Note: this article is the expressed opinion of Amazingxkcd only and does not constitute to be the official opinion of Teamliquid.net, its staff, or any of its constituents.
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Come, have a seat. Sure, you can pour yourself a drink. Let’s have a nice chit chat. I will tell you that I will stop casting TLC games nor will help with any coverage for the unforeseeable future because of what’s about to be announced by the TLC admins. I was and still am fervently against it for a variety of reasons, but let’s not digress from the point of this discussion.
As of now and for the rest of this discussion, I have no affiliation with Teamliquid. I have no affiliation with any brood war staffers, nor any CS:GO staffers, nor any staffers at all. I have no affiliation with any prominent community members.
In fact. I’m a nobody on teamliquid.net. I’m just a brood war fan. But I’m making this a blog instead of a BW forum post because I don’t want to burn all the bridges on TL.net yet nor do i just want the BW people to read this. This can apply to many esports that have a small scene and perhaps non-bw fans can learn something new. Who knows?
Let’s talk
Starcraft is one of the most difficult games ever made, and the fact that people in this day and age still play starcraft over other games is awesome. Starcraft is beautiful to play and watch. What other games allows for people to clearly express the level of skill that they display to the degree of clarity that starcraft allows for, yet at the same time is very accessible to the new beginners? There is nothing like what starcraft offers and that's a god damn beauty to behold. And let's not forget that starcraft has been in a renaissance both in South Korea with the rise of SOSPA, not to mention a fucking new team league on the horizons. And here in the west, We have the TLC already done with 4 weeks and the TLS coming this winter. This is a new glory age of starcraft.
However, we need to be directly told of something that has been plaguing us in the recent weeks, something that people don’t realizing they’re doing because they are so fixated on something else that they fail to understand what is it that they’re doing to starcraft, to the small foreign community, and to the fans of starcraft.
You are killing starcraft
The people who moved on to play starcraft 2 or mobas aren't killing starcraft. The people that dodge matches on iccup aren't killing starcraft. Iccup admins are most definitely not killing starcraft. And whoever is public enemy #1 for being the best player in the TLCs is not killing starcraft.
You are killing starcraft
It's not the fact that you are physically hacking the game to pieces with axes and swords, nor are you sitting the game inside a gas chamber and letting it burn to death, It is your EGO, your ATTITUDE, and your ETIQUETTE that is killing starcraft.
Let's break this down. The release of the Teamliquid Legacy Cup series as an effort to re-invigorate the foreign scene to practice for the TLS which will occur this winter. With $2,000 being invested into weekly cups, this is the perfect time for any aspiring starcraft player to start to hunker down, to start practicing, and to start getting really gosu at starcraft so that come the TLS, he is more than ready to win it.
Yet with all of the incentives in place to motivate people to get back into the game and to get better, You have the audacity to go onto the forums and complain about it because the rules allow for a particular player to play and that particular player is “too good”. You even go as far as to bash other players, bash viewers who chime in on the matter, bash TLC TOs who have been working fucking hard to make this all happen, and you bash starcraft itself for no good reason other than to appropriate their failures in the TLCs away from themselves. Great job there, I applaud your efforts to play the "Let's get banned" game. To make matters even worse, some of you players have been disruptive on the forums then proceed to get featured on the TLC streams, your games shown to all that partake in viewing. And since you are being morons, we see games that happen like this
This particular zerg player boasted of defeating ACTUAL KESPA PROS, yet threw the finals on purpose just to get back at the TLC rules.
I don’t even know where to start with this. I originally typed up a rant that would 100% get me banned due to all the obscenities at the lot of you all. But since this is teamliquid, a place for civilized discussions, I’ll do my best to not give banlings a legitimate reason to ban me.
First and foremost, the amount of hypocrites in the foreign community is too high. Everyone that has complained about the format, the rules, etc has been still showing up to every damn TLC to play. That can’t be real, right? If you had any strong backings or at least affirmed your complaints, you wouldn’t play. I guess the prize pool must be enticing enough for the people to show up. Money must be all that you care about, not actually getting better at the game since you’re still playing in the weekly cups, and still complaining on the forums. To me, you would beat Scan or any other top player if you spent your time practicing, understanding the game, getting better at it instead of bashing everything on the forums because your head is stuck too far up your arse to change your ego. Everyone that has played so far in the TLC is beatable. the degree of effort it takes to beat them is what makes starcraft such a good game; With the TLC, you have to actually practice to win that $50 as the TLCs were intended to do so. You of all people have failed to understand that the TLCs are a way to incentivize players to practice and get better; the TLCs are not meant to be an easy cash player for complacent foreign players that are used to the status quo.
