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Thoughts on WCS 2014 [audio blog]
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TotalBiscuit
United Kingdom5437 Posts
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NovemberstOrm
Canada16217 Posts
Thanks TB. | ||
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thezanursic
5504 Posts
I've got a mobile device that doesn't support much of anything, YT works fine though. So if it's not to much of a bother I'd very much appreciate it! | ||
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FFW_Rude
France10201 Posts
Because i can't listen to podcast at work  | ||
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FFW_Rude
France10201 Posts
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DusTerr
2520 Posts
On November 22 2013 18:38 FFW_Rude wrote: Hello, can someone make a transcript of the big ideas ? Something like a resumé ? Because i can't listen to podcast at work agreed.. I also hate 'blogs' that do nothing but link elsewhere. (I don't hate you TB, but could you type out a few of the main points here?) + Show Spoiler [TLDC] + Too link didn't click | ||
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Liquid`Nazgul
22427 Posts
There's a lot of good stuff in the plans and I'm really happy with the overall plans.
Maps I can write about this forever but I'll keep it short. In an ideal scene I absolutely think that ladder and all major events should use the same maps for a duration of three or so months. It will allow players to prepare for all the maps they need to play and come up with more creative strategies. Some people seem to think that if you have a lot of new maps you will see a lot of creative strategies, but that is not how it works. Too many new maps, and/or new maps played in too few tournaments, will only see standard play (and vetoing) because players do not find it worth the effort to prepare. When given the opportunity players were mass downvoting new maps, simply because the maps were never widespread enough. As far as viewers are concerned the same mappool for three months in major tournaments will allow the viewer, who may also be a casual player, the time to learn the maps and start to understand their significance. Too many maps spread across different tournaments leads to viewers not wanting to learn or memorize every single one of them. TL pushes for the mapmaking scene more than anything. We want to see new maps. We want to see creative maps. We want to support for the mapmaking scene. What I don't think works is major tournaments experimenting without any consistency or understanding of what they're doing. The most important factor to make tournaments sharing the same mappool work is having a level below (or above depending on how you view it) all these major tournaments where a mapmaking scene is supported. In BW there was a lot of consistency in maps. OSL and MSL basically picked their maps and stuck with them for a season. However the maps that they had were still creative and fresh. This is because below the top level tournaments there was an extremely healthy mapmaking scene where professionals were paid to create new maps and teams were paid (forced) to test them. Every four months you need to be able to introduce 3-4 new maps that will then go into the mappool for the next season. If Blizzard does not start supporting the mapmaking scene it could really stifle any kind of map development to force every tournament to use the same maps. If they do want to support the mapmaking scene (ala BW or TLMC) then this scene could come up with the new maps on a seasonal basis and everybody wins by all tournaments using the same maps. That or you pray Red Bull keeps doing what they're doing. | ||
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Lambertus
South Africa993 Posts
On November 22 2013 20:14 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: That or you pray Red Bull keeps doing what they're doing. I m in that department of praying and I would still prefer some more consistency ;-) Overall I find it insightful and useful to hear TBs and your opinion on that matters. For myself as one of the infamous "casual viewer / player" especially the changes of the time line and overall better tournament stream schedules will help me to keep in touch with SC2 even with all the "real life" going on. The last year or so was very tough for me and I even sometimes lost energy and interest to follow everything that was going on... it was just this feeling of too much. I think Nony stated sometime ago that he picks very carefully what to watch and what to pay for. Me too and I think there is a growing number of people that do it that way, at least in my SC2-Circle. So its good to help these guys, because hey, we have the money ;-) But enough of that, there are so much discussion already going on... | ||
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Tonijn
Netherlands13 Posts
I know that it would cut out map creation, but if the rotation of maps within the season pool is sufficient I don't think it would suffer that much. How does the rest think of this? | ||
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
On November 22 2013 20:14 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: Lots of similar thoughts on these issues. Overall clearly WCS made a lot of great changes so the mood should be positive. No system is ever perfect and thus it is good to talk about what could have been done differently. Clearly everyone feels the GSL prizepool is absurd and does not support the players at all. Blizzard chose to go the way of giving Korea freedom and maybe it was the right decision for the scene as a whole to cater to these relationships. The way GSL allocates the prize money is disappointing nonetheless. There's a lot of good stuff in the plans and I'm really happy with the overall plans.
