There is less hype and excitement, for sure. I couldn't care less about WCS finals.

Why did Blizzard have to ruin the GSL? What happened to yearly subscribers? (Of course I know the answer but it may sound too political)

Current system is OK for killing time - lots of VODs on Youtube or elsewhere. But I don't follow events real-time any more.

Pitrocelli

Slovakia127 Posts

June 13 2013 22:09 GMT

#62

On the plus side there is good time disparity between events during day. Early morning i can watch proleague, GSL about launch and WCS EU at night. Also casters improved a lot and there is a lot of them, you could even watch WCS finals with preferred caster.

But in reality I watch almost nothing. Twitch still lags so I can watch only morning proleague with 15.000 views or youtube streams. Metagame is stale and I dont care about these new zerg players. I loved Kyrix, Zenio, Idra, Nestea, Stephano era. Now builds feels too refined, you can see same build over and over, most players win by reducing amount of mistakes or improved positioning while I feel number of different strategies is decreasing. Greedy terran vs roach bust zerg 100 games in a row, yawn. Finally i really dislike Blizzards attitude, they don't really force players to adapt to new things. In MOBA games designers change hundreds of small to big things and you can see new abuses arise, new champions etc and I am missing this kind of excitement. Finally scene is too korean dominated, more than ever in SC2 history.

Azarkon

United States21060 Posts

June 13 2013 22:11 GMT

#63

WCS is not that difficult to follow. The format is little different from what GSL used to have. You have your daily matches from the three regions, from challengers to playoffs, and then your grand finals at a set location. The casters do a decent enough job telling you what's at stake for the players, and for those who want additional info the website is easily navigable.

I think the bigger problem is simply that there are no great storylines left in the NA/EU scene. The biggest personalities of the scene - IdrA and Stephano - are both retired/retiring. Naniwa is still around, thankfully, but outside of him what do you have? Suppy isn't exactly the next Stephano, and the rest of the NA/EU scene is just the same old players playing around the same old level they were at in 2012 - ie taking a game here and there from top Koreans but otherwise not doing well enough for people to say they're the next great hope.

sLideSC2

United States225 Posts

June 13 2013 22:12 GMT

#64

The game is so much better, but the whole WCS thing is just boring as all hell, or has been so far.

Popkiller

3415 Posts

June 13 2013 22:18 GMT

#65

I don't see the issue, there's three GSLs going on in three different regions. All you need to do is check liquipedia for the schedule and watch when you want to watch.

edlover420

349 Posts

June 13 2013 22:22 GMT

#66

I feel like WCS Global finals went by without anyone noticing, it was really not needed, for next seasons prize money should be changed from 100k Europe, 100k USA, 100k korea and 150k finals to 85k europe, 65k usa and 300k korea. That would maybe make all the Koreans rather play in WCS Korea, which would be very prestige with bigger prize pool and we could have foreigners win WCS Europe and WCS USA. But there certainly is a big problem with all non WCS tournaments they just don't feel as interesting as they used to, but on the other hand I cannot wait for proleague playoffs.

usethis2

2164 Posts

June 13 2013 22:22 GMT

#67

Like today, I saw WCS AM challenger league under "Upcoming events" in TL calendar about this time. (6:00 pm EST) Thought I might catch it real-time. (even though I am not sure if the games are played real-time)

For some reason it disappeared. (?!)

neptunusfisk

2286 Posts

June 13 2013 22:26 GMT

#68

Similarly to Wings of liberty and Brood war, the best of the best is the most fun to watch. With the limited amount of energy and spare time I can spend on SC2, I only watch the GSL and it's still mostly really awesome.

therabit

795 Posts

June 13 2013 22:26 GMT

#69

I only really follow proleague now. At least in prolaegue there are history, long standing rivalries and many new maps and strategy albeit a little too much PvP. As for the individual league, I catch GSL games here and there but I don't follow it the way I used to. I didn't even bother to watch any of the WCS final except for Mvp vs Bogus series.

Thieving Magpie

United States6752 Posts

June 13 2013 22:28 GMT

#70

My 2011 hangover of non-stop tournament saturation hasn't stopped yet.

