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On November 12 2009 05:50 OneOther wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2009 05:41 duckett wrote:On November 12 2009 05:13 Xeris wrote:On November 12 2009 05:01 MorningMusume11 wrote:
I'm a "merc" too, I should've organized a Va. Tech team but decided to play for New River because:
1. My friends are playing for them (Valtyr, CaucasianAsian (who goes to Radford))
2. I thought the point of CSL is to just to try to have fun playing other people in SC in different colleges because we enjoy the game right?
Coming into this thing I didn't care about getting into the playoffs really. This is just something I really wanted to do before I graduated and I'm having fun + getting better in SC in the process. I'm like the 2nd best player in the team too, and honestly, despite breaking a keyboard and a pair of headphones because of playing real bad, I'm just thankful that I even got to play at all.
The point IS to have fun playing other people in different colleges. But another point is also to have a competitive college sporting atmosphere... in which case mercing is totally pointless. This is a collegiate starleague, not a collegiate funleague, not a state-league, not a friends-league. Starleague implies a certain element of professionalism and competition that we're trying to uphold. And yes, as I said before - we didn't envision mercing to be a huge issue and that mercs would be fundamental to the success of a team. We thought it would be just a few players mercing for a few teams due to special circumstances (I.E Fana's crazy situation with Rutgers/Cornell/Ithaca)... now Fana's even twisted his initial argument and is arguing to just have a net inclusion of mercs for the sake of equalizing competition, when in fact mercing has noticeably affected the standings adversely (I.E, Rutgers makes playoffs due to mercing, Princeton possibly makes playoffs due to mercing), when in a non-merc situation your team would NOT have made the playoffs. The guy you keep mentioning as Princeton's ace who doesn't go to Princeton is Magenus, aka Dave. Of the 8-10 people associated with the starcraft team at Princeton, Dave is one of the most dedicated; he comes to every practice psyched and ready to engage, he watches opponents' reps and helps us put together strategies, and he's always willing to participate in a long email conversation about the details of drop locations on outsider, or any other mundane matchup specific issue. He's put a lot of time and a lot of spirit into our team, even though he doesn't go to our school, and I see him more than a lot of the people on our team (im looking at you yang >.>). I think it would be kind of ridiculous to exclude people like him just because he goes to school 5 minutes away. I thought the purpose of this league as "collegiate" was less a matter of school spirit and pride and more a matter of a few shared characteristics of our lives that happened to encourage the creation of a really communal group of gamers. We all go to college, and we have some time to spend playing; we all are rooted each team to a few square miles of territory, so we can get together really easily; and we all really enjoy this game. CSL for me and I'm sure a ton of other D+ players like me means getting together with the magical materialization of an online community that shares your (somewhat obscure) interest...denying this aspect to a few people based on college pride smells like bullshit. I'm glad the poll is tilting so heavily toward inclusion. On a related note, I think we should open a new thread with a poll on changing the name to "collegiate funleague." I completely understand what you are saying about Magneus. But the disadvantages and potential problems outweigh unique situations like that (many were discussed in Magneus himself's post). That is why I am against mercing. The reason why this league has been successful and alive is the competition. People want to win. Teams care. They dedicate the time to prepare strategies in order to take home the victory. All of us Duke students were yelling and having tons of fun against Georgia Tech because we wanted to BEAT them. We loved the competition for the number one spot in our division. Have you ever played a basketball game where it's just for "fun"? It is worthless. If you take that competitive aspect out of the league, I don't see it going anywhere. Teams sign up because they want to FUN, but in the end, the competition is what keeps this as strong as it is now. It's important to create the right balance of competition and fun. EDIT: Xeris brings up a very good point. Magneus can still do all of the things you listed even if he can't play in the matches themselves. He's still part of the team and the atmosphere.
Yeah of course you would talk about basketball, cuz thats what they're only good at apparently =P j/k
I <3 you Ray ^^
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On November 12 2009 05:47 Xeris wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2009 05:38 DaisyP wrote:On November 12 2009 05:23 Xeris wrote:On November 12 2009 05:21 DaisyP wrote:On November 12 2009 03:35 Xeris wrote:
I am voting no. Here are two background reasons:
A) You are biased because you are a merc.
