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On November 14 2008 22:04 IdrA wrote:
they outa pay for the players trip to the national finals also. 250$ for a plane ticket (that has to be last minute since they give you 0 notice) plus all your food and stuff for the weekend means that anyone who doesnt live in-state or doesnt get top 3 is going at a loss.
get rid of the idiotic childish FREE STUFF! shit on stage and use that money to pay for it.
Was it just me or was the FREE STUFF ... stuff ... a little on the frightening side? They had this huge mob of kids worked into a fucking bloodlust over xbox memory cards and prima guides...
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On November 13 2008 04:01 {88}iNcontroL wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2008 03:45 Kennigit wrote:
Before i start i'll just say that i think this is a really good idea but for those who post - the most important thing is SOLUTIONS. We all know the issues with hacks, last minute maps etc, but from an organizational perspective the solutions are the most important part.
1) If someone is a known hacker in amateur starcraft leagues with legitimate proof, or there is evidence to suggest they have hacked in WCG prelims in the past then they should not be allowed to participate. How would this be determined? Perhaps have a couple refs who's main focus is removing hackers - these things can never be 100%, but this is a tournament not the court. I don't expect WCG organizers to stay on top of who has been caught hacking etc but there should be some format where they can take information from sites like Teamliquid/WGT/Gosugamers etc that "know" what is going on.
i'll add more when i get back from work.
Note also ill be deleting any crap posts from this thread with great fervor. This was an issue I discussed with them specifically. The issue was marketing and the detachment from reality on their behalf. They were worried about persecuting a person wrongfully and catching flak for not having hard proof when they banned a player from WCG. Without going into names I think we all know the situation we are talking about. I informed them that in its current state SC cannot rely on physical proof to root out its malevolent players. We rely on a jury by community. That speaks to the issue that WCG needs a person connected with SC to be their person "on the ground" and making informed decisions based on how SC is ran these days.
as for the banning can't they just put the person's name and info on a permanent ban list?
also aren't most hacks obvious? I thought there were lot of anit hack programs to check for these stuff...
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Id really like to know how many of you have ever claimed to have run a tournament or a tournament organization of that magnitude?
While you have some valid points, i dont think anyone is considering the backgrounds of how events like these even come to be.
Complaining about why WCG uses bad or not so popular games is worthless. Those bad games pay for games like SC to even still be around.
Complaining about those freebies on stage and those rabid people is absolutely stupid. Sponsors care most for those rabid fans, not the gamers. Those rabid fans are the ones who will buy their products, not the whiny pros.
Its not that different in any professional sport. You think game rule changes are because players whine? Uh No, its the TV companies that decide that timeouts last 20 secs so they can go to commercial and make more money.
ROI determines what goes on the events. RETURN ON INVESTMENT. And keeping the rabid fans and sponsors happy is what keeps WCG going on every year, not giving into every demand of a disgruntled player.
Frankly , i have been on both sides of this argument, and still am, and if you want to make money playing your game, your just going to have to realize that some things just suck.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
On November 19 2008 05:52 ggnoob wrote:
Id really like to know how many of you have ever claimed to have run a tournament or a tournament organization of that magnitude?
While you have some valid points, i dont think anyone is considering the backgrounds of how events like these even come to be.
Complaining about why WCG uses bad or not so popular games is worthless. Those bad games pay for games like SC to even still be around.
Complaining about those freebies on stage and those rabid people is absolutely stupid. Sponsors care most for those rabid fans, not the gamers. Those rabid fans are the ones who will buy their products, not the whiny pros.
Its not that different in any professional sport. You think game rule changes are because players whine? Uh No, its the TV companies that decide that timeouts last 20 secs so they can go to commercial and make more money.
ROI determines what goes on the events. RETURN ON INVESTMENT. And keeping the rabid fans and sponsors happy is what keeps WCG going on every year, not giving into every demand of a disgruntled player.
Frankly , i have been on both sides of this argument, and still am, and if you want to make money playing your game, your just going to have to realize that some things just suck.
