EPTNASL though, does strike me, as something uniquely American. SC2 simply isn't Xtreme enough to have the actual best players facing off against one another. Instead, the purity of the sport will be left by the wayside so that we can have manufactured story lines and team drama. I mean, if you like the WWF or the XFL, as opposed to wrestling or football then that might just be your thing. I don't mean to denigrate story lines or drama as a bad thing necessarily, but they should never take precedence over a fair and judicious system for the players. The solution for the NASL is simple, however. They just need to add an "I", for "Invitational".
NASL Details - Page 45
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RPizzle
United States5 Posts
NASL though, does strike me, as something uniquely American. SC2 simply isn't Xtreme enough to have the actual best players facing off against one another. Instead, the purity of the sport will be left by the wayside so that we can have manufactured story lines and team drama. I mean, if you like the WWF or the XFL, as opposed to wrestling or football then that might just be your thing. I don't mean to denigrate story lines or drama as a bad thing necessarily, but they should never take precedence over a fair and judicious system for the players. The solution for the NASL is simple, however. They just need to add an "I", for "Invitational". | ||
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Xunaka
United States43 Posts
It seems like in such a hurry to realize the goal of a North American Star league they cut far too many corners and this will end up being a hurt on the SC E-sports community more than a help in the long run by diverting attention away from GSL etc.. | ||
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KeepYaCoolBro
United States49 Posts
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
For one, it's an invitational. It has been said a hundred times but I can't help thinking that it's just wrong not to specify it, even in the title of the event. As far as I'm concerned, invitationals are flat out inferior to legitimate tournaments. I call "legitimate" tournaments legitimate because those who get to play in them actually earned their place. Also, I'm not sure I fully understand, but what's the deal with having to be in a team? It seems like the whole administration of the NASL is bent on lowering the odds of the independents. By a lot. Plus, what's with the 5 koreans thing? Whether or not it's true (and I hope it's not, just from an ethics standpoint), it's such a ridiculous thing to day. It just seems like an horrible idea to me, because the only possible motive for having such a rule would be an horrible one. And another thing that bothers me, the $250 deposit. What the HELL? First let me put some things on the table. This is Starcraft 2 and it's a game that's essentially played online. In order to be online, you have to have power (pay for it) and have an Internet connection (and pay for it). Now both of those services can go down, as evidenced by the use of the word "unforeseeable". I'll cite it: every time they're rude or they're late or any kind of unforeseeable problems occur they'll be penalized $25 or $50 It may be an invitational, but is that how you treat your players? Because I think it's disgusting. I really do, and I chose that word carefully. It's disgusting. Those people sacrifice a *LOT* to do and practice what they do. Do NOT take money from their pockets. Sure they have to agree to it, but it's not necessarily because they actually agree with it - it's because it may be worth the risk - but that's still a huge slap in the face of the 20 year old college student who's got to find $250... And if a tree falls on a power line, God help us all. It may be early enough to make a couple of things change. When this many people are worried about it, there's probably a problem, and IMO it would be unwise not to look into it. I certainly won't get out of my way to watch this unless they make a couple of modifications, and I don't think it's above them to actually take the right steps. I remain optimistic for the time being! | ||
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cheesemaster
Canada1975 Posts
On February 24 2011 04:54 [-Bluewolf-] wrote: I've thought about this league for quite some time, and the following is likely the one things that bothers me the most. This league is mimicking its selection criteria and overall angle very closely to that of the failed Championship Gaming Series. In that league, they hand picked the players that could play, had visual looks and personality count towards the selection (NASL requires video, audio only applications are not allowed...), and focused heavily on a "team spirit" aspect. Furthermore, they made it nearly impossible to break into the league after their first "draft", thus causing a loss of interest from those that might want to aspire to compete in it. The argument was, of course, that the league wanted to build storylines and backgrounds just as in other sports (sound familiar)? Lastly, those that were picked often had contacts with those doing the picking - or basically, the team managers were biased as is human nature to those they knew. This league is also doing picks by what appears to be the league creators - one of which had close ties with EG and the other who has close ties to Fnatic. The CGS format was nearly universally panned except for those that constantly kept repeating how the community should support it as it was great that so much money was being thrown at e-sports along with the frequent broadcasting. In short, personal feelings of "X should have selected Y" were to be ignored and the public was expected to keep supporting the same hand picked players season after season, some of which had never shown they really belonged there in the first place over others. In terms of setup, excluding the fact that NASL is skipping putting on a fake qualification event (ie. the CGS combine), I just cannot see the difference. I am ignoring NASL's open qualification event as it is a