But I have a feeling this WCS is about to be awesome. Not right now, but by the end of this year. Blizzcon will feel a LOT more meaningful. And next year? You will begin to feel like you can actually make comparisons between players due to one worldwide tournament that everyone is involved in.

jax1492

United States1632 Posts

June 13 2013 22:33 GMT

#71

I just don't know what to watch anymore, it feels like dreamhack or mlg is pointless now ... i know its not you get points for wcs, but it just feels like wcs kinda ruined things.

Batssa

United States154 Posts

June 13 2013 22:35 GMT

#72

Let's complain more about a non issue so that it becomes an issue! Thanks! It's the same shit that arose over the past two weeks from WCS, just banter with no option of resolve. I liked the tournaments! It's not growing at the same rate that a LoL global tournament is running, so fuck it. Man up and don't be a sissy -- or if you're just dumb and want numbers or to argue on a forum -- not a good place my dear. Seven years ago I stayed up to watch proleague when nobody gave a much rats ass about sc2. If you like something follow it, if you don't. You're fucked. No point crying at an incident because you've never experienced it. Plain stupid.

JayConn

United States408 Posts

June 13 2013 22:43 GMT

#73

Whoa, I totally disagree. I think it's way easier to follow than ever. I love the new system. It's really nice to have one main tournament that is easy to keep track of, instead of a million at once. It's no longer a wild west of tournaments. There is actually some structure now. Plus, there are weekend-long tournies taking place when WCS isn't on. I think they supplement each other very well.

Thieving Magpie

United States6752 Posts

June 13 2013 22:43 GMT

#74

On June 14 2013 07:33 jax1492 wrote:
I just don't know what to watch anymore, it feels like dreamhack or mlg is pointless now ... i know its not you get points for wcs, but it just feels like wcs kinda ruined things.

The problem with MLG and Dreamhack was that they always felt GSL light.

LlamaNamedOsama

United States1900 Posts

June 13 2013 22:45 GMT

#75

I kind of am on the fence about WCS. One thing it does really well is that it brought all of a region's best players together - WCS Europe has every top European non-korean that comes to mind - Stephano, Lucifron, Vortix, Naniwa, TLO, etc. On the other hand, I kind of wish that the other tournaments (IPL, NASL) didn't get bumped out of the equation. I like how the WCS synergizes with other tournaments like Dreamhack, MLG, and HSC by making them offer WCS points, though.

Aeroplaneoverthesea

United Kingdom1977 Posts

June 13 2013 22:46 GMT

#76

Phenomenal over saturation right now. All I watch is WCS finals, Code S and some weekend LAN's.

Klipsys

United States1533 Posts

June 13 2013 22:49 GMT

#77

People don't want to ever look at the big picture and insist on looking at things as they are right now. It wasn't that great before and everyone was clamoring for blizzard to take a more active role in the scene. They they do that (albeit rushed) and everyone complains it wasn't precisely and exactly what they wanted and don't have the patients to wait for it to get improved. It's litterally impossible to do something this huge "over night". Just give it a while and it will be incredible and everyone will look back on these threads and wonder what all the fuss was about.

Thieving Magpie

United States6752 Posts

June 13 2013 22:51 GMT

#78

On June 14 2013 07:46 Aeroplaneoverthesea wrote:
Phenomenal over saturation right now. All I watch is WCS finals, Code S and some weekend LAN's.

Do you remember 2011-2012 when there literally was a "BIG TOURNAMENT" every single weekend. Where we literally had more content than days in the week to fill with said content?

You posted 3 things.

Imagine 3-4 things a day.

SupLilSon

Malaysia4123 Posts

June 13 2013 23:00 GMT

#79

I feel the same way and I think a big part of the problem is I have no idea how WCS works. We just had the grand finals recently and it seems like the WCS Challenger League stuff has just been running along the whole time as a separate league or something. I've been watching more SC2 recently than I have in a lonnnnnnnnng time but it's mostly just player streams because theres rarely a notable event going on.

Klipsys

United States1533 Posts

June 13 2013 23:05 GMT

#80

On June 14 2013 08:00 SupLilSon wrote:
I feel the same way and I think a big part of the problem is I have no idea how WCS works.

At some level that's your fault and not blizzards. Yes it's confusing and yes they should do a better job making it more accessible but if you're not even going to try and learn how it operates you can't reasonably be upset when you can't follow along.