The things being addressed in this thread are routinely thoughtless and illogical decisions by wcg staff and referees. We all realize that it has to add up financially, and that sponsors need a return, but there are many aspects of WCG that simply need to be fixed to smooth the process for the players themselves.
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Most of those aspects are decided because of financial decisions.
If youve played in WCG since the beginnig of its entrance to the USA, you would see that things have gotten "worse" every year. The budgets have gotten smaller every year. You do the math.
Also, while some of those referee decisions on disconnects and cheaters have been somewhat questionable, I would rather have someone reffing my match that I know has no connection to the Starcraft community so I dont have to worry about favoritism. If i get fucked, so be it, at least i know it was unbiased.
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On November 19 2008 06:01 ggnoob wrote:
Also, while some of those referee decisions on disconnects and cheaters have been somewhat questionable, I would rather have someone reffing my match that I know has no connection to the Starcraft community so I dont have to worry about favoritism. If i get fucked, so be it, at least i know it was unbiased.
So true!
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8748 Posts
ggnoob what have been the budgets of wcg usa every year? i haven't noticed a big change in the three years i've been attending the national finals. the prelims have been the same with the US Open, an online ladder and 4 4-player regional events. the national finals have been similar events in las vegas, orlando and los angeles. travel stipend every year. prizes actually have gone up. on the SC side of things, 2006-2008 have seemed very similar.
your first post was really out of context. you remember that the OP is stating that the organizers of WCG USA want to know how to improve the event according to the gamers? of course it's their responsibility to only make cost-effective changes and to stay within the budget, but i don't understand how your statements are informing this discussion at all. perhaps when changes don't happen in 2009 because of financial reasons and the gamers are upset, you can chime in explaining how businesses work
anyway, WCG knows that the gamers need to be satisfied. they have survived because there is no competition and because they're good enough to not simply skip. where WCG does have competition, like MLG for some, WCG loses out on some of the best players. if that became a widespread problem, their event would fall apart. the level of dissatisfaction for many of the gamers is to the point where if a new tournament popped up at the same time as WCG, and prize money / difficulty level were equal, they'd go to the new tournament in a heartbeat.
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Well lets look at some facts between this year and last year.
1. In the past there have been more US final spots from qualifiers. The US Open was at different locations before NY, the reason NY is used is because its FREE - aka Samsung Experience.
2. ORLANDO vs E4All - E4all was practically free (E4all is desperate, anyone whos been to previous e4alls and e3's would know this), renting universal studios for a week IS NOT CHEAP.
3. The travel stipend continues to remain $250 even though airline ticket prices continue to rise and oh yea inflation!
4. I remember before 2007, the US sending more players for several games to the world finals. In fact I remember in 2005 we sent 3 SC players (Yosh, Day and someone else) , 3 WC3 (wiz short and someone else) players and other nice amounts to Singapore.
And I hate to break it to all of you -
ICM IS FOR SALE. ICM is the company that owns WCG. Samsung wants to sell off ICM because they dont think theres any value anymore. If you talk to any of the SP's (Samsung Partners) in the different countries, they will all tell you their budgets keep getting cut every year. In fact with a little research you should be able to find several articles about countries either cancelling their WCG qualis or having to scale back quite a bit.
The people who supported ICM within Samsung got fired or quit because of fraud and other dispicable things.
I am not stating that the organizers want to change how things are, im pointing out that half of the comments on this post about how to change things are absolutely ridiculous.
And plz, no matter how bad some of you might feel an event is, your going to play in it, even if someone popped up to compete against WCG, youd play in it. Unfortunately being SC players, you wouldnt really be able to test that because noone runs SC tournaments outside of Korea.
Ask any CS player how bad ESWC, CGS, CPL Kode5 have been, and theyve gotten screwed, and they keep going back to play in them because thats what you do when your trying to get something like esports to succeed.
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if you can talk to them about other things than Starcraft bring up that people like there being many games as long as important games that have proved to stand their ground in competitive play are represented.