token 1 spot that seems there just as a weak attempt to legitimize the event (with the bet being one of the 15 "chosen ones" will win by sheer numbers and thus allow the organizers to point out that their players are the best). Even ignoring CGS, the entire invitational model just starts to strangle a community as you cannot build e-sports top-down by only supporting a select elite (In my opinion, Quake 3/LIVE ended up with the same problem of few taking competition as an esport except those constantly invited to invitationals). I think they should just drop this whole facade of making esports huge and call this what it actually is: an invitational. It isn't meant to inspire the average Joe to play more, it isn't meant to get healthy competition going among the community as a whole, and, heck, it isn't even really "North American". All of this is just my opinion, of course. Looking forward to continuing to watch the GSL, TSL, and MLG - relatively open qualifications make these events so much more exciting to watch knowing the players proved they belong there. Yea i think one of the appeals of the gsl to players is "maybe one day i can be there" and they work towards being a better player its exciting to think about even if it is just a pipedream, It really should be called the NAISL (north american Invitational Star league) if they are going to host a 1000 man tournament for 1 person to qualify anyways, why can they just change that 1000 man tournament to the qualifiers for the league, That IS what everyone wants and it wouldnt be that hard to do. I guarantee both EG and Fnatic will have 5 players each in the tournament at least on the fnatic side of things i dont think that all of their players are good enough to be apart of this besides TT1 who placed second in an MLG and hasnt really done much since who else has had good tournament standings or won anything? Maybe 1 or 2 of their players deserve a spot but because of their close ties with the NASL i could easily see them getting 5 spots. If stuff like this happens it totally makes the league seem illegitimate. | ||
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Cathasaigh
United States285 Posts
On February 24 2011 15:35 cheesemaster wrote: if they are going to host a 1000 man tournament for 1 person to qualify anyways, why can they just change that 1000 man tournament to the qualifiers for the league, That IS what everyone wants and it wouldnt be that hard to do. Completely disagree, I have no problem with the current set up especially since you have no idea how things are going to turn out. I don't even remotely understand how people can complain as much as they do about the NASL, seems retarded. | ||
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cheesemaster
Canada1975 Posts
On February 24 2011 15:52 Cathasaigh wrote: Completely disagree, I have no problem with the current set up especially since you have no idea how things are going to turn out. I don't even remotely understand how people can complain as much as they do about the NASL, seems retarded. Meh i have a problem with them choosing who the best players are, and the fact that EG and Fnatic will pretty much automatically get five seats EG sure they have 5 reasonably good players but Fnatic has maybe one or two that i would consider NASL material. your right though its best just to wait and see how it goes and make an opinion from there, everyone assumed the NASL was going to be similair to the gsl but in north america i think thats why alot of people are voicing some dissapointment. I really dont think anyone would be complaining if they hosted an open tournament and the top 50 players got in, no one is gonna complain about that, but alot of people have problems with invitationals, at least invitational leagues, invitational tournaments are fine but a whole invitational league is a different story. | ||
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don_kyuhote
3007 Posts
On February 24 2011 14:28 Djzapz wrote: And another thing that bothers me, the $250 deposit. What the HELL? First let me put some things on the table. This is Starcraft 2 and it's a game that's essentially played online. In order to be online, you have to have power (pay for it) and have an Internet connection (and pay for it). Now both of those services can go down, as evidenced by the use of the word "unforeseeable". I'll cite it: This really unnerves me too. $250 per player? Seriously? That kind of money should make you uncomfortable. Yeah they said they're giving it back, but you start collecting $250 from who knows how many people, put it in a bag, and you have a recipe for disaster. Also, I understand their good will behind this, but this "Be a good boy, or pay $25 or $50" thing kind of reminds me of "Tax it, don't fix it" attitude towards Tabacco related products in US. | ||
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Twon
United States53 Posts
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Cathasaigh
United States285 Posts
On February 24 2011 16:07 cheesemaster wrote: Meh i have a problem with them choosing who the best players are, and the fact that EG and Fnatic will pretty much automatically get five seats EG sure they have 5 reasonably good players but Fnatic has maybe one or two that i would consider NASL material. your right though its best just to wait and see how it goes and make an opinion from there, everyone assumed the NASL was going to be similair to the gsl but in north america i think thats why alot of people are voicing some dissapointment. I really dont think anyone would be complaining if they hosted an open tournament and the top 50 players got in, no one is gonna complain about that, but alot of people have problems with invitationals, at least invitational leagues, invitational tournaments are fine but a whole invitational league is a different story. So you have a problem with the fact that EG might get 5 spots (which I think could be some what justified though 4 maybe more realistic) and the fact that Fnatic might get 5 players (which I highly doubt they will anyways) when there is nothing at the moment suggesting they will. If you want to complain about it after it happens then that's fine but there is no reason to be complaining about most of the things people are complaining about at this stage. It won't hurt anyone to be a little more optimistic and see how things progress before they starting complaining about a ton of what ifs which is what a ton of the responses to the NASL have been so far. | ||
