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Case A:
Suppose for a moment, you're an up and coming foreign player and it's always been your dream to play GSL. In order to do this, you have to:
Convince your team to pay for your trip even though you likely won't make it onto any broadcasts
Move to Korea
Grind your way through the most difficult qualifiers in the scene
Live in Korea at your team's expense for several months, presumably suffering the language barrier
Case B:
Suppose now you're an up and coming korean player and it's always been your dream to play in a foreign event. In order to do this, you have to:
Stay in your paid-for practice house in Korea where you're taken care of completely
Qualify online, Play out your ro32 games online (and handicap yourself and the opponent with shit latency)
Come to NA/EU for one single weekend at the expense of Blizzard to play ro16-finals
Be provided a translator, hotel, and food for that weekend at the expense of the event organizer/Blizzard
I think we all agree, Koreans are just "better". If that's the case, why is this system designed to make their cross-region play incredibly easy, while making it more difficult for foreigners?
This isn't even a case of complaining about region locking. Certainly that would solve the problem but it's not the root of it. The root of the problem is that the actual cost to change regions is so much lower for korean players. Rumor has it that they're even receiving invitations/seeds to these events, straight to the "Code S" level - So they're even receiving incentives to play in these cross regional tournaments which are easier to win. Yet, they're also allowed to continue living in their superior korean infrastructure, and only asked to commit one weekend's worth of time per season to cross-region WCS.
This is a goddamn travesty. We're so far away from what WCS was last year - a series of events that brought so many foreign players into the spotlight. How did something designed to help lift up local players turn into a literal welfare machine for the korean players? Who designed this system that adds artificial difficulty to the NA/EU scenes while making it even harder for foreigners to participate in korean events/teamhouses? All these changes have done is take a fair system where anyone can enter anything and the best players win, and change it into a system where Koreans receive special privileges in spite of already having advantages in both skill and infrastructure.
Unless something changes or some key details are missing, I'm not watching any WCS branded event starting today. That includes the GSL. And I love the GSL, I love high level korean play. But until WCS NA/EU require a local presence for months at a time - like the GSL does - the entire system is stacked against the foreigner before even considering the skill level of the players and I won't support that. I believe in fair play and equal opportunity. I have no problem with koreans dominating every event because they're better. Where I draw the line is when Blizzard is actually making it harder for foreigners to enter events in both korea and their own countries..
And unless it's resolved, I'll be boycotting all of it. I hope you'll do the same so they hear the message clearly.
 
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Regarding your examples, isn't that how it was before as well? Meaning it's damn hard to get good and play in korea, and it's easy for the pro koreans to dominate foreign scene?
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Its true, the new system kinda sucks for local players. As a spectator I prefer to have a storyline to follow and not just koreans beating up players. Also I would have preferred last years system a lot more.
Personally sometimes I just want to watch a comp without koreans and only foreigners playing and no pressure of a korean at the next turn to knock them out.
Think will write a more lengthy blog post so as not to hijack your post.
But yeah, fully agree with you on the chances foreigners are getting compared to koreans,
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The cases aren't compared properly. In Case B, you're talking about a korean who is already a pro and lives in a teamhouse. In Case A, you're talking about a foreigner who wants to become korean-pro level.
It's easy to say "A foreigner in a team has a really hard time playing in korean tournaments while a korean in a team has it pretty easy", because you disregard the whole "The korean is probably about 300x better than the foreigner, because the foreigner wouldn't even get to the level where he could be in a korean team". It's not surprising that ridiculously good players get better treatment, if you're good enough at SC2 to get paid by a korean team, you probably wouldn't have any problem getting to go to korea and play, even if you're a foreigner.
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On April 10 2013 23:31 Tobberoth wrote:
The cases aren't compared properly. In Case B, you're talking about a korean who is already a pro and lives in a teamhouse. In Case A, you're talking about a foreigner who wants to become korean-pro level.
Here come the korean apologists!
The problem here is that you're assuming Case A is a nobody and case B is a somebody even though that's not how it was presented. Korean houses are full of b-teamers you've never heard of, who have played 0 broadcast games - and they aren't above the best and brightest of NA/EU. We know their level is equivalent because for example, Major joined T8 to become one of these b-team nobodies. Yet, should they decide to compete in WCS NA/EU, they have a vastly easier time getting in then someone like Major will have getting into GSL, and have to commit far less resources.
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The biggest issue with the WCS is not how hard it is for a foreigner to go to Korea. Lets be honest, how many actually have? 4? That is not a big enough issue to boycott the WCS.
The bigger issue is that WCS is encouraging the Korean players to take spots away from local players in EU/NA that otherwise would have much less opportunity to play in a giant tournament like WCS. That is why WCS was so awesome, with national qualifiers there were players that had never really gotten into the global scene who exploded into it. Vortix comes to mind when thinking about this.
With the new system however, players like Taeja will be coming to NA, and MVP to EU. Granted, they can be upset in qualifying matches and we can all eat our toes, but realistically they are taking the place of someone who is ACTUALLY FROM THAT REGION.
Blizzard should have assigned some sort of weighting system to each region's ladder. The region with more points (obviously KR in this example) would get more placement slots into the WCS Grand Finals than a region with less points. This way players in each region are encouraged to get better along with everyone else in their region to earn more spots for them to enter into WCS Grand Finals. Instead we have mercenary players coming from Korea to all the other regions in order to take spots from local players.
I am willing to bet that this years WCS Grand Finals will be at least 80% Korean, in a system that is designed to only have it be 33%.
Blizzard is really showing how little they understand about eSports and professional games. Did you see the Morhaime interview where he said publicly, I'm not aware of how the Koreans practice, but I think I'm right about this format. Sickest logic ever. Instead of learning about something first, he just made sweeping generalizations and came to a conclusion.
Blizz also fucked over regions like SEA, Taiwan, China, South America, and Africa with this system. Because, you know, who cares right?
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A weighting system where you get more points for playing and winning in your own region seems like a good idea. Then if Koreans want to go to NA/EU, they better take top 3 or they may not get enough points to advance to the Finals whereas if they had stayed in Korea, maybe top 8 or top 16 rewards might be sufficient.
e - grammar
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The Doomsayers have arrived.
Don't worry, by the time Blizzard realizes that they killed the Korean scene (and thus the credibility of professional SC2), we will have moved on.
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I won't be boycotting anything. If the games and storylines are entertaining, then I will enjoy watching the league no matter what flaws the system has. In the end, I watch for entertainment, and I usually don't let any politics get in the way.
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good to know you're not watching anymore :3
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On April 10 2013 23:43 darkscream wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2013 23:31 Tobberoth wrote:
The cases aren't compared properly. In Case B, you're talking about a korean who is already a pro and lives in a teamhouse. In Case A, you're talking about a foreigner who wants to become korean-pro level.
Here come the korean apologists!
He isn't apologizing for anything, your statements can't be compared because they aren't the same deal. He is right on that. Granted you are right things are stacked against the foreigners, as they always have been until the issues with broodlord+infestor changed things up (to the point where zerg was called the white-man's race in Lings of Liberty). I don't see why you should boycott now if things have been similar since before now.
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I don't understand, wasn't Case A and Case B true before as well? O_o. They seem to be able to exist just fine pre and post the system change.
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Why would any Korean leaugue spend extra time and effort to get some foreign dude from all across the world that is just gonna get his ass whooped badly? While the Korean player that is brought to the US or EU event is quite often a very serious contender for the title... Open your eyes man.. And stop sounding so bitter and frustrated for your own good.
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EPT