I'm talking about Quake and Street Fighter but there are probably others.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
Hey ggnoob my name is incontrol, I'm going to be tooling your asshole now.
lets take a look at the logic of your posting here for a minute before we delve into the nuances of your posts.
Logically, you'd like us to be content with a declining tourney. Not just "a" tourney btw, THE tourney for SC players. You'd like us to be ok with non sound proof stage matches, with refs who have no idea what game they are administrating and logistical errors that could be easily fixed, hell even cost effectively fixed but you'd rather we just remain complacent. Stagnate, and watch our favorite game decline alongside the tourney. You are the prototypical voice that occurs in every instance of change. Logically you'd like us to accept what we have got and just twiddle our thumbs. That kind of stagnation might be appropriate for the ball sucking gamers of other genres, but it won't work here. We play SC. We have 30 inch cocks as it is.
Now in the literal sense I'd like to address a few points:
You didn't read my OP very carefully. WCG is headed by two close friends of mine (as of relatively recently) and change is abound. They want to know what the community wants to see. This thread is functioning as that venue. You nay saying the very spirit of this thread is right from the beginning in error.. an error you yourself could have corrected had you read more carefully (hopefully that is the case anyways).
Half the posts in this thread are "ridiculous" as you say. Which is fine. That is true in any public discussion. That does not warrant the sweeping arguments you laid out. So don't try and scapegoat there.
Additionally I CAN play the same game. The other half of the posts in this thread are about literal problems that functionally occur right now. Bad refs, horrible map switches, bad regional choices.. are all things that have actually happened and need to stop. No tourney in the history of man kind has been ran "perfectly" and as such, people are entitled to search for that perfection. You arguing against that change is a logical nightmare but also it has no historical precedent (not a successful one anyways).
ROI is rooted in numerous things. Simply saying the people who get thrown prizes off the stage represent that "ROI" is so short of what actually brings in investment I don't even know where to begin. People are there to see games played first and foremost. That means the gamers are the primary function. People WILL stop going to those events if the cream of the crop are elsewhere playing in a tourney that fixed/learned from the mistakes of WCG. That is the big picture. I could extrapolate on this but I hope you know where I am going with it.
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Every year I read the complaints on this forum and every year you make a case and I dont see much change at all.
Dont think i decide to speak here as a random person, I guarantee ive been in esports longer than most of you.
And i hate to break it to you, but your friends in WCG , probably David and Paul, yes I know them too, have jobs to do, and as much as they want to help you, they have bosses in Korea and a new boss (not announced yet) who probably wont know esports like their old boss.
Seriously, GEOFF I was making a point towards the multiple screams of the same complaints over and over.
The online refs have always been iffy, but the us finals refs have always been top notch. Horrible map switches which are controlled in Korea. Bad regional choices because noone wants to hold a WCG regional, you take what you can get.
You can "tool my asshole" all you want, but I promise I know more about whats going on than you ever could dream of.
And seriously, ROI is whats most important to sponsors. They want numbers and facts, they want to see that 10000 spectators showed up. You need to take some time and do a survey, 95% of the people there didnt come to see a game played. TO's know that people will come watch matches, those arent the important people. Its the general public, the passer-bys thats important. People who know nothing about gaming is the number one priority. Do some research, you might be surprised.
Im not naysaying or telling you to shut your piehole. If you even bothered to read my posts, Im trying to adjust peoples way of thinking.
"Spend money on something else", "get rid of those bad games", "the stage looked liked shit".
Those comments dont help anything.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
If you really are replying to the people who don't know that it takes money to run these tourneys then you are wasting your time and confusing a thread that doesn't need confusion. I addressed in numerous posts on this subject (including this thread) that the "bad" games are needed for money. If people cry about them still it is because they don't know anything and don't really need to be pandered to.
This post is for the public btw.. I am talking to ggnoob on MSN  He too is a friend (hehe).
Listen: Is WCG going to be the best tourney ever next year? Probably not.. but what can be done should be done. And what can be worked on should be addressed. Even in trying times when eSports isn't a priority and companies are under strife like CGS, ICM, WCG etc.. we can still improve. In fact I'd say it is MOST IMPORTANT to improve in those times. The old model didn't work. Wasn't lucrative enough. If you think that eSports in general is a failed market you would be mistaken. The people trying to find that market are what is failing.
