspect every high-level ladder spot as this date approaches, because it takes them forever for them to act on hackers (Blizzard tends to ban in rounds, not individually).
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EPT
