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Rings Disgraced
November 6th, 2008 00:59 GMT
Rings Disgraced
by thedeadhaji
TeamLiquid: Final Edits
WCG is a disgrace. The self-proclaimed “International Olympics” of electronic gaming is characterized by values, principles and procedures that would make the original namesake cringe in horror. As Incontrol has implied more than once, the governing body of the event needs to look after itself with great urgency. We Broodwar fans and players care so dearly about WCG because it is the only event of any importance we can play for. With SC2, the whole dynamic will inevitably change – just look at the Warcraft 3 scene, where WCG just one of the many events the players compete in, and is not even the most prestigious of the bunch.
The ‘Olympics’ of eSports
WCG – 2. a rapidly growing international olympics in which nearly one million players complete against one another for the title of world champion in separate events.
Can you imagine an Olympics without the United States in track and field, without China in diving, or Canada in hockey? Even mentioning the possibility of such an event is preposterous to any of us. But that is precisely the kind of situation WCG presents to us, despite its grandiose claims. I’m not even talking about Kobe Bryant being MIA for basketball, or Liu Xiang being absent from the hurdles – I’m taking about entire nations being omitted from participation in an event.
In 2006, there was no WCG qualifier for Broodwar in the United Kingdom. Consequently Midian, one of the best zergs outside of Korea (don’t listen to him when he says he hasn’t played in half a year) was denied even the opportunity to try to make the grand finals. In 2008, we have seen the entire nation of Canada, one of the strongest countries in the game, being stymied. As a result Jianfei, Testie, Smuft and many others were abandoned. And with the players being denied the opportunity to compete, the fans have been denied the opportunity to see these players in action. It is one thing for these players to falter during the national qualifiers; it is an entirely different issue when the very opportunity to compete is taken away from them. How can an organization and event hold up the banner of the “Olympics” without giving the best players in the world the fundamental right to compete in the first place?
Justice Be Served
There is no Justice in WCG USA" - 88)Machine
There is never a year that goes by without some form of ridiculous controversy regarding the WCG qualification process. 2008 was no exception, as TL.net heard the fury of the players involved. I will surely overlook some of the controversy that has come up this year, so I urge you to fill in the holes as necessary – we all need to be reminded about how atrocious things have been this year.
Let’s look back at the USA qualifiers, which seemed to house more than the usual share of controversy in 2008. I imagine half of you are already facepalming yourselves at the very notion of talking about the USA qualifiers, but bear with me.
We’re back at the first weeks of the online qualifiers. Already we had major issues with the referees on b.net, who featured a violent combination of incompetence and a lack of fluency in English. The first of the many drama-bombs of the qualification process – the 15 minute wait time issue – could have been dealt with properly had the referees been competent. It was a difficult situation, one that I still have no idea what happened, but it was handled terribly by the officials who are supposed to ensure that proper guidelines are in place, are understood and are enforced.
The impact of inept referees was magnified with the first arrival of hackers/abusers – the most prominent of which were the LastShadow / Spades tandem. Recall that back in April, a combined effort from WGTour, Gosugamers, Iccup, SCLegacy and TeamLiquid exposed several hackers during TSL. Included in the list of players here was Spades, who had been allowed to participate in the regional qualifiers despite being barred from every other major facet of competitive Broodwar. How this was allowed in the first place is simply beyond me. It is the equivalent of the IOC banning a track runner for steroid use in April, and yet they are allowed to compete in Beijing'08 Olympics. It is unfathomable.
“I suggest that everyone hack for this wcg, because apparently it's completely okay to do so.” – Chill
The most prominent and visible instance of abuse during the qualification process was without a doubt the LastShadow vs Nesh series, feat. KawaiiRice. Nearly everyone examining the replays agreed – KawaiiRice (an observer in the games) was tipping off LastShadow. Why a friend of a player was allowed to referee a game in the first place, I have no idea. LS was seen attacking towards a starting location despite not having scouted him at all, and also stopped his dts before going up the ramp to check for a turret. The abuse was so blatantly obvious that most of the reactions were of disbelief and comic relief, rather than outrage.
How can spectators take e-'sport' seriously when the supposed flagship event for its legitimacy blatantly supports abuse and hacking? There is a fundamental disconnect between the World Cyber Games bureaucracy and the community which it serves. The organization is being incredibly naïve if it believes it can maintain its position as the preeminent event in international Starcraft competition while not improving upon its values, principals and procedures.
