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I respect the direction for TSL and personally didn't expect a big shot sponsorship like Shopify to pay any attention to Brood War. I'm ok with that and more importantly very grateful that you guys do sponsor a few of our already community driven tournaments. We as a community are trying to address the Viewer and growth issues through the CPL, as well as work on improving the learning resources that I want to eventually translate back to liquipedia.
Currently, the foreign Brood War community is small and we feel like we couldn't put on a show worthy of the TSL legacy. And that's not on you guys, that's on us. I grew up with TSL so if I can't do a great job with it, I'd rather not do it at all. And that's pretty much where we stand.
When you say this do you mean that because we aren't as big of a community that the show you would produce would be lacking in viewers and sponsors, or that you wouldn't be able to organize this tournament with the same level of play through the foreigner scene?
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Hej Julmust. Appreciate your response on this! And I think I understand what you mean. Economically. Lifewise. Staffwise. Sounds like you really found your place. And unless Elon Musk happens to love Broodwar, enjoyed Combat ex vs Chill then that's just the way it is when it comes to the moneys.
I have some thoughts on the current scene that I wanna vent/spread though. I think the community life has changed, for new players TL is more a resource than a community. Discords has a very homey feel to it compared battle.net channels and gaming community websites. CPL has grown to 1000 users. This season there's maybe 150-200 participating. They have admins and casters. They've had that natural growth, people seem to have grown into positions of responsibilty, helping out. A similar journey people made to TL or GG.net and people are what later on become staff/ important community members. So I think TL is in a different place, but it's also because new players, admins,casters etc don't grow into TL or GG.net. They grow into CPL, other discords or do their own thing on YT or Twitch.
So sponsoring and helping the scene where there's energy and motivation. I couldn't agree more there. TL remains a important part of it, Liquipedia will forever be a first what new players are linked to. But perhaps the time, energy, staff for organizing BW things simply hasn't been reinforced in TL, that has taken it's own shapes and forms elsewhere. Had those people been a part of TL staff perhaps it'd be a different discussion today.
I'm still getting impressed on a daily basis on how much BW action there is and people creating stuff now that I've found the discords.
Sc2 players way to broodwar is likely: 1. play sc2. 2. Watch Artosis, for example him for a couple of weeks trying to qualify for BSL in front of 1000+ viewers. 3. play SC:R or go to r/broodwar. 4. Be recommended to join the discords for newbies, check liquipedia.
Old school players way back to BW is likely: 1. Play SC:R with old friends. 2. Check TL or Twitch.
r/broodwar is not a community. Just some info and discussion. Battle.net channels are pretty cold. The Discords bring life to it in a very different way.
I think the discords are where new players find community. Old school players probably just do what they've always done. And CPL probably feels a bit weird as they are self made proud knowledgable "pro:s". Maybe it's not for them. But I've chatted with some of em on Twitch. They watch old mates stream. They talk to current top players.
The influx is small, comparing to what's normally described as an influx. But in percentage the increase for what the BW scene has been since 2018, it's probably pretty big. The corona and this influx of new and old players is probably the timing window where things could be done. If TL wants to that is. Could they do more than sponsor the current scene? It could be just a TL:attack. Copy the korean streamer scene, create a foreigner sponmatch thing? If it stays alive it could create some drama. create another part of the current scene. It could be a something new. Something small. It could very likely be in cooperation with the structures that are already in motion(CPL, STPL, BWCL, BSL) Rapid is baking cookies, sitting up at night with Nyoken to cast BSL. Cadenzie is in Seoul, friends with top players. She coaches in CPL. Eri stays Eri. Testie gives streaming broodwar a taste, then gets called a maphacker, restarts his computer...
For money there's not much to do. But I'm convinced that now is the time for the biggest effect in helping the Foreigner scene. I'm just a somewhat oldschool noob Protoss looking for meaning in his corona life. Creating some with CPL. Considering joining the liquipedia team or help out there if needed. I'm not staff. I'm not a name on TL. These are just words. But among TL staff, is someone from there partaking in all these new things in the current BW scene?
I think that's all I have to say. Now another coffee and DT rush. Good luck with TSL5! I'll check in for some quality production and nostalgia Take care!