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DND_Enkil
Sweden598 Posts
On February 24 2011 04:54 [-Bluewolf-] wrote: I've thought about this league for quite some time, and the following is likely the one things that bothers me the most. This league is mimicking its selection criteria and overall angle very closely to that of the failed Championship Gaming Series. In that league, they hand picked the players that could play, had visual looks and personality count towards the selection (NASL requires video, audio only applications are not allowed...), and focused heavily on a "team spirit" aspect. Furthermore, they made it nearly impossible to break into the league after their first "draft", thus causing a loss of interest from those that might want to aspire to compete in it. The argument was, of course, that the league wanted to build storylines and backgrounds just as in other sports (sound familiar)? Lastly, those that were picked often had contacts with those doing the picking - or basically, the team managers were biased as is human nature to those they knew. This league is also doing picks by what appears to be the league creators - one of which had close ties with EG and the other who has close ties to Fnatic. The CGS format was nearly universally panned except for those that constantly kept repeating how the community should support it as it was great that so much money was being thrown at e-sports along with the frequent broadcasting. In short, personal feelings of "X should have selected Y" were to be ignored and the public was expected to keep supporting the same hand picked players season after season, some of which had never shown they really belonged there in the first place over others. In terms of setup, excluding the fact that NASL is skipping putting on a fake qualification event (ie. the CGS combine), I just cannot see the difference. I am ignoring NASL's open qualification event as it is a token 1 spot that seems there just as a weak attempt to legitimize the event (with the bet being one of the 15 "chosen ones" will win by sheer numbers and thus allow the organizers to point out that their players are the best). Even ignoring CGS, the entire invitational model just starts to strangle a community as you cannot build e-sports top-down by only supporting a select elite (In my opinion, Quake 3/LIVE ended up with the same problem of few taking competition as an esport except those constantly invited to invitationals). I think they should just drop this whole facade of making esports huge and call this what it actually is: an invitational. It isn't meant to inspire the average Joe to play more, it isn't meant to get healthy competition going among the community as a whole, and, heck, it isn't even really "North American". All of this is just my opinion, of course. Looking forward to continuing to watch the GSL, TSL, and MLG - relatively open qualifications make these events so much more exciting to watch knowing the players proved they belong there. Pretty awesome post, did some reading up on CGS and yeah if NASL wont heed the warnings of the past i can only see it going the exact same way. I think the most important thing you write is this: "Even ignoring CGS, the entire invitational model just starts to strangle a community as you cannot build e-sports top-down by only supporting a select elite." I agree with this on so many levels, you can not decide "this is how the SC2 e-sports scene should look" without support from the players and community, support from below. That is part of what has made Korean Starcraft scene great, it has grown from the bottom up. If there was support from the community for the 5players/team and this being an invitational i would not see any issue, even if i personally disagree with at least one of thoose things. Looking at how InControl presents things it is like they are going to build up the western E-sports scene to fit thier vision, and sure they are the guys with the money, but if they put thier own opinions before the majority of the community i think it will fail. Sadly. | ||
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DONTPANIC
United States340 Posts
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Siwa
91 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + On February 24 2011 04:54 [-Bluewolf-] wrote: I've thought about this league for quite some time, and the following is likely the one things that bothers me the most. This league is mimicking its selection criteria and overall angle very closely to that of the failed Championship Gaming Series. In that league, they hand picked the players that could play, had visual looks and personality count towards the selection (NASL requires video, audio only applications are not allowed...), and focused heavily on a "team spirit" aspect. Furthermore, they made it nearly impossible to break into the league after their first "draft", thus causing a loss of interest from those that might want to aspire to compete in it. The argument was, of course, that the league wanted to build storylines and backgrounds just as in other sports (sound familiar)? Lastly, those that were picked often had contacts with those doing the picking - or basically, the team managers were biased as is human nature to those they knew. This league is also doing picks by what appears to be the league creators - one of which had close ties with EG and the other who has close ties to Fnatic. The CGS format was nearly universally panned except for those that constantly kept repeating how the community should support it as it was great that so much money was being thrown at e-sports along with the frequent broadcasting. In