The money and corporate interest coming into SC2 is will be overwhelming, and WCG will be swept off its feet if it remains complacent. Whether the organization knows it or not, the players and fans are tired of the rampant abuse and inequality that has come to characterize the World Cyber Games. They will jump ship as soon as they see land as new events with money, legitimacy and integrity arrive.
The Nation and the World
The World Cyber Games is essentially a conglomeration of fundamentally disconnected entities. From the bureaucracy at the top, to the players, the fans, the sponsors, and the national level organizers, the entire enterprise seems to be characterized by a lack of communication and transparency.
The World Cyber Games is operated by a Korean firm, International Cyber Marketing. They obviously do not have the resources to conduct qualifiers for their event across 6 continents, so logically they hand out contracts to local entities to run the national qualification process. So far, so good; after all, this is essentially analogous to how the actual Olympics is run, with individual countries having entities in place for running their national qualification process. But as all of us know, this is where the favorable comparisons end.
While the Olympic committees do everything in their power to select the best of the best their country has to offer in the sport (with some exceptions, such as the US basketball team for Athens not having a pure shooter, etc), this is hardly the case for the WCG counterparts. In fact the vast majority of national WCG organizations are characterized by complacency, disinterest and ineptitude. The only exception I have heard of is the German WCG institution, which even sends their national squads to boot camp ordeals (don’t look at me, ask Mondragon et al). And honestly, can you blame them for not giving a dime about who ends up qualifying? These are contractors! They’re paid only to produce a semi-legitimate list of players who will be sent to the Grand Finals. Why should they care whether Spades or Nony represents our country – they’ve already made their dollars by the time the whole things is said and done.
If there is one thing that distinguishes the Olympics Committees to the WCG national organizations, it is the matter of national pride. The Olympic Committees need to get the best of the best out there and represent their countries. It probably entails further economic incentives, but honestly as fans and observers of the event we couldn’t care less. This obviously is not the case for the WCG entities. They’re given a lump sum from the parental organization, and whatever happens after that is irrelevant as long as things are somewhat recognizable as being legitimate.
So whose fault is it that the WCG qualification process is an absolute sham year after year? Why is it that the procedure, the bracketing, and everything else are riddled with problems that never get solved? Yes, it’s the fault of the local organizations for not ensuring that the best players come out on top. But if I’m the guy taking the contract from WCG, why would I spend an extra $10,000 to make things perfect when I can cut corners and put up the façade of legitimacy for $10,000 less? Why should I listen to community outrage when it doesn’t make me a penny in profits?
Whose responsibility is it then in the first place to guarantee that the World Cyber Games is a legitimate competition between the best players in the world? I believe that the blame lies with International Cyber Marketing and whoever sits at the top of the WCG food chain. If things are not being done properly at the bottom, it’s their job to detect the shortcomings and resolve the issues. Pushing responsibility onto the entry level employee instead of taking the heat himself is something your crappy boss would do, not something the top of an internationally respected institution can be permitted to do.
Thus it comes back to the fundamental divide between the various levels and interests that make up the beast that is WCG. I highly doubt that the higher ups of WCG even know of the travesties at the national level. And without them being proactive, the issues that have plagued WCG year after year are not going away – and this will lead to the demise of the integrity and reputation of the event in the long run. The event is only as strong as its players, and when all the players are crying foul, it is a matter of time until the next best thing runs them out of the market.
Blind, Deaf and Mute
So there is a clear disconnect and lack of responsibility within WCG between the national and international levels. But what about the relationship between the fans and the players as it relates to the WCG hierarchy? To answer this, I only have to point to one example: the map debacle of 2008.
Recall: The maps for WCG were originally set as Tau Cross, Shin Peaks, Blue Storm, Python, Gaia. However, in June we were hit with the news that Tau Cross, Shin Peaks, Python and Gaia were being removed, with Troy, Andromeda and Othello being added ( Source ). The vast majority of national qualifiers had already started, with several approaching the end already! Why were they doing this? Did they ask for any feedback from the players outside of Korea? Did they not even bother? Were they catering to the Korean professionals at the expense of 90+% of the participants? No one had any idea what was going on, why this decision was being made, nothing!
Then a good 3 months later, the map pool was changed again!! So now the maps would be Blue Storm, Python, Shin Peaks, Tau Cross, and Ride of Valkyries. They essentially reverted to the original map pool, swapping Gaia for RoV. Again, why? If the new map pool were an issue why did they wait three months to announce this change? Countless national qualifiers were affected, not to mention the players’ practice routines as well. Everything about this has been an absolute disaster, without any saving grace.
The map debacle of 2008 WCG Broodwar has been an utter joke and another instance of the ineptitude of the organization. It reaffirms how much discord and lack of communication there is between the players and the organizational body.