Guess what? We broke the status quo, time to get used to it. And we will break it again for the TLS when newcomers come to take your spots.
The 2nd matter that disgusts me is the attitude that people have been having, the amount of BM and bashing that has been going on. We have been attracting new people back to Brood War, trying to re-grow the small paltry scene that we have had. If any new person went to the TL BW forums to check out the info, the brackets, or what not, what do they see? They see locked threads full of complaints, bashing, BM, cursing, thread derailing, and more. Is this what you want to show to the world who we are? And then you go ahead and complain that Brood War is dying.
Geez, I wonder why?
You’re killing starcraft yourself, and you fail to see it. It’s bitter to see that you could be using all of your energy to actively promote and display the potential top level foreigner play ever, but you are selfish and throw all that away to nurture your ego instead. This was clearly seen in the Eonzerg vs Scan game. Instead of giving your best, Eonzerg, you decide to throw 3 games in a row during a streamed finals in front of 400+ people just so you can then get giddy right on the teamliquid forums and post sob stories about how Scan is destroying brood war and your chance at the prize pool. Absolutely disgusting, and this applies to the rest of you as well. New viewers are going to be confused at what happened and then get discouraged from learning more about the game because they only see the bullshit you guys are trying to pull off.
It is a mockery of the TLC admins, the TLC casters, other players who are trying their best, and most importantly the fans that want to watch the best BW you have to offer that you guys go out and throw games, or whatever. Why should I, Sayle, Bisudagger, and the rest of the TLC crew try our best to cast your games the best we can to help show cast your talents and your skills if you don’t give a damn, and then proceed to bash us later on? Why should the TLC admins keep doing what they have been to try to throw on the best weekly cup they can if you’re going to disrespect them later on the forums, and discredit all the hard work they have done just so you can sidestep the real issues at hand? What about the fans that have been let down because they wanted to see how much you improved over time, and you then go ahead and throw games on the stream, in the damn finals?!?! What about the other players who might be aspiring to you to get better themselves and then lose faith because they see your true side, a snobbish, greedy moron that only cares about the prize money and not about the game itself.
Sickening.
So, where do we go from here? That is not my decision to make, that is all on you. Are you going to continue to destroy starcraft from the inside out or will you make a change and perhaps try to save starcraft? You have the power.
As a first little disclaimer, I have not been involved in any decisions taken one way or the other regarding who can play in TLC and who can not, and despite my name this is also not an official TL response, it's just my personal opinion.
While I think that some of the responses from TLC players towards TL staff (who have been trying their hardest to do a good job hosting a good tournament) have been really stupid, sometimes offensive, and while I have been disappointed watching some matches where it seemed like players weren't even trying their best (to be fair, desperate cheeses due to feeling inferior can often look like not trying after they fail), I can't help but feel that you are speaking from a position of ignorance here.
The notion that players can just 'practice harder' and beat scan, that is ridiculous. I am a former Norwegian champion, I was captain of Team Europe (a team Europe which beat team Asia - technically, I captained Europe to a World Championship victory), and while I'm sure this is up for debate, I personally think that at my peak, I was something like ~top 5 outside South Korea, and this was during a time and age with a far more active foreign scene. Yet, even if I, who clearly has a lot of talent for the game and a high potential, spent the next 6 months playing 8 hours every day (which is not even remotely close to viable due to real life obligations, and I think it is like this for pretty much every still playing player), I still think Scan would be a massive favorite against me. And hey, the fact is, I actually have a winning record against him! We played a bunch in 2008 or whatever, before he became a monster, but watching him now, there's a fluidity and perfection to his game that I don't think I could match no matter how hard I tried.