B) The other people in management (Mona and Yang) are from Princeton, whose top player is also not a Princeton student.
Now, here are my anti-points to your reasons why the rule should be removed.
1) By Riverside do you mean New River Community College? It is an unfortunate circumstance that some teams have been driven by their merc players. Think about it from this perspective. If a team gets to the playoffs solely because it used players who aren't even from that school, does that school really deserve to be in the playoffs? That just seems counter-intuitive. Next, I think you are looking at this from the wrong perspective. Think less like professional sports, and more in terms of NCAA and other college-level competition. Let's say I am a basketball player at UCLA. I <3 USC's basketball team, I'm good friends with all the players, train with them, etc. But can I play for their team? No. I'm bound by the school I actually go to. It totally defies the point of college sports to have a team be good ONLY because outsiders are playing on that team (this is why college teams don't have ringers).
Sorry if this sounds harsh but if Rutgers or whatever team has only gotten to the playoffs by using mercs, you probably shouldn't be in the playoffs.
2) I think this post is flawed. Think about what the average skill level of CSL is (between D and D+). You, as a merc who is above C- level are better than probably 90% of the league. This gives Rutgers a really unfair advantage. Look at Princeton. Their merc player is 4-0 (or 4-1). Would Princeton have been able to get those 4 crucial points if they weren't using a C- player who doesn't even go to Princeton? Would they be in a playoff position without him?
You can't use the argument that because there are good teams that will own you anyways - mercing should be allowed. Think about it from the other team's perspective. How do you think other teams feel losing to Rutgers because they used players who don't even go to the school? Let's say I'm some newb at Binghampton (sorry), getting pumped up to play vs Rutgers, only to be beaten by someone who doesn't even go to that school. My thought: "shit we lost to Rutgers, oh wait, no we didn't we lost to some random kid, GO CSL!"
So while in essence your point is true that since the top teams (who you will be playing in the first round) have B- players, and your C- merc skills can't beat them... think about the people you have denied a playoff opportunity because your C- merc skills were too good for their D rank players.
3) This is again a good point, but think about it from this perspective. You're probably a lot better than the players you've played against (let's be honest, your division is really weak). So you mercing for Rutgers is in fact just as "unfair" as someone like Nony beating up on newbs. It's no fun for D players to get owned by C players, especially those who don't even go to the school they're playing for.
From the standpoint of having a fun experience playing the CSL, I agree wholeheartedly. But from the standpoint of actual competition, I think it's totally unfair to allow mercing. Again, because teams that have relied on mercs and make the playoffs are not representative of the actual skill level of the school, and as such, are unfair from a competitive standpoint. It's just a coincidence that many B- players happen to go to Duke, you're essentially saying that Rutgers requires mercs to have even a slim chance at competing against Duke... but then that'll create a big cycle of shit.
I.E, newbs at Binghampton want mercs to compete with Rutgers, then everyone wants some mercs to compete with everyone else, and eventually every team has mercs, and the entire POINT of CSL is destroyed.
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SO. Despite the fact that I think it's unfortunate that you've worked hard to get your team to the playoffs and had a lot of fun through the whole process of the CSL, it sets a really bad precedent to allow mercs like this. It will set off a cycle of mercing and trying to stay competitive that will be detrimental to the league.
This is not a friends league. CSL teams aren't clans of friends who are competing together. It's a league for college teams, and having players on your team who don't even go to your school just defies the whole point of the league. It's like... say you're some white kid who <3's Korea... no matter how much Korean you know, or how many of your friends are Korean, and how much of their culture you try to imitate, you will never actually be Korean.
Furthermore, I think your entire argument and post is really selfish. You're only looking at the teams above you and not the 37 other teams who are NOT making the playoffs. So for a few select teams, your argument makes a lot of sense. For the vast majority of the ~600 people who are registered CSL players, your argument is baseless and selfish.
For this reason, despite the fact that I feel bad for you and a few other teams like Princeton, whose success has been based off of mercing, I'm going to have to argue against you.