Operation Desert *cough*fail*cough* Storm
When I talk about the ineptitude of the local WCG organizations, there’s more to the story than the idealities of the qualification process. On certain levels they can be excused of not knowing what format is best, between ladder, regional tournaments, online/offline, single or double elimination, etc. They’re hired to conduct the logistics, and maintaining competitive integrity understandably may not be their strong suit. However, there are inexcusable shortcomings and oversights in their handling of logistics that they, along with the entire World Cyber Games hierarchy, deserve to be crucified for.
The most outrageous situation I can recall is how little notice is given to players to buy tickets and confirm that they are flying to their offline regional. This year, some players (Machine was one of them iirc) received their email notification TWO days before the offline event. Someone else on the forums said they were give three (woohoo!) days last year! What kind of monkey do they have running this thing? Even the event page on the WCG website has a date stamped 10 days before the offline event – still not nearly enough time to sort out plane tickets and lodging in a budget conscious manner.
What truly boggles my mind is that they knew well in advance who had qualified from the online portion. Why couldn’t they have notified the players right then and there? There’s just no excuses for this, and if they were a secretary in a proper company doing such logistics they would be instantly fired.
An even worse example is from my Warcraft 3 days (cue laughtrack). There was one player who made the Grand Finals who had absolutely no idea about even the most basic build orders. It was clear to everyone that this player had basically never played the game before, and there was a huge uproar in the community (2004 or 2005 WCG).
How did this complete newbie (in the truest sense of the word) make it this far? With the help of forum members from that country, it was found that the country qualifier page never went up for that country, and no one showed up to the LAN center. As a result, the organizer gave the first place prizes (free tickets, paid hotel, etc) to a friend of his. While this country did not have any “pro” players, it nevertheless had several level 40’ish ladder players who could show that hey, this unknown country has some alright players… but no, things didn’t exactly turn out that way.
How in the world did the national WCG page fail to go online? Why were the community sites not informed? Who were the contacts? Can you imagine an Olympic swimmer drowning in the pool? That’s basically what this was – a true disgrace. (sorry, I can’t recall the exact country, year, or player name for this incident)
I am sure I have missed many other examples of truly ridiculous logistical decisions made by the WCG organization. I encourage you to post them here so that maybe, just maybe we’ll see some improvement in the future.
We can hope, can’t we?
Money Matters
Let’s take a look back and look at the bottom line. WCG is a for profit organization that is by definition rife with conflicts of interest. To be frank, by proclaiming itself the Olympics of eSports, WCG has set the bar too high. The combination of these two factors makes it perhaps impossible to uphold the spirit of competition and maintain the legitimacy of its endeavors.
Recall the nonparticipation of countries in events in given years – particularly UK in 2007 and Canada in 2008 as previously mentioned. These countries were not omitted because the players didn’t meet some cutoff point, or because they committed some flagrant offense in past events. No, it is because they could not find a sponsor to fund the player’s journey and stay at the event. It was because of money.
Remember Draco and others funding themselves to go to WCG Grand Finals in the past? Notice how some countries have 1 representative while others have 3? This is unfathomable in the real deal Olympics – having nonparticipation of top athletes due to funding issues.
Monetary matters influence the entire essence of WCG, to the point where one cannot separate the event and money. Who, what, when, where, why, how, are all influenced and determined by the bottom line – and what is it that takes the hit? Oh, just that little thing over there in the corner called competitive integrity.
They Chose What!?
Some of the game choices WCG has made are simply incomprehensible, while others are driven by ulterior motives. Looking at the history of WCG game lineups, we can see how poor their selection has been. WCG game lineups are analogous to the sports included in the Olympic games, and ought to be determined with the utmost precision.
The game list looks completely normal from 2000-2002, with games such as BW, CS1.6 and Quake3, along with legitimately competitive and proven titles. However, with 2003 we see the paradigm shift. Halo makes its grand entrance, despite being largely unproven as a competitive game. Can we really take this inclusion at face value, when Halo then was hardly what it is now, in addition to Microsoft dollars? The situation worsens in 2004, which Project Gotham Racing and Need for Speed coming into the mix. Really? Racing games? Really? *cough*EA*cough*Microsoft*cough* Did I just hear a cash register? Must be getting old…
Then in 2005, Dead or Alive is included in the list. I could probably list at least 10 games past and present in the fighting game genre that deserved to be included instead of DoA, taking into account community support, popularity, along with competitive legitimacy. Three years later even today, DoA is still not considered a legitimate fighting game title no matter what PueroRican claims. The ONLY reason DoA was included was because of the dollars Microsoft provided to WCG. Oh, and it also looks pretty! There is simply no logical defense one can take to support DoA’s inclusion. And so a title that hadn’t even gone through the arcades, with a miniscule player base entered the fray while games such as Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, CvS, MvC, SSBM, etc etc stood on the sidelines despite a larger fan base, world wide player base, proven game play and balance at the highest levels… the list goes on.