Brood War is a game of an almost infinitely high skill ceiling, and due to how immersed South Korean culture has been in the game, and considering how much you improve from being able to fluently communicate strategies and ideas with people who are touching the peak of what is humanly possible to execute, it is not viable. I don't know when you started following Starcraft, but I've been in the scene since 1998, and I've been playing against other top players since 1999. One thing has consistently been true, especially after ~2001 or so when Korea started being dominant: Players who went to Korea to practice ended up realizing their potential in a wholly different way from people who stayed at home. The longer time that passed since 2001, the more separate Korea and Non-Korea became, and the more people would benefit from having access to an actual korean training regiment.
Idra, Ret, Nony, Draco, all these players went to Korea and achieved a level of skill nobody who did not go ended up achieving. I guess you can argue an exception for Mondragon but with his talent for the game it isn't really a fair comparison. While in the past, we always wanted to encourage nonkorean players to go there, to become the best they could become, and thus would always allow Nonkorean players to participate in tournaments even though their eventual victory might have seemed like a foregone conclusion. Scan has been in a funky position, where he is korean, has benefited from the korean training regiment, but where he has also to some degree been a very valuable community member who communicates in English, so it's tough to compare.
Frankly, and while I have had no part in staff decisions, and where I didn't even know what they were going to end up doing prior to reading your post which makes it pretty clear that Scan won't (fully?) be able to compete in the following TLC tournaments, I have to say that I think it looks like they made the best choice, both at first, and now. Firstly, his level of dominance is a factor - it's the embodiment of the benefit you get from the Korean training regiment and understanding of Korean language and immersion in Korean Brood War culture. Secondly, TL staff didn't, and could not have been expected to, understand how dominant he was prior to the tournament. Now TL staff does, and apparently has changed their mind. I can't but voice my support, and while I was personally registering for these tournaments with the hopes of drawing scan so I could bring some brilliant cheese to the table, I will now be registering for the future tournaments with one less impossible obstacle to pass, and I will be watching these tournaments without being certain of the eventual winner. Good job everyone involved, it's hard to go back on a decision, especially when the people who are forcing you to go back on it are insulting you, but it's clearly the right thing to do.
On August 17 2015 19:56 Liquid`Drone wrote: As a first little disclaimer, I have not been involved in any decisions taken one way or the other regarding who can play in TLC and who can not, and despite my name this is also not an official TL response, it's just my personal opinion.
While I think that some of the responses from TLC players towards TL staff (who have been trying their hardest to have been really stupid, sometimes offensive, and while I have been disappointed watching some matches where it seemed like players weren't even trying their best (to be fair, desperate cheeses due to feeling inferior can often look like not trying after they fail), I can't help but feel that you are speaking from a position of ignorance here.
The notion that players can just 'practice harder' and beat scan, that is ridiculous. I am a former Norwegian champion, I was captain of Team Europe (a team Europe which beat team Asia - technically, I captained Europe to a World Championship victory), and while I'm sure this is up for debate, I personally think that at my peak, I was something like ~top 5 outside South Korea, and this was during a time and age with a far more active foreign scene. Yet, even if I, who clearly has a lot of talent for the game and a high potential, spent the next 6 months playing 8 hours every day (which is not even remotely close to viable due to real life obligations, and I think it is like this for pretty much every still playing player), I still think Scan would be a massive favorite against me. And hey, the fact is, I actually have a winning record against him! We played a bunch in 2008 or whatever, before he became a monster, but watching him now, there's a fluidity and perfection to his game that I don't think I could match no matter how hard I tried.
Brood War is a game of an almost infinitely high skill ceiling, and due to how immersed South Korean culture has been in the game, and considering how much you improve from being able to fluently communicate strategies and ideas with people who are touching the peak of what is humanly possible to execute, it is not viable. I don't know when you started following Starcraft, but I've been in the scene since 1998, and I've been playing against other top players since 1999. One thing has consistently been true, especially after ~2001 or so when Korea started being dominant: Players who went to Korea to practice ended up realizing their potential in a wholly different way from people who stayed at home. The longer time that passed since 2001, the more separate Korea and Non-Korea became, and the more people would benefit from having access to an actual korean training regiment.