Maps I can write about this forever but I'll keep it short. In an ideal scene I absolutely think that ladder and all major events should use the same maps for a duration of three or so months. It will allow players to prepare for all the maps they need to play and come up with more creative strategies. Some people seem to think that if you have a lot of new maps you will see a lot of creative strategies, but that is not how it works. Too many new maps, and/or new maps played in too few tournaments, will only see standard play (and vetoing) because players do not find it worth the effort to prepare. When given the opportunity players were mass downvoting new maps, simply because the maps were never widespread enough. As far as viewers are concerned the same mappool for three months in major tournaments will allow the viewer, who may also be a casual player, the time to learn the maps and start to understand their significance. Too many maps spread across different tournaments leads to viewers not wanting to learn or memorize every single one of them. TL pushes for the mapmaking scene more than anything. We want to see new maps. We want to see creative maps. We want to support for the mapmaking scene. What I don't think works is major tournaments experimenting without any consistency or understanding of what they're doing. The most important factor to make tournaments sharing the same mappool work is having a level below (or above depending on how you view it) all these major tournaments where a mapmaking scene is supported. In BW there was a lot of consistency in maps. OSL and MSL basically picked their maps and stuck with them for a season. However the maps that they had were still creative and fresh. This is because below the top level tournaments there was an extremely healthy mapmaking scene where professionals were paid to create new maps and teams were paid (forced) to test them. Every four months you need to be able to introduce 3-4 new maps that will then go into the mappool for the next season. If Blizzard does not start supporting the mapmaking scene it could really stifle any kind of map development to force every tournament to use the same maps. If they do want to support the mapmaking scene (ala BW or TLMC) then this scene could come up with the new maps on a seasonal basis and everybody wins by all tournaments using the same maps. That or you pray Red Bull keeps doing what they're doing. You know Victor after reading a lot of the shit on these forums and trying to find a way to please everyone (which, was quite hard and time consuming) I believe there is an actual way to please everyone but you would have to abolish the current formats altogether. We're not talking about group stages. We would reinforce the organizers like MLG, DH, GOM, etc. and the players who qualify or meet a certain criteria (same can be said about the teams) and they would qualify to play in the regular season where every player will get a crack at one another. Sounds a lot more like NASL Season 1, no? Still very different system and we would have an actual circuit, which would include a Universal PL system. It is possible. What needs to be done is they have to get over themselves. Say the old system wasn't working and open a new box of tricks altogether. You'd still get players having time to prepare for one another. The games would be interesting. The rivalries and stories would be there as well. Not only that but the regular season is basically your practice time. With regards to the bold point. I don't think the quality of the games will change much under this format. Sorry, you need a little something else and like I said there in fact better ways of going about it. | ||
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ffadicted
United States3545 Posts
I really do agree with just about everything, especially: 1. Ridiculous GSL prize pool 2. Upset about not putting more points in GSL 3. The Ladder requirement for koreans 4. The need for more korean events (namely OSL) I'm hoping these things aren't final and we do get some changes before 2014 | ||
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S1eth
Austria221 Posts
On November 22 2013 20:14 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: Lots of similar thoughts on these issues. Overall clearly WCS made a lot of great changes so the mood should be positive. No system is ever perfect and thus it is good to talk about what could have been done differently. Clearly everyone feels the GSL prizepool is absurd and does not support the players at all. Blizzard chose to go the way of giving Korea freedom and maybe it was the right decision for the scene as a whole to cater to these relationships. The way GSL allocates the prize money is disappointing nonetheless. There's a lot of good stuff in the plans and I'm really happy with the overall plans.