Since then we have seen the situation worsen, with Tony Hawk 8 and Guitar Hero being listed. Excuse me, did I read that right?? You begin to wonder whether WCG even cares about its façade of “competitive” gaming. Honestly I don’t think I have to explain to you guys why these games are simply ludicrous. I wonder what Stork will think if he’s told that his 1st place from 2007 is equal in achievement to that guy spinning a skateboard over there…
Then there was Command and Conquer 3 in 2007. Let’s go down the list here. Pretty graphics (makes Samsung’s monitors look great)? Check. Made by EA? Check. The game isn’t even out on the market yet? Check… That’s right. CnC3 wasn’t even available when it was included in the WCG games list. How preposterous is that? (insert Chill voicetrack) How often are RTS games actually well balanced on launch? Basically never.
SBO (Tougeki) had an opportunity to include Street Fighter IV in its game list this year, by adding it in before the release date. Did they do so? Of course not! They would have never been able to conduct a proper qualifier for it, let alone ensure that it had the quality to properly make it into their lineup.
Perhaps the part of WCG that is influenced most heavily by money is what games are being played. With sponsors such as Samsung, Microsoft and EA, WCG has a prerogative to include certain games and exclude others. Every single one of these shady game inclusions I’ve mentioned here has been an EA or Microsoft affiliated title.
I can understand why WCG would make this decision, and I can’t fully blame them to be honest! But if they’re going to go down this path, they better stop pretending like they’re an organization that fosters pure competitive gaming with a strong adherence to integrity and what not, because it doesn’t take any more than the maturity of a 6th grader to see through it. There’s a serious credibility issue when an event that claims to uphold “competition” and “competitive eSports” includes games that are clearly not of competitive nature.
Either go all-out with the integrity of competition or go for the money – not both! It’s insulting to my intelligence and to the players in the legitimate titles to put the winners of Guitar Hero/PGR/CnC3/etc and BW/WC3/CS/etc on the same pedestal. Is anyone actually being fooled by this?
How is regular Joe Gamer supposed to take the legitimacy of competition and the significance of the achievements seriously when the games chosen exclude some of the most competitive, well-played titles that exist today, while including games that even the most casual of players would scoff at? This is like an Olympics without Track and Field that decided to include Arena Football – a complete joke.
I wonder if I can have competitive rolling down a hill blindfolded included in the 2012 Olympics if I give the IOC enough money…
Beyond the…
I cannot think of a single organization in charge of a competitive event that is so poorly regarded by its players and fans than the World Cyber Games. Why is it that these players, clearly frustrated with the way the event is run, keep participating in it year after year? Because they have no alternatives. Why are the fans, despite the obvious foul play involved, continue to support WCG? Well maybe it won’t stay that way. WCG needs to figure out what it wants to be, because they’re fooling no one but themselves if they think that their reputation can be maintained if they continue on this path.
I have a great deal of respect for the players who endure the mess that WCG puts in front of them each and every year. They are the ones that strive to uphold the integrity of competition that the administration fails to establish.
Here’s to hoping, nay praying, that these players will no longer be subjected to the injustices and atrocities that they have long endured – in the era of Starcraft 2 and beyond. Cheers.
"WCG is truly beyond the game" - 88)Artosis
I encourage you to read the comments, where people have shared the WCG horror stories I wasn't able to cover.
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interesting
but without any kind of actual meaning to the wcg, it wont change
i doubt that people outside of the gaming community actually know about wcg. i bet most people dont even know that competitive gaming even exists
to call itself the olympics of gaming is simply preposterous
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Lol it's the closest thing to the Olympics of gaming, even if it isn't of the same calibur
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Amazing and enlightening article.
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CA10825 Posts
great job haji, so this is the article you were telling me about lol
wcg is sooooo bad.
especially this year when they have "partner time: microsoft" instead of showing any of the semifinals for games such as bw or cs
but it's ok because we get to watch the consolation 3rd/4th place match for GUITAR HERO YEAH!!!!!
*groan*
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16957 Posts
Again, one of the few articles I actually took the time to read (I'm trying to read more, Hot_Bid, promise!). And it's mind blowing. I had no clue such flagrant disrespect for their fanbase even existed. It's pretty much disgusting.