Idra, Ret, Nony, Draco, all these players went to Korea and achieved a level of skill nobody who did not go ended up achieving. I guess you can argue an exception for Mondragon but with his talent for the game it isn't really a fair comparison. While in the past, we always wanted to encourage nonkorean players to go there, to become the best they could become, and thus would always allow Nonkorean players to participate in tournaments even though their eventual victory might have seemed like a foregone conclusion. Scan has been in a funky position, where he is korean, has benefited from the korean training regiment, but where he has also to some degree been a very valuable community member who communicates in English, so it's tough to compare.
Frankly, and while I have had no part in staff decisions, and where I didn't even know what they were going to end up doing prior to reading your post which makes it pretty clear that Scan won't (fully?) be able to compete in the following TLC tournaments, I have to say that I think it looks like they made the best choice, both at first, and now. Firstly, his level of dominance is a factor - it's the embodiment of the benefit you get from the Korean training regiment and understanding of Korean language and immersion in Korean Brood War culture. Secondly, TL staff didn't, and could not have been expected to, understand how dominant he was prior to the tournament. Now TL staff does, and apparently has changed their mind. I can't but voice my support, and while I was personally registering for these tournaments with the hopes of drawing scan so I could bring some brilliant cheese to the table, I will now be registering for the future tournaments with one less impossible obstacle to pass, and I will be watching these tournaments without being certain of the eventual winner. Good job everyone involved, it's hard to go back on a decision, especially when the people who are forcing you to go back on it are insulting you, but it's clearly the right thing to do.
you realize that between the scan you knew from 2008 and scan nowadays, scan was playing from the States right? I really am interested what allowed him to get better than Pro7ect or any other player. Both played from non-Korea, both are [insert your Korea Korea here]. The way Scan improved is fascinating. I really dislike how people try to blame him speaking Korean for that, like taking away the effort he spent there.
However, I really don't care if he isn't part of the TLC anymore or not - tons of ZvZ finals here we come. No better, no worse, but maybe the crying stops.
I'm not too active anymore at all, but for what it's worth, I think there's a really healthy dose of the pot calling the kettle black going on in your post, amazingxkcd.
You repeatedly call out the community of competitors for their abusive posting, but you do so in the most abusive manner possible. Can you not see that you're doing exactly what you're accusing them of?
"because of what’s about to be announced by the TLC admins. I was and still am fervently against it for a variety of reasons, but let’s not digress from the point of this discussion."
looks like the "ban/handicap Scan" approach. I would prefer to see the "invite korean/BBARAS players into TLC" approach which I feel would be healthier for the entire BW scene in general ( provides practice/exchange opportunities plus gives Scan competition without needing outright ban/handicaps).
Even Chinese BW tourney organizers know not to be dumb to invite only 1 outstanding Korean player (but invite several) so that you can't have just have that 1 player dominate the entire competition
but I understand the final move since they want to retain the "foreigner" tourney status.
you realize that between the scan you knew from 2008 and scan nowadays, scan was playing from the States right? I really am interested what allowed him to get better than Pro7ect or any other player. Both played from non-Korea, both are [insert your Korea Korea here]. The way Scan improved is fascinating. I really dislike how people try to blame him speaking Korean for that, like taking away the effort he spent there.
However, I really don't care if he isn't part of the TLC anymore or not - tons of ZvZ finals here we come. No better, no worse, but maybe the crying stops.
I'd say mostly passion, hard work and talent. In addition Scan seems to be a perfectionist. He wants his timings to be as crisp as possible and always looks for weaknesses in his play.
Being able to speak Korean and, thus, being able to discuss strategies with other Koreans and having access to additional sources (Light's strategy guides come to my mind) should not be underestimated, especially at that level. Not lagging on Fish is also huge.
Btw, playing from the US is not a big issue though. I think you can play on low lat on Fish when you live in California. Could have been a different story if he lived in Bulgaria or Congo.
