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On March 04 2012 01:43 hyptonic wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2012 01:43 Bagration wrote:On March 04 2012 00:03 Liquid`NonY wrote: no one is willing to invest in the talent that is available in the western scene This is a slap in the face to Liquid. Why you would post this at teamliquid.net I cannot fathom. Really dumb or just really mean? I don't think he was targeting this at Liquid in particular, and it is definitely not an insult. But when is the last time TL signed a foreign player? 2010? He does make a valid point, that major foreign teams are not really signing that many foreigners anymore. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=248886
Oh god can't believe I forgot. Edited my post, and sorry for the misinformation. That being said, I think we shouldn't look only at Liquid and at the scene as aggregate. This is an issue that is important, as it helps sustain the foreign scene.
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On March 04 2012 01:33 WhiteDog wrote: What the hell at all the Tyler hate in here ? Tyler is way above Axslav.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2012_MLG_Pro_Circuit/Winter/North_America
This article made some pretty massive statements, and it's all well and good to go and correct / clarify them later but it devalues your entire post. As is listing a bunch of sources without a few clicks to find out how to make a blog post.
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Vatican City State334 Posts
The issue with teams picking up Koreans is not a simply a Starcraft issue. There is a seemingly endless amount of talent in Asia and they're willing to throw themselves fully into whatever they want to do - whether it be playing SC2, education, or work. You have to start the argument there as to why there aren't enough foreigners worth it for teams to pick up, it's an economical and cultural issue with the West. For now, the best chance you have to make it is be a personality first and foremost and leave the playing prospects to Koreans.
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On March 04 2012 01:35 7mk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2012 00:50 Eee wrote:On March 04 2012 00:41 Liquid`NonY wrote:On March 04 2012 00:06 Eee wrote:On March 04 2012 00:03 Liquid`NonY wrote: no one is willing to invest in the talent that is available in the western scene This is a slap in the face to Liquid. Why you would post this at teamliquid.net I cannot fathom. Really dumb or just really mean? I should edit that, but what I mean is that it is the current trend and majority are not doing it. Now TL is in first hand a community, not a team. If it were to be meant towards I would've made it clear. I haven't really written anything in the post that even hints towards TL, so I dont know why are feeling so hostile about it? Why would you say something so fucked up if you didn't even mean it? You're making even less sense now. TL.net is a community but Liquid obviously has close ties to it. You'll definitely find more Liquid fans at TL.net than anywhere else and more Liquid players posting at TL.net than anywhere else (and more than any other major team at TL.net). In other words, you could well expect that any significant post in the SC2 General section at TL.net is going to be read by Liquid. Now it can hardly be argued that Liquid hasn't invested heavily into non-Korean players. It's just a fact that Liquid went out of its way to get players fully supported and training in Korea ASAP and flying them all around the world to compete in every major tournament. Liquid was the team to pick up and put full support behind TLO after his beta stardom and Huk after his early MLG championship. Liquid supported Jinro Ret and Haypro and myself almost purely off our BW results. All of these players except myself have had amazing results and made significant positive impacts on the scene, except perhaps myself (and when I do, it'll be solely because of Liquid's support). So, we aren't a group of western talent? Were any of us a sure shot? Or could you say that Liquid and The Little App Factory stuck their necks WAY out to support western talent, to develop western talent, and to give western talent a chance to make a huge impact on the scene? And that it was successful? Somehow supporting two great people and players, Hero and Zenio, is supposed to make all that easily ignored? Somehow these acquisitions have reversed our trend despite the fact that we're still giving incredible support to western talent like we have been from day one? You are so absolutely wrong about this that I'm not sure how you could put a single bit of care into your thoughts before you shat them out all over this forum. edit: And just to be complete, Sheth is another great example of investing in western talent. He's had wonderful results since joining Liquid and has been very happy here and getting excellent support. He may even be a better example because at this time that we got him, we very well could have set our sights only on Korean players. But as is abundantly clear to everyone in the world but the OP, Liquid supports western talent. LOL, seriously. I just said this wasn't even meant to be against TL why are you even arguing? NOTHING in this post implies anything about TL, so I dont even understand why you are trying to prove anything. I 90% agree with you, I'm not pointing fingers at TL. And by western talent I mean people like Bly (who just got picked up by Acer) and BiGs (who got picked up by mouz some months ago) who are online warriors but haven't ever been given the chance to play at offline events and fulltime. TL mosly consists of people who had some previous history from bw (like Haypro, Ret and you). Since players like Bly and BiGs do get picked up like you say, where's the problem? Beastyqt's post was pretty interesting btw. Those are the examples of teams doing it right, but majority are following the korean hype especially the big organisations. SK tried to develop young talent but ended up kicking the whole team some months later, NaVi did it for a bit longer but they also got rid of the whole team. The big organisations are pretty much "role models" for the lesser organisations, and looking at the big organisations right now, none of them have really tried to grow there own talent, Complexity is a exception though. Although they have 3 koreans on their team, and they also sponsor a korean team, they are in fact running their Col.Academy thing and have given the chance to players like Gosuser and Trimaster. But there's really no team besides a few european and coL who are doing this. And even coL seems to be abondoning this idea.