short, personal feelings of "X should have selected Y" were to be ignored and the public was expected to keep supporting the same hand picked players season after season, some of which had never shown they really belonged there in the first place over others. In terms of setup, excluding the fact that NASL is skipping putting on a fake qualification event (ie. the CGS combine), I just cannot see the difference. I am ignoring NASL's open qualification event as it is a token 1 spot that seems there just as a weak attempt to legitimize the event (with the bet being one of the 15 "chosen ones" will win by sheer numbers and thus allow the organizers to point out that their players are the best). Even ignoring CGS, the entire invitational model just starts to strangle a community as you cannot build e-sports top-down by only supporting a select elite (In my opinion, Quake 3/LIVE ended up with the same problem of few taking competition as an esport except those constantly invited to invitationals). I think they should just drop this whole facade of making esports huge and call this what it actually is: an invitational. It isn't meant to inspire the average Joe to play more, it isn't meant to get healthy competition going among the community as a whole, and, heck, it isn't even really "North American". All of this is just my opinion, of course. Looking forward to continuing to watch the GSL, TSL, and MLG - relatively open qualifications make these events so much more exciting to watch knowing the players proved they belong there. Great post. I remember the fail of CGS. Don't build a league that puts any emphasis on great personalities and back stories. Then it is not a league based purely on skill, and it will be a problem. In fact, that is getting closer to reality tv shit than a sport, and that would be horrible. (one of the many reasons that killed gsl, no respect from the community). And at this stage the top players change rather quickly. New stars can rise in a matter of month, sure some old stars are there to stay. Anyway, qualifier with only one spot is no good in this situation. "You may be a better player than the ones we have, but you have a quiet personality and you are not popular in TeamLiquid. Sorry dude, not NASL material.". <- no no no! | ||
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WackStr
United States14 Posts
InControl seems like quite a douchebag. I don't want to call names on others as well but honestly most of the people who form the "face" of this event are people I can't really respect. InControl thinks that he can be rude and make fun of people and pass that off as a manifestation of the lively and confident personality his inflated ego bestows upon himself. Whereas in truth, he really seems like a selfish person who will not take a stand on principle and contradict himself as per convenience. Would like to support esports but as things are presently, supporting NASL goes against greater principles of mine. | ||
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PrinceXizor
United States17713 Posts
On February 24 2011 23:05 WackStr wrote: I would not pay anything for the NASL and will only watch any free content from it (if they somehow manage to get some decent players considering how broken their selection system is right now). InControl seems like quite a douchebag. I don't want to call names on others as well but honestly most of the people who form the "face" of this event are people I can't really respect. InControl thinks that he can be rude and make fun of people and pass that off as a manifestation of the lively and confident personality his inflated ego bestows upon himself. Whereas in truth, he really seems like a selfish person who will not take a stand on principle and contradict himself as per convenience. Would like to support esports but as things are presently, supporting NASL goes against greater principles of mine. You sir are 150% wrong about IncontroL. he ONLY makes fun of his close friends for the most part and his close friends find it funny. he is absolutely professional when it comes to his coaching and his casting of this event. It will be fine. Day9 has does some unprofessional things (see airplanes), artosis has (see his new show and his post history pre GSL), Tasteless has does unprofessional things (see his filler moments in his casting). You cannot say anything bad about incontrol's professional attitude for his humor on casual occasions. to repeat again, the only thing i have wrong with NASL is the selection process. If you are going to have a selection instead of earning the part make it so that 20 players earn their way in and 30 are given it (at 3 per team). But don't cap players per team. so that if Liquid says okay, TLO, HUK, JINRO you guys get our liquislots, Haypro, Ret you guys definitely can earn your way in so you guys get to liquicompete for the liqui-openslots. they can still get 5 in. (sorry for the team liquid jokes but i actually couldn't help it) and then have it so the bottom placing players (bottom 4 from every group) are not given a spot next season and have to earn it back in the qualifiers. so the bottom 40% becomes the top placing players in the quals and the top 60% become the team representatives. | ||
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Treemonkeys
United States2082 Posts