I don't think there's a reinvigorating effect of the Brood War scene outside of Korea by hosting the TLC. In the end the tournament is only at most what the participants make of the tourney. What will happen when the TLC does inevitably come and go? Only people's enjoyment of playing the game will continue the activity of Brood War. It seems like the purpose of a foreigner only tournament is to exclude Koreans who in the highest tier of players are better than the foreigners. You could achieve the same effect by making a rule that only players C rank (Fish ranking) or below may participate. I don't know a single foreigner who's exceeded C rank on the Korean Fish server. There's a lot of drama that StarCraft is getting destroyed but that's pretentious video gamer banter. What's getting destroyed and how is that going to affect how someone views StarCraft's gameplay? There are some outspoken individuals and only those disgruntled enough are the ones who post online to have their voice be heard. While it seems like their voices are loud enough to make it seem like they represent a good portion of the community they're probably something like a meager 1 percent or even far below. A few or some of those people aren't even good mannered and have a long pattern of obnoxiousness and cognitive bias(me). I'm not saying whether or not Scan should be allowed in the tournament I'm just sayin'. Yah, they do lack a lot of professionalism
games have a life cycle. they have an infancy, a youth, a prime adulthood, an old age and then die just like living things. the aging process is killing Starcraft, not a bunch of guys bickering on this forum. At least they still have enough passion for the game to get angry about circumstances surrounding the game.
The sign of death is no activity at all. Stillness is the antithesis of life.
On August 17 2015 22:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote: video games have a life cycle..
fixed. humanity has not stopped playing chess/weiqi despite their age, and them aging and the introduction of newer games has not subject them to any "killing" process or becoming irrelevant. only internet kids/teens would go about on the "ded gaem" meme.
Judging from how BW is still played relatively frequently in PC Bang I could easily see BW becoming a sort of a "traditional"(akin to yutnori/takji) or retro game in Korea for quite some time.
Personally, I'm just glad something like this is happening and I get to watch Sayle and good old BW every week. Sure koreans are still rigged but I second the notion of getting more than one contender or it just seems pretty impossible for the foreigners. Pro7ect, Bakuryu come back pls!
My personal frustration came from they way people worded things towards staff. But hey, I'm someone who responds well to polite and constructive feedback instead of accusatory and rude. The latter just leaves a bad taste in my mouth where as the former gets me to work with you on any problem. I expect positive attitudes in my personal and business life.
On August 17 2015 22:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote: video games have a life cycle..
fixed. humanity has not stopped playing chess/weiqi despite their age, and them aging and the introduction of newer games has not subject them to any "killing" process or becoming irrelevant. only internet kids/teens would go about on the "ded gaem" meme.
Judging from how BW is still played relatively frequently in PC Bang I could easily see BW becoming a sort of a "traditional"(akin to yutnori/takji) or retro game in Korea for quite some time.
anyway digress.
keep context in mind. the blog is about a PC video game on a site catering to PC video games...if u want me to be much more verbose i would say "Desktop PC videos games with mouse/keyboard input"
a game like baseball or basketball or european football can live forever. however, any desktop PC game will eventually experience a large decrease in popularity as the keyboard/mouse interface is made obsolete by improved interfaces created in the future.
The decline in desktop PC video games with mouse/keyboard input will look something similar to the decline of the coin-op arcade in North America... it won't disappear over night... and there aer still people who play Donkey Kong and Pacman every day... when they die of old age.. they won't be replaced though.
Starcraft's keyboard/mouse interface doomed it to a finite life cycle long before a bunch of guys started squabbling about a tournament.
you realize that between the scan you knew from 2008 and scan nowadays, scan was playing from the States right? I really am interested what allowed him to get better than Pro7ect or any other player. Both played from non-Korea, both are [insert your Korea Korea here]. The way Scan improved is fascinating. I really dislike how people try to blame him speaking Korean for that, like taking away the effort he spent there.
However, I really don't care if he isn't part of the TLC anymore or not - tons of ZvZ finals here we come. No better, no worse, but maybe the crying stops.
I'd say mostly passion, hard work and talent. In addition Scan seems to be a perfectionist. He wants his timings to be as crisp as possible and always looks for weaknesses in his play.
Being able to speak Korean and, thus, being able to discuss strategies with other Koreans and having access to additional sources (Light's strategy guides come to my mind) should not be underestimated, especially at that level. Not lagging on Fish is also huge.
Btw, playing from the US is not a big issue though. I think you can play on low lat on Fish when you live in California. Could have been a different story if he lived in Bulgaria or Congo.