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And you think EG doesn't support western players? They had a BW team you know? Before SC2 was out they allready had machine, idra, incontrol etc. and they setup a western practice house so yeah they do invest in western esports.
Korea is to stacraft what USA is with basketball and Brasil with football, the powerhouse country that export talent.
There is almost no european basketball team without a usa player and there are almost no team in european football with zero brasilians, many have 3 or more.. so yeah it's unfortunate.
The thing is they(Koreans) want to come, because "we" have more money to support their biggers numbers and better quality.
It happens in all sports and will carry on like that if people don't change anything. Will it kill esports? I don't know but atleast for me i don't have to see all tournaments with 50% Koreans or 80% Koreans, because for that I have GSL.
Even if a noname codeB is better then tyler or Axslav, the storys&rivalries will make more sense and bring better emotion in wins/losses.
In my opinion if people want to improve the western scene versus the Koreans, event organizers must do a GSL type of thing where you have a season and only people in that region (Korean for GSL) can participate. Korean players like Real or Violet that commit to that change should be welcomed of course.
It's not fair that you have to sacrifice so much to attend GSL and the Koreans just need to come (deal with jetlag of course), win or lose and go back home, wasting a couple of days. Nowadays it seems like the korean teams won't even have to pay for the cost of coming to us, while we have to pay for our players to stay there for months and wait for chances to qualify or have a seed for code A or S.
Many many things are wrong with this "eSport" time will tell if the people in charge made the right choices..
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Excellent OP. I've been thinking the same for a while (especially as a big Ax fan since TFT) but haven't mustered the courage to write about it. Kudos to you.
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One of the best OP's I've read in a long time, I never thought about the esports future like this before, but you really have a point.
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On March 04 2012 00:32 zezamer wrote: Would you rather sponsor a korean kid who sees sc2 as his job and lives in a team house or a kinda good foreign player who goes to uni and plays some sc2 when he has time. ?
Pretty much this. Esports and professional gaming is far more accepted in Korea than it is in the foreign scene. Even if there were up and coming SC2 foreigners with that kind of mindset (Practice for 12 hours a day, etc), it would be hard to justify that kind of exsistence for a chance at scraps? You can see that from Stephano, a player who only practices 3-4 hours a day and fully acknowledges that SC2 is not his future. He says this because playing SC2 and investing 12 hours a day to have a 'CHANCE' at becoming good is a fools errand. You could invest 12 hours a day in practically any other profession and be much more secure in your future. Let's not forget that the Esports scene is incredibly volatile. At any minute the scene could die and the game you invested so much time in is now being replaced by new games. Games that are going to require even more hours invested (12+ hour days).
I really admire SC2 professional players who are whilling to sacrifice so much for practically nothing. Only a very small percentage actually make it 'worth' their while to follow this path. A path that really is quite foolish to follow in the end, IMO.
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To comment on your point about axslav and probably your view on alot of foreigners at his skill level:
They are nowhere near code B material, end.
OT: Money rules.
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I'm tired of all these "killing e-sports" threads, if people enjoy it enough and there is a big enough fan base it will grow and you will not be able to "kill" it. People need to understand that if you want to enjoy the content then pay for it, if you don't buy it because you don't want to watch it doesn't mean you are killing e-sports. If the product is good enough and the demand is there it will not die or be able to be "killed".
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On March 04 2012 02:03 shell wrote: And you think EG doesn't support western players? They had a BW team you know? Before SC2 was out they allready had machine, idra, incontrol etc. and they setup a western practice house so yeah they do invest in western esports.
They did. They don't anymore as to what we see (Axslav, Puma, JYP)
In my opinion if people want to improve the western scene versus the Koreans, event organizers must do a GSL type of thing where you have a season and only people in that region (Korean for GSL) can participate. Korean players like Real or Violet that commit to that change should be welcomed of course.
Oh but foreigners can qualify for Code S. They just don't want or succeed at it.
I'm tired of all these "killing e-sports" threads, if people enjoy it enough and there is a big enough fan base it will grow and you will not be able to "kill" it. People need to understand that if you want to enjoy the content then pay for it, if you don't buy it because you don't want to watch it doesn't mean you are killing e-sports. If the product is good enough and the demand is there it will not die or be able to be "killed".