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Great FE material... I've yet to see a complete rundown of everything that has gone wrong with the WCG in recent years in one place. A great article for learning of the horrors of WCG, as well as some good analysis of the situation as a whole. Someone needs to get this to the WCG higher ups or something.
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nice writeup. I could tell the storys of terrible warcraft 3 qualifier horror stories that happened across the U.S. in the RoC and early TFT days, but the point has already been made.
its a shame to see such a great opportunity get pissed away =\
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Katowice25012 Posts
On November 06 2008 10:23 SayaSP wrote:
Lol it's the closest thing to the Olympics of gaming, even if it isn't of the same calibur
It resembles the olympics in name only
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NeverGG
United Kingdom5399 Posts
A very interesting read - I have to admit to being baffled by some of the choices whilst reporting the WCG Korean qualifiers and after reading this. They don't seem to fit the typical mold of what a lot of people consider a true 'esport' and I began to wonder if there were even enough people playing these games at a competative level to make a tournament based upon them anything more legitimate than some random gamers playing for kicks.
It's fun to have variety, but when games are included simply because it looks good for their developers and not because there is a genuine demand to see them played competatively it exposes a mercenary and money-grubbing element that doesn't feel in-keeping with 'international esports' and how it (maybe) should be portrayed to new fans/mainstream people.
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wow.. i was excited about being able to watch my first WCG,
guess its not living up to the hipe... 
will still grab the replays afterward though 
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Man, love your article! Bashing the mofo right up his a**! But for the international competitive SC:BW scene, WCG is no doubt the biggest tournament (with TSL comes 2nd IMO, I wish they didn't ban Korean and Chinese players). I guess ppl just have to tough it out. After all, it's better than nothing, aint it?
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I don't think hackers should be allowed to compete but I also think using steroids as an analogy is stupid because steroids cannot be turned on and off
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Great article - got my full support.
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Great read Haji. I wholeheartedly agree with you here, WCG has been a sham for quite some time now. I really dont think it will eve change either, they are probably going to drop BW in 09 even though they say its on there.
Edit: love the main image btw.
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Guitar Hero is such a joke for a game. So is PGR. I was so disgusted when I started seeing those games included in the competitive gaming arena.
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Well said. This would have been better in all caps.
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The wc3's player you were talking about had "Luxembourg" as his nickname, and came from the country Luxembourg in Europe. There were some talks at www.wcreplays.com about him back then, but it was fun to watch him get utterly spanked 
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Thank you for this article
Australia had its own Cluster-Fuck with the WCG this year. A lot of the WCG games weren't supported in Australia (including Starcraft :< ). Although there was a decent enough excuse for this, which was, there was just not enough gamers to support each game.
As far as I know, there was no online qualifiers in Australia for any game this year (could be wrong), but there was just 1 or 2 locations chosen in each state of Australia and people would just turn up, pay their entry fee and compete. The winners of each state would then compete in Sydney for the spots to Germany.
There was one incident where the Aus WCG had chosen a specific location to hold one State's qualifiers and people turned up on the day to a completely closed venue. That was it. Apparently they had organized the qualifiers to be played at an internet cafe but because of poor communication it just didn't happen. So because of poor communication and planning, one WHOLE state of Australia was not represented at the national finals. Ridiculous.
There was also another issue where many players who won the state finals, didn't get flights or accommodation to Sydney for the national final. They just had to get there themselves. Where as some people got everything paid for. It was as if the WCG Aus organizes just sat down and said "Ok. Everyone who wins from these states gets paid flights and accommodation but fuck the rest."
Anyway, good article. I thought I would just share that with you guys.
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I haven't read the whole thing yet, I will, I just wanted to note that MidiaN did compete in 2007, he was in group A and lost to Fenix, SteelHeart and I believe DracO, finishing 0-3.
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This is bad. Wait...so is Spades going to the grand finals? I hope he gets run over at the very start and gets off'd like a total fucking dunce.
I'd gleaned from the general attitude towards WCG, and the bits I've read here and there about it that it was bad, but seriously...this is a whole 'nother level.
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Gather Teamliquid, Blizzard, Valve, IDsoftware etc and start your own worldwide tournaments.
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I remembered that the first tourny of WCG here in the philippines made counter-strike into a 1on1 game. They also used crap-ass computers that made players use software rather than the standard OpenGL.
Just think of it. CS 1on1? isn't that a team game? The best team in the philippines didn't even compete for the first year because they took the people that were the best of the best when it comes to one on one. Unfortunately, they didn't even have the