While I would agree that rules should not be changed until after the season (and thus, mercers should not be allowed to play in the playoffs), I think that xeris' post is absolutely pointless. It seems to me that he completely disagrees with the mercing system, but the fact of the matter is that it exists. There seems to be an inherent flaw in logic or values to, on the one hand allow mercing, but on the other hand not allow it only in the playoffs due to the reasons that xeris brings up. (What I mean to say is that Xeris' arguments against mercing apply to both the regular season AS WELL as the playoffs. However, clearly the current majority opinion by the people that run the csl is that they somehow don't apply only to the regular season. As a result, something about what Xeris is saying is wrong in the eyes of the majority opinion of the administration.) Actually every CSL admin agrees with me. On top of that, azndsh and Darthienan have even posted their agreement here, and we've been discussing it internally and they agree with me. So I'm not sure what your post is trying to say :p Sorry. Let me rewrite what I meant to say without guessing what other people are thinking: If this is how all of the csl administration is thinking (i. e. your reasoning in the first post), then it was obviously a HUGE mistake to allow mercing in the first place. However, since mercing was in place this season, there seems to be a legitimate argument for allowing mercing in the playoffs (due to consistency). I'm not arguing here out of a desire to win, and I actually don't think that the rules should be changed within this season. However, I don't believe that you (Xeris) should be writing as you are, pretending you are somehow completely in the logical right, while Fana's arguments are simply "whining" (in your own words). There is a completely legit basis on which to argue that the system this season is currently contradictory, because it seems to me like it is, and nothing you've written so far alleviates this. If you're talking about consistency, how about read the rule we have on mercing, which CLEARLY states "allowed in season, but not in playoffs" . That is consistency, because we're following it
So then, in this strand of thinking, it comes down to a consistency in rules vs a consistency in values. The decision seems an arbitrary one. I don't think you're in a spot to be an asshole, and belittle the problems other people have with your errors in administration, dismissing them as "whining."
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I think if this is a truly collegiate competition, mercs shouldn't be allowed at all. I don't know all that much about the CSL, but if friends and city-dwellers are allowed to play it might as well be the "city starleague". The point of dividing teams by college is that people go to those colleges.
The positive side of this being fan-run is that rules can be adjusted for niceness or fairness or whatever, but a 'HARDCORE LEGIT CSL' would have no mercs.
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It's not as if we're flipping some magic switch, kicking him off the Princeton campus and telling him to go find his own team. 
So let's summarize:
1) All the admins support either the current rule, or a complete removal of mercing.
2) Most of the discussion (aside from the amount of times I've posted) favors 'no'
3) Most of the votes say 'yes' (but aren't vocal supporters, probably just reading the op post and voting yes)
4) Prominent players who are mercs are even supporting the 'no' option.
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Voted yes. If you allowed them in the regular season they should be allowed in the playoffs. If you don't want people playing for universities they don't attend, then don't allow this 'free agency' rule in the first place. It's incredibly inconsistent to just do a 180 and change the policy for the playoffs.
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I'm more interested in what the coordinators / schools / players have to say, since I speak from a somewhat biased (and, in a cheesy way, blessed) position of having the fortune to meet our own free agent.
What I don't like about the current rule is that it's a rather crude safety valve that activates at Ro16, kicking out any teams that have depended on outside recruits. The safety valve should probably activate sooner, and in a finer way.
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On November 12 2009 05:59 Dknight wrote:
Voted yes. If you allowed them in the regular season they should be allowed in the playoffs. If you don't want people playing for universities they don't attend, then don't allow this 'free agency' rule in the first place. It's incredibly inconsistent to just do a 180 and change the policy for the playoffs.
This is a valid point - however in sticking with consistency it would be a bad idea to change the rule... and what will I hope happen is a total elimination of mercing next season because it's caused too many problems.
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Point of interest: why is this discussion being held here as opposed to at cstarleague, or even by email amongst coordinators and schools?
I personally like the idea of having free agents/mercs, because it allows more people to play that wouldn't have a chance to do so otherwise. It's possible for someone to be dedicated to a team and yet not participate in it, but the strongest bonding/friendship/team unity happens when you actually have players that have a common mission, and who cheer each other on and are cheered for. From a community-building perspective, I'd rather be able to see that continue than not, as it simply brings the SC community closer.