On February 24 2011 12:27 RPizzle wrote: As someone who really enjoys spectating SC2 more than playing (being a low diamond scrub), I have to say that something is terribly wrong in any league that doesn't base its competition on the merits of the players. GSL had three open tournaments which allowed for seeding the players who deserved their spots into Code S&A. NASL seems to have an arbitrary selection process which is guaranteed to disenfranchise worthy players. Requiring a team in a game which is designed around, and rewards individual skill, seems ludicrous. Also, what point is there in limiting the number of Korean players if they are willing to come over, and have the talent to be in the Top 50? Since when have we used race as a metric for qualification? Not to mention, the competing interests of the members of NASL will automatically cast a shadow of doubt on any selection process short of a true and fair seeding tournament. NASL though, does strike me though, as something uniquely American. SC2 simply isn't Xtreme enough to have the actual best players facing off against one another. Instead, the purity of the sport will be left by the wayside so that we can have manufactured story lines and team drama. I mean, if you like the WWF or the XFL, as opposed to wrestling or football then that might just be your thing. I don't mean to denigrate story lines or drama as a bad thing necessarily, but they should never take precedence over a fair and judicious system for the players. The solution for the NASL is simple, however. They just need to add an "I", for "Invitational". Pretty much sums up my thoughts as well. I will be giving NASL a small chance, but I don't like the selection process at all. I like GSL because of the sheer difficulty and straightforwardness it took to qualify. NASL sounds like it will have players who are simply there because they are on a team, and other players simply left out because they have no team, have to good/big of a team, or they are just Korean. It is basically a highly protected league where they are betting that they will be able to use these arbitrary and unfair rules to make it more popular. Which I have no interest in, WWF like you said and all. | ||
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Treemonkeys
United States2082 Posts
On February 24 2011 02:29 KDN wrote: Football teams have a certain amount of players on the field, so does soccer, basketball, hockey, etc. This is about creating idols that you can follow over several seasons. This is just an absurd comparison, those are team games. SC is one vs. one. | ||
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Castrophy
United States232 Posts
I think we all need to get behind this for the good of western e-sports. If this fails I can't see anyone else trying somthing this massive in a long long time. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On February 25 2011 03:53 Castrophy wrote: I think you guys are overeacting on the league being invite only. I'm sure theese guys wont just pick any old player they want this league to be the best so in turn they will pick the best. I don't believe it says anywhere that if a player doesn't have a team he can't compete but only that they would prefer people to have a team. I think we all need to get behind this for the good of western e-sports. If this fails I can't see anyone else trying somthing this massive in a long long time. Well they said they want to find a "world champion". At least that's what they said. An invite tournament doesn't even come close to finding a world champion. It finds the person who's going to win the tournament  Imo, invitationals are hardly legitimate tournaments. They're very expensive showmatches. | ||
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WackStr
United States14 Posts
On February 25 2011 00:52 PrinceXizor wrote: You sir are 150% wrong about IncontroL. he ONLY makes fun of his close friends for the most part and his close friends find it funny. he is absolutely professional when it comes to his coaching and his casting of this event. It will be fine. Day9 has does some unprofessional things (see airplanes), artosis has (see his new show and his post history pre GSL), Tasteless has does unprofessional things (see his filler moments in his casting). You cannot say anything bad about incontrol's professional attitude for his humor on casual occasions. to repeat again, the only thing i have wrong with NASL is the selection process. If you are going to have a selection instead of earning the part make it so that 20 players earn their way in and 30 are given it (at 3 per team). But don't cap players per team. so that if Liquid says okay, TLO, HUK, JINRO you guys get our liquislots, Haypro, Ret you guys definitely can earn your way in so you guys get to liquicompete for the liqui-openslots. they can still get 5 in. (sorry for the team liquid jokes but i actually couldn't help it) and then have it so the bottom placing players (bottom 4 from every group) are not given a spot next season and have to earn it back in the qualifiers. so the bottom 40% becomes the top placing players in the quals and the top 60% become the team representatives. Well he might make fun of his friends only but he has shown that he can pretend to be someone really professional (representing NASL) and then show such base behavior. Your comparison with Artosis, Tasteless and Day9 is invalid. Firstly, regarding Day9's airplane episode, that was something from his personal life - it wasn't like he was streaming a pirated copy of something or restreaming something with ads. Secondly, he is not pretending to be someone professional at a level where he needs to subject himself to standards that he can't upkeep - which is the case for inControl. As for Artosis and Tasteless, your allegations are baseless since you didn't give a concrete example. Even if they said something like "shit" etc, that can pass as a slip up that happens at all levels of commentary at times, but is not at all equivalent to not upholding principle integrity as regards to professionalism - something that InControl is guilty of. This goes beyond him being humorous. And yea I agree with you selection sucks. Finally, what many of my friends think is that besides the earlier complaint I mentioned, InControl always likes being confrontational when he is casting - always trying to target and attack people or coming off as an uptight tool (highly critical etc). Many other casters, tastosis, Day9, husky etc although critical of the other person, are at the same time friendly with the audience. It is a subtle point but it does have a subliminally significant affect on the quality of the cast. That said, I do hope NASL turns out to be a success and is produced professionally and at a commendable standard. | ||
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