The problem OP raises precisely concerns the fan base. How many fans will be left when there'll be only Koreans in the scene ?
Well, Millenium and Mouz fans, you could say
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After the recent MLG I think the skill gap is closing. I am not worried at all.
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On March 04 2012 02:18 Aunvilgod wrote: After the recent MLG I think the skill gap is closing. I am not worried at all.
What makes you say that? People have been saying this for the last year. All I see is the gap widening.
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NonY please relax. TL is awesome and nobody wants to slap your team in the face. It seems you just want to prove your stance, no matter what.
Beastyqt posted something very valid, stating that korean mercs on a foreigner team will give them short (maybe even longer) term succes, when it comes to leaguewins. But it is highly doubtful that a majority ofthe foreigner fanbase will be as emotional involved as if a foreigner manages to beat some big names. And the more emotional involved the fans are the better for the Team, merchandise sales and their sponsors.
I think the right balance is important. 4Kings back in WC3 was my absolute favorite team. Grubby, ToD and Creo were not better then SK, WE or MYM (they all had lot`s of asians in their roster), but they were on the same level and always able to beat every other team. If that happened the scene went fucking nuts and this moved way more fans then a victory of an Asian mercteam.
personal edit: Besides all I said, I also was a Fan of Lyn, Fly100%, TH000, Remind, Moon, Lucifer, TeD and others ^______________^
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I really agree with the blog. Foreign teams are picking up some code B korean players because those players are already pretty solid and also seeking ways to get well-known.
I can't remember any koreans that joined a foreign team and isn't a core member for their respective team and doing poorly. Even if players like JYP is underperforming a bit (for a Code A/S) but he is still a really good player and took out a few good players.
The western scene lacks up and rising players like them, (the only one I can think of is stephano and maybe goswer), the rest are mostly solid, established players such as Dimaga and White-ra. The only ones that would get picked up are either those who have a special relationship with the team, or someone who brings lots of values into the community, or just a really good player that can produce results.
Investing however, is super risky. Just think of the ratio of how many talents were recruited and how many produced good results.
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On March 04 2012 01:33 WhiteDog wrote: What the hell at all the Tyler hate in here ? Tyler is way above Axslav. I think you need to start watching some more recent tournaments, and stop rewatching tournaments from 2010.
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I'm surprised at how some people are perceiving this as an attack. It's not even written in an inflammatory manner ...
eSports is more than SC2, anyways. We might be killing global eSports, but if Korea doesn't get eaten by the LoL fad, I'm sure they'll be able to sustain a respectable SC2 scene (especially if BW players switch over with their fanbases), just like it's sustaining their BW scene and China is sustaining their War3 scene.
To clarify, I don't think the eSports scene as a whole will ever truly stabilize in the true sense of the word, in that games will always die and newer titles will come up to take their place. Some fans will drop out, some fans will stay for their old game, some will switch, and there will be a new bubble, but I doubt it will ever reach a happy equilibrium.
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On March 04 2012 02:18 Aunvilgod wrote: After the recent MLG I think the skill gap is closing. I am not worried at all.
But it is the same foreigners at the top, while there are more and more rising Koreans. We need more Thorzain at TSL3 moments.
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On March 04 2012 00:03 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote + no one is willing to invest in the talent that is available in the western scene This is a slap in the face to Liquid. Why you would post this at teamliquid.net I cannot fathom. Really dumb or just really mean?
Uh... where do you think HerO and Zenio came from? Yea, OGS-TL are partnered but no one would argue that the 2 Koreans are spearheading TL now.
I completely agree with the OP, it's a little disappointing to see the bigger foreign teams looking purely to Korean talent instead of developing foreign players.
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The whole problem lies in discovering TALENTS! How do u notice talents in sc2 anyways? I got no clue. Well, ofc, when sb is winning like stephano did, he sure got talent. But how do u discover talent, that needs to be forged into a star?
I football, and other sports, there are coaches, teammates, etc etc, a lot of people following the "way" of a career, and they can judge, based on what they saw during the time, that somebody got talent. IMHO this is way more complicated in Starcraft. You can judge how a player performs when you see him, but there is no "noticable evolution" if you dont follow every step of a player. I think for organizations (which wants at least some future results) its SO HARD to discover talent.
Tyler even said TL.net took players like him Haypro and ret based on their BW performances. Then they took HuK and TLO, 2 of the best early SC2 players. Considering this, TL never aquired an "unknown", which shows how hard its for a team to look for "talent".
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