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iNcontroL, I commend you for your initiative on this issue and stepping up as a community spokesperson. We are all lucky to have you around as someone who can understand the issues and sort through the suggestions people post in order to have a real impact on an organization that affects all of us.
As I cannot speak to the gaming issues, I'd like to add some thoughts from a media and promotion standpoint. The lack of communication between WCG USA and eSportsTV, the broadcast company hired for the USA Finals, was rather difficult to work with. eSportsTV brought Diggity, Moletrap, Phreak, and also PsyonicReaver to commentate SC and WC3, and there ended up being very little for them to do because only two SC bo3s (and no WC3 games) were presented onstage, as you know. The attitude of the mainstage program director towards RTS games was very disappointing (apparently RTS is a "crowd-killer"), and it was worse than pulling teeth for Moletrap and me to convince him to get an a second SC match onstage after the first match where the in-game action wasn't even shown on the stage screen because of technical difficulties. The big screen footage was limited to whatever the man with the handheld roaming stage camera could pick up from filming your monitors onstage over your shoulders. This was not because of eSportsTV's technical capabilities, as demonstrated in the second onstage match where the obs computer was able to connect to the big screen, but rather lack of communication and very last-minute changes in the mainstage programming schedule. As there wasn't any sort of specific timetable for when the semifinals and finals were to be played, all of the players were out to lunch when the mainstage programming director decided around 2pm on the second day that he could afford to replace FIFA with an SC match, and then he informed me that there was nothing he could do because the players had all left the convention center.
Luckily, the MCs for the mainstage were friendlier to the RTS cause and let me give them information to announce about the finals being played in the tournament area. When Psyonic and I heard that the losers bracket finals were going to be brought onstage on the third day, we ran around the convention hall with the big SCBW sign encouraging people to head over to the mainstage area and watch the games, which actually worked - the audience ended up being pretty full. Moletrap and Diggity were not very happy about the quality of their casting for the onstage games because they couldn't reveal critical strategic information due to the lack of soundproof headphones for the players, but nonetheless their work was appreciated by the audience, if not (it seemed) WCG USA itself.
Moletrap and Diggity specifically made promotional videos for the WCG USA finals and uploaded them to YouTube so that the online community could be informed as to where they could watch live or replay footage of the SC tournament. They also spent a great deal of time in the week after the event commentating the replays. As far as I know, none of those replays or the great interviews that Diggity conducted with many of the players have made it to the wcglive website. In my opinion, WCG USA missed a great opportunity to build its online presence by not working with eSportsTV staff to promote and facilitate these efforts. In the future, WCG USA should establish better communication with its broadcast production partner and be more proactive in working with production to boost the visibility of the event live and online.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
Excellent post Peanut.
I think some of the greatest ideas to be discussed/generated from this thread are the ones where it would cost WCG virtually nothing to fix (aside from being attentive) and can actually go a long way. Imagine had they done just a few things to be more helpful to the diggity crew and had the stage match done properly. Aside from a better stage match you'd have a happier online community.
That actually goes a long way because the more hits WCG gets on it's website, the more videos that are watched related to WCG.. are all FREE marketing and good PR.
These are more of the same though. Anyone in the food industry will bend over backwards to win over a customer. That person might tell 1-2 people about how good the service was. But if the service is bad they are more likely to tell 5+ people how bad it was. WCG has ignored this philosophy or at least not taken it seriously. Very little fixes like this can go a LONG way.
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Perhaps a bit off topic (sorry!), but ... what would one have to do in order to become a ref?
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speak limited english and know very little about broodwar, and be capable of becoming an angry little child when your poor judgement is questioned
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that means 99% of BW players are qualified to referee WCG USA, awesome.
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So ... what would one have to do in order to become a ref? 
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do you meet any of the requirements idra was talking about? lol
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EPT