My simple suggestion is as follows: if free agents are recruited to a school, you can only field at most 1 free agent per week, limited to playing 1 set.
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1. The rules regarding free agents shouldn't be changed when we are almost finished with the season.
2. As for future seasons, either keep the current system or don't allow free agents at all. Having free agents in the playoffs would completely undermine the spirit of a collegiate league.
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Xeris brings up a good point in the cycle of mercenaries playing for their teams in the playoffs. In a coordinator position, I would want to get the best players as possible to instill a winning atmosphere; nobody likes losing. I could have gotten a few players from another nearby school that are about C level, but I did not register them, knowing that they would be disallowed for the playoffs, and our team crashing out of the first round would be such a big letdown to the whole team, while the mercenaries couldn't do anything about the situation.
No one can determine a person's iCCup rank if they don't ladder much, don't have an account, or has multiple accounts that the person will not tell the administrators about. Even if the person divulges all information, mercenaries play a big role in whether a team makes the playoffs or not; a situation like this was not thought of by the administrators. A mercenary is probably the better player than their fourth member of the school team.
Also, I do not like the fact that schools sign up many players, but only play a select few players play every week, but that is just a pet peeve of mine, nothing to be concerned about here.
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I think we need to just re-examine the way we do free-agency.
I guess it's too late for this season, but for next season (assuming there will be one) I suggest a different system.
First of all I think we can all agree that any college student in North America, no matter what skill level, deserves a chance to play on a CSL team.
Perhaps instead of having players be "free agents" when their own school does not have enough players to fill out a lineup, I propose we allow different schools to bond together and form joint teams. This is basically what we already do, but we just need to look at it in a different light.
For instance if School A has 3 people who want to play in the CSL and school B has 2 people who want to play, then they would form a joint "School A/School B" team, instead of "players from school B are playing for School A".
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding exactly how free agents such as fana are handled, but I think the way we should do it is that if a school has more than 4 players(maybe 5?), they should not be allowed to combine with another school for a team. After we have a list of schools who are large enough, we can (and by we I guess I mean CSL admins LOL) have remaining schools with under 4 players join together by region to form new teams (and of course, every player on any team would be allowed to play in the play-offs).
Again I'm not exactly sure how free agents are handled in CSL ATM because my team has never dealt with them, but I think this model or something like it would be the best way to handle players on schools without a large enough team.
I still believe that as long as you let free agents play on teams during the regular season you should let them play in the playoffs. Perhaps it is "wrong" the way free agents are handled ATM, but as long as they are allowed to participate in the regular season there's no reason they shouldn't be allowed in the play-offs. By playing in the regular season they already messed up "true" teams from reaching the playoffs. I don't know about everyone else, but I personally would be more upset to see the team I lost to in the regular season lose horribly in playoffs because they can't use their best players than to see them win in the playoffs with their good players.
Not letting them play in the playoffs is just some sort of half-assed rule to somehow regulate "free agency abuse." It doesn't stop teams from putting good players not from their school on their lineup and then it just screws over teams that clearly ARNET abusing it by not even letting them in the playoffs.
CSL is a blast, and every brood war playing student should be able to participate.
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Korea (South)11568 Posts
I am a free agent / mercenary for New River Community College. I came into the league knowing that even if New River makes it to the playoffs that I would not play. For me, it's a fun league that allows me to meet new people in my local area who like playing starcraft, and I get to play competitive games (yay!)
I have no problem not playing in the playoffs if we magically beat Georgia Tech. I think everyone on my team (Valtyr, MorningMusume11) knew that we'd play in the groups and just play to improve our skill and make friends in the area in a game we all love. Winning CSL isn't as important, sure winning one game or two was the goal, as winning is just... fun! Anything else is well, a bonus.
Georgia Tech will advance no matter their match with us.
I think teams should allow mercenaries. But they should not be able to participate in play offs, such as the rule is now. I think if Starcraft was more defined as an e-Sport and there were official teams/games that the university/college accepts and supports then it would be a different situation. But the way it is now, I think merc. should be allowed to play, but not in playoffs.