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TLADT24920 Posts
On April 24 2020 23:12 v1 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2020 21:28 EsportsJohn wrote:On April 24 2020 19:57 kogeT wrote:On April 24 2020 10:14 EsportsJohn wrote:On April 24 2020 04:20 Julmust wrote:On April 23 2020 21:58 BisuDagger wrote: Would TL get behind putting their name on an online only TSL for BW? If prize money (maybe 15k?) and staff could be put together by community members for the tournament, would TL be able to help through the creation of graphics and promotional videos? So while I don't want to completely shoot you down, I'm going to be completely honest with you: that's no small feat you're asking for. The most glaring issue is the prize pool. Getting a15k prize pool is a BIG investment. And I'm not talking from partners, I'm talking about work needed from the organizing staff. No one is going to give you a significant investment. While I'm super happy with the partners we've managed to secure for TSL 5 (to be announced tomorrow), I'm also fully aware that they won't come back unless we can provide them with some value. That's still possible in SC2 but with the viewing numbers you'll get for a BW event... I wouldn't say it's not possible but it's so much harder. You'd have to lower the amount you ask from each partner while maintaining the same standard. That means you have to work a lot harder. You'll need a big staff of people with, at the very least some, account managing background. I don't want to seem overly negative so I won't get into other, smaller, issues. But believe me when I say this: I've just gone through getting a TSL off the ground. Take the amount of work you think it is and multiply that z3-5, and that's the actual work required. I have a rather big group of people helping me right now and if even one of them would go away, my workload would increase by an insane amount. I think you're underestimating how many people in the BW community would work really hard for something like that. I like to point to Qikz as someone who has impressively created his own graphics, overlays, and promo videos while at the same time managing a league and weekly casts while experiencing a negative return. BisuDagger has also put together several tournaments and showmatches himself, so he's not completely blind to the amount of work that goes into that sort of thing. We actually have a ton of individuals in the community who are quite experienced with tournament organization, moreso than maybe any other esports community. It's okay to recognize that BW probably doesn't have a great return on investment, but it's a community that has ached to get something going for close to 10 years since the collapse of Kespa. You admit that it's not an impossibility. I urge you to look into it further, talk to people like ZZZero, Qikz, BisuDagger, CasterMuse, and others to get a better idea of how an infrastructure could be built with the resources we have available. Don't forget Rus_Brain and the whole Russian community. Definitely! My mistake! It's not yours, but Bigfans I can't be held responsible for what john posts!
On April 25 2020 08:28 GTR wrote: do you guys have any viewing statistics for bsl/cc last year? because if i was a prospective sponsor, i wouldn't put in $15,000 of prize money for a tournament that doesn't peak at over 1000 viewers concurrently.
you'll have to be super realistic here. I feel like you're missing BD's point. He's not saying we need a sponsor, but he's saying that if the community did manage to get the money (how? doesn't matter here), would the TL organization help with graphics and promotional content for the TSL or will the community be on its own?
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To be completly honest, i got a little annoyed when i read this because there are so many ways TSL could help to make the community a growth bump, there will always be audience no matter what in this game.
On April 23 2020 18:30 Julmust wrote: Currently, the foreign Brood War community is small and we feel like we couldn't put on a show worthy of the TSL legacy. And that's not on you guys, that's on us. I grew up with TSL so if I can't do a great job with it, I'd rather not do it at all. And that's pretty much where we stand.
What I read: "There are to few of you, plus most of the active player pool are not good enough that we can't expect any good games that are interesting, so we're not gonna make it happen - with all due respect."
Anyway I'm sure you want to bring out the best of another BW TSL - with some good preparation like informing about a possible BW TSL a head of time and have rigorous qualifiers.. Personally I belive it can be both good and entertaining, we do still have a fair amount of skilled players.
But now we know, TSL BW is over, thanks for the information!
Side note: I think that this post was a mistake, just my honest opinion - I think it would be better just to kept the lid on this subject.
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Hyrule18937 Posts
It likely has more to do with money. A small scene means smaller viewer counts and thus less potential return. Hiring the right casting team and paying everybody who needs to work on a full production tournament needs ROI.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On April 29 2020 05:00 tofucake wrote: It likely has more to do with money. A small scene means smaller viewer counts and thus less potential return. Hiring the right casting team and paying everybody who needs to work on a full production tournament needs ROI.
On April 28 2020 06:16 BigFan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2020 08:28 GTR wrote: do you guys have any viewing statistics for bsl/cc last year? because if i was a prospective sponsor, i wouldn't put in $15,000 of prize money for a tournament that doesn't peak at over 1000 viewers concurrently.
you'll have to be super realistic here. I feel like you're missing BD's point. He's not saying we need a sponsor, but he's saying that if the community did manage to get the money (how? doesn't matter here), would the TL organization help with graphics and promotional content for the TSL or will the community be on its own?