That just underlines what annoys me so much in this conversation. Scan clearly did improve on his own, but people still phrase their posts as if he was some idiot. Basically a lot of jealousy talking, the kid did invest and got something back. Big deal. Others can't do that, no problem. But it's still an achievement. Scan really didn't do anything wrong. Also, in my eyes he is enough to be considered a borderline foreigner - just like Pro7ect, Michael or god knows who else. He is part of our scene for better or worse.
However, he broke out of the foreign/amateur leagues, he simply can't be counted "unprofessional" anymore. The Chinese records speak for themselves. I'm fine with players argueing like that and with any decision to exclude Scan or include other border-line pros like the Chinese or up-and-coming SOSPA stars. Just say so. If you can't, almost all of XKCD's posts about how we portray ourselves to outsiders is entirely correct.
you are implying that popularity of games equates to their interfaces, that games die due to obsolete interfaces/technology
you are forgetting that any game fundamentally exists as concepts and can be translated into different or newer interface/platforms if given enough effort.
all the oldies like tetris/invaders/donkey kong have been remade for all sorts of different consoles other than the old arcade box. yes they are no longer popular but thanks to such efforts they are far from being completely dead.
few can predict the future but who is to say people won't play Starcraft on their VR machines hundreds years later?
the problem with a new interface is the community disagreements about how the new interface should be mapped to the original and what constitutes cheating... the only way to get people to agree is to stick with the original interface...
take a look at the disagreements already arising in the community over far less fundamental things than how an individual user interacts with the game... for example the disagreements being highlighted in this very blog... if people can't agree on stuff like this... forget about getting universal agreement mapping a new interface to the game
and SC has a very complex interface. even Pacman does not feel the same without a physical joystick man.
when the mouse and keyboard disappears PC games including SC will go with it.. which is why Billionaire Gabe is making Steam controllers... it is Valve/Steams thin end of the wedge.
hmmm,hey Mr Amazingxcd i have news for you.i have contributed more for bw than you(with games,with cast,helping players,teaching them,sending replays,sharing replays,playing in many non money tournaments show matches and leagues.but actually i also sponsored by my self my team to play in teamleagues,its been me the the only one that always pay for iFU to be in the money teamleagues,oh wait also i sponsored some defiler tours,some minitours,hell i even donate for streamers... . now cuz your bw lvl is terrible that you arent abble to see a shit from what u looking in the games i gonna help you,in my series vs Scan the first game was 12h vs 9p,if you didnt know 9p is the hard counter for 12h from here everything ok right ? now if the 9p player is skiping speed and goes for lair is not hard counter but is actually game over,at the lvl we are it is,i dont know in D ranks maybe u can keep playing.
2 game:This game was a zvt i was doing 2h muta,as you see 2h muta is a build where u need to contain the terran player killing his first army very fast and keep the pressure in the game.Well it happens that the latency was so bad that my micro muta was totally off,everytime i tryed to attack the game made a lag spike and the mutalisk bug and didnt attack.They were moving like valkiries.now if u dont understand this go play 1v1 vs computers and make some valkiries and try to control it,im saying this cuz you are big ignorant in the game that is spoking himself without any knowledge.
in the third game i made a move that i tend to do very often in my stream,sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt,with the bad latency i was having in the game there was not pleasure for me to play more than necesary vs scan,i saw one opportunity i took it,it failed GG.
if i remember well Bisudagger was hosting some kind of clanwar of 3 players vs 3 players all kill style it was Cryoc Dsaqwe and me, at the end cryoc all killed all the oponents,and me and Dsaqwe didnt even ask to get that prize..
Now i dont understand how you are not still banned from this forum.i find it pathetic you insulting others players,Plz come to Trutacz Lan i will like to fix the problems with you in real ok? no forums insults is for pathetic people...
pd:dont come with you are doing alot with snipealot streams.you cant actually do a sh*t,it is alexandous the one that does everything and u need wait for him,thats why snipealots streams are now only showing Nada -_-
EPT
While in the past, we always wanted to encourage nonkorean players to go there, to become the best they could become, and thus would always allow Nonkorean players to participate in tournaments even though their eventual victory might have seemed like a foregone conclusion. Scan has been in a funky position, where he is korean, has benefited from the korean training regiment, but where he has also to some degree been a very valuable community member who communicates in English, so it's tough to compare.