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On November 12 2009 06:35 Ideas wrote:
First of all I think we can all agree that any college student in North America, no matter what skill level, deserves a chance to play on a CSL team.
I don't agree with that. Of course it would be great if everyone could play, but if a school can't put together a team it's reasonable to not allow players from that school to participate.
Also I'd like to add that I don't have a problem with the current system. I think it's a decent compromise.
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I winced at the merc rule when I first read the CSL+ rules and I think it should be gone next season. That said, let the current mercs play in the playoffs. The current teams have specific stars and identities that shouldn't be changed for the playoffs, the best team in a season should win, but they should remake the league without mercs next season.
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Voted "NO." Wow, I didn't even know this merc system was allowed. I have to say, I feel somewhat robbed knowing that I lost to someone who doesn't even go to that school. Seriously, where do we draw the line? I guess I'll just apply all my Korean fob friends who don't go to my school and see how well we do.
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I feel a better question for the OP to have asked would be: Is the current system flawed.
It's easily seen by the discussion so far that the entirety of the discussion participants would've voted yes. Therefore, I believe that the discussion should begin floating away from the topic of should current free agents be allowed to play in the playoffs (which apparently is being answered with a resounding no, even though I feel that if New River beat us they should have a legitimate chance to play in the playoffs due to their special circumstances) to what should the free agent rule be next year. I know the discussion has already begun getting forced into that direction, but I feel as though I should reinforce this idea.
I personally agree with Ideas, we need a system which allows at least the vast majority of collegiate Starcraft players a chance to play in this league. And when I say play, I mean to actually participate. As someone who has yet to play a game in the CSL this season due to my inability at the game of Starcraft, I know that it is still fun to go to a centralized location and root on people that are your friends (or enemies, in the case of Ideas... ) as they try and beat another team. However, it is obvious that teams that cannot field enough players will unfortunately be left out of the league. While allowing collections of two schools to play under one banner would probably be the best way to maximize the number of players, I feel it would be a great injustice to the players who are "mercing" to be placed with a team that is farther away from their current school. This means that they have less personal contact with the other players on the team and less fun overall.
Of course, not allowing "mercing" lowers the participation in the CSL to only schools where an existence of a decent Starcraft talent pool is. I feel that the rule to allow smaller schools to play should also include the condition that the schools be close enough for the players to meet at a face-to-face basis to increase the feeling of representation within the league. Of course, I would also have to agree with the fact that there should probably be a player restriction on "mercing" that way extremely skilled players from two schools don't take up the place of some lesser skilled players (like if we [Ga Tech] merged with Emory, there would never be any hope of some players on Ga Tech playing).
So what I am proposing is to try and aim the discussion at: - maximizing player base to allow everyone a chance to at least participate in the CSL,
- maximizing player interaction with their team by increasing the capability to meet by lowering the distances between schools, and
- limiting the potential for extreme powerhouses by disallowing two teams with deep player pools from combining to create a superteam.
If the CSL admins can find a way to efficiently and fairly implement these three ideas, I feel as though this "mercing" debacle will turn into a system that is fair and allows everyone an equal chance to participate without putting TOO much importance on winning (although winning is definitely fun).
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I'm confused as to why this mercing system exists in the first place. Yes, it sucks to not have enough people at your school interested in the game to start a team. I go to the wonderfully non-StarCraft oriented University of New Haven. I'm literally a block around the corner from Yale who had a team last year (not sure if they do this year), and I talked with one or two of the guys from the Yale team last season (Hi Dullahan). But I'm not going to go over and try and play for Yale because my school doesn't have the people necessary to form a team. It's the same as a team sport. My school just got football back this year, but if we didn't it's not like the guys could've gone over and tried out for Yale. It just doesn't work that way.
I voted "No." because on principle, if Yale, for example, makes the playoffs on the back of a merc, it's not really Yale in the playoffs, it's that merc.
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This would be so much easier in a high school league lol Students that do not have a certain sports team in their school are allowed to go play for another school as long as they go to a school in the area, which fana would qualify for if this was high school but o well
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EPT