Maps I can write about this forever but I'll keep it short. In an ideal scene I absolutely think that ladder and all major events should use the same maps for a duration of three or so months. It will allow players to prepare for all the maps they need to play and come up with more creative strategies. Some people seem to think that if you have a lot of new maps you will see a lot of creative strategies, but that is not how it works. Too many new maps, and/or new maps played in too few tournaments, will only see standard play (and vetoing) because players do not find it worth the effort to prepare. When given the opportunity players were mass downvoting new maps, simply because the maps were never widespread enough. As far as viewers are concerned the same mappool for three months in major tournaments will allow the viewer, who may also be a casual player, the time to learn the maps and start to understand their significance. Too many maps spread across different tournaments leads to viewers not wanting to learn or memorize every single one of them. TL pushes for the mapmaking scene more than anything. We want to see new maps. We want to see creative maps. We want to support for the mapmaking scene. What I don't think works is major tournaments experimenting without any consistency or understanding of what they're doing. The most important factor to make tournaments sharing the same mappool work is having a level below (or above depending on how you view it) all these major tournaments where a mapmaking scene is supported. In BW there was a lot of consistency in maps. OSL and MSL basically picked their maps and stuck with them for a season. However the maps that they had were still creative and fresh. This is because below the top level tournaments there was an extremely healthy mapmaking scene where professionals were paid to create new maps and teams were paid (forced) to test them. Every four months you need to be able to introduce 3-4 new maps that will then go into the mappool for the next season. If Blizzard does not start supporting the mapmaking scene it could really stifle any kind of map development to force every tournament to use the same maps. If they do want to support the mapmaking scene (ala BW or TLMC) then this scene could come up with the new maps on a seasonal basis and everybody wins by all tournaments using the same maps. That or you pray Red Bull keeps doing what they're doing. On the subject of maps, I really think the ladder could use more maps then there are in the WCS map pool. You could have something like ~12 maps for ladder and a restricted map pool for GM ranked ladder with only 7 maps. | ||
iHirO
United Kingdom1381 Posts
Blizzard should run a TL Map Competition twice a year and add more maps per season to the 1v1 ladder. The team ladder map pool also needs some attention as it is rarely updated but is vital for sustaining the casual player scene and growing the Starcraft audience. There needs to be a list of Blizzard approved maps that can each tournament can choose a limited selection from, while using standard ladder maps for the rest. Tournaments should even consider incentivising players to choose non-standard maps in an effort to spice up variety and make each tournament more unique (e.g. $50 dollars extra prize if Bo3 includes the rising lava map). | ||
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Nouar
France3270 Posts
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Qwyn
United States2781 Posts
But I will say this: that I venture into the Custom Maps forum every time I see a new [M] tag pop up and really consider and appreciate the maps I see - and by and large all of these maps disappear without ever being appreciated or played on. I've followed the guys in that forum and have watched them get better and better at what they do, and it PAINS me to see that this DEADEND road of the game is only now being explored. For fuck's sake, this is all two years too late. Maybe the game can only foster competitive mapmaking when it is stable and nothing else is changed? Nah, that's fucking bullshit. Team Liquid, I sure love you for trying your hardest to get some good maps out there, but there's still a fundamental disconnect along the Blizzard/mapmaking wire. Barrin, flat out disagree with your assessment of community maps...though if that's just a big troll post you sure got me. | ||
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ACrow
Germany6583 Posts
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DinoToss
Poland507 Posts
On November 24 2013 10:36 Qwyn wrote: You know, I'm far too disconnected to be able to offer any sort of suggestion or scaffolding covering mapmaking in the future... But I will say this: that I venture into the Custom Maps forum every time I see a new [M] tag pop up and really consider and appreciate the maps I see - and by and large all of these maps disappear without ever being appreciated or played on. I've followed the guys in that forum and have watched them get better and better at what they do, and it PAINS me to see that this DEADEND road of the game is only now being explored. For fuck's sake, this is all two years too late. Maybe the game can only foster competitive mapmaking when it is stable and nothing else is changed? Nah, that's fucking bullshit. Team Liquid, I sure love you for trying your hardest to get some good maps out there, but there's still a fundamental disconnect along the Blizzard/mapmaking wire. Barrin, flat out disagree with your assessment of community maps...though if that's just a big troll post you sure got me. I will generalize a bit but i think the problem with maps can be seen like this: People "don't like" new maps, or test new maps because they take you out of your comfort zone. Most of the time you would rather play old maps because you are being ranked by playing them on ladder. And while professional BW spawned dozens of great maps the order was pushed from above (as Nazgul said). It was of course good thing. But if you let people do what they prefer to do, most of them will stay in their comfort zone, which can be still seen on amateur BW scene (Fighting spirit). This is where i hate Blizzard saying "we give you the freedom do what you want, BUT ladder mappool is no-no". Unfortunately this is not how it goes, there has to be some sort of push from above, just like Kespa-OGN-MBC and the current force that is comparable to above is Blizzard. You will never remove players and casuals from those maps without force. Even if the change would help everyone, that comfort zone is really, what's keeping the status quo. Also as an anecdote coming from competitive CS where it was even more hard to understand why such unbelievable map stagnation happened (same maps being used for +10 years, easily, and some were bad like de_cbble). But FPSes such as CS are more behavioral and have more "feel" to it, and maps were less game changing on personal basis but more on teamplay/strategy. And in pub play team-play was irrelevant, so people played for their comfort-zone rather than strategy. But even so in proffesional play there was very few regulators that wanted to implement new maps (literally like only 2 or 3 professional maps emerged in several years...), map making became pushed into pub/fun sector, and it was huge community, all the war3/cod/jumping/knife maps all of them did amazing job. | ||
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HarriwenM
1 Post
User was banned for this post. | ||
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