Edit: either way, I tend to echo the post above yours. I think bringing this up was a mistake because you aren't going to make any fans with the post imo.
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Hyrule18937 Posts
I'm not sure if you're addressing me?
I had to hop into a work call and hit submit instead of reviewing my post first (because I am dumb) and it definitely needs to be worded better. ROI is not in terms of only money, but also what it does for the scene. Running a tournament poorly (including coverage and all) is worse than not running it, imo. Especially when there are other options for fans (ASL, BSL, BWCL, etc) and the option of not doing it doesn't mean there's nothing else.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On April 29 2020 05:36 tofucake wrote: I'm not sure if you're addressing me?
I had to hop into a work call and hit submit instead of reviewing my post first (because I am dumb) and it definitely needs to be worded better. ROI is not in terms of only money, but also what it does for the scene. Running a tournament poorly (including coverage and all) is worse than not running it, imo. Especially when there are other options for fans (ASL, BSL, BWCL, etc) and the option of not doing it doesn't mean there's nothing else. Yep. Your post seemed to imply that it was about ROI, but let's face it, the community is small and a lot of those that put money, time and effort into things do it because they want to and aren't expecting a large return on their investment. When I started putting a lot of my time into covering BW and then leading the team, I wasn't doing it for any money. I was really passionate and wanted to give back to the community as much as possible. I know a lot of other staff feel the same way as well.
As for running the tournament, I think you are forgetting that the BW community is full of organizers. This is a hardcore community. On top of that, TL BW Staff also ran TLC for 5+ months straight and the TLS:C. While the scale is not the same, I can guarantee you that if a BW TSL was to be held and you needed any help, you'll have a lot of people, both staff and non-staff step up to make it the best possible. I agree that bad coverage and writing a tournament poorly is bad in and of itself, but I just highly doubt it'll happen considering this community.
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Hyrule18937 Posts
Yeah I didn't mean strictly in terms of money, but in total benefit (hence my comment about being dumb). Maybe "bad coverage" too? "A certain expected level of polish in coverage and something sub-par" is better phrasing?
But yeah I know there's a lot of volunteers out there (e.g. the majority of TL staff for the past 20 years). I wasn't trying to knock anyone, just give my line of thought on why it wouldn't be done right now.
Also most importantly I want to note that I'm not an admin, employee, investor, or someone in any other position to see any monetary ROI from running tournaments under the TL brand nor was I soliciting money from anyone. I've spent my time (and continue to contribute several minutes per week) entirely as a volunteer because I love the game. I think I may have also just explained to myself why I'm wrong, so that's a nice bonus too.
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United States4883 Posts
Regardless of what our opinion is on how it could be funded, the problem I see here is a lack of effort. There's an immense amount of talent and experience in this community, and we haven't even been given the chance to talk about it or give our input.
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Set up a broodwar revival team? Check the interest, ability and time from community members?
Corona keeps a lot of us at home. And moneywise I agree. A kickstarter would likely work.
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I would donate a few hundred dollars for a big BW event. Would there be more people willing to do the same?
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On April 29 2020 09:39 EsportsJohn wrote: Regardless of what our opinion is on how it could be funded, the problem I see here is a lack of effort. There's an immense amount of talent and experience in this community, and we haven't even been given the chance to talk about it or give our input.
Don't take this personal, but then deliver a use case, a proof of concept.
It's 2020, if there is so much potential lying around, start to develope a similar tournament, even if it doesn't involve the brand TSL. Request money off esport.fund or crowd fund, activate the quoted talent and experience and see where you get. Then point out what help could be provided and analyze if it's really possible to expand.
I can see why TL / the OP doesn't go towards the BW population, at least based on ten years working behind the scenes. For every Qikz who starts to actually do something, you have a fifty vocal posters who request and then maybe do something with one tenth of the energy that's required.
While I understand the nostalgia flaring up, especially when you were around for TSL1/2, I don't get why it has to be exactly that over again, it's not like most re-boots live up to the expectation anyway. Right now, you have STPL, BWCL, BSL and RCG2020 around the corner. How about offering those help and create a new story, rather than dwell on the past?
at the poster above:
RCG 2020 matcherino: https://matcherino.com/tournaments/23542/ (15k and RCG2021 will happen) BSL patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Bombastic STPL matcherino: https://matcherino.com/tournaments/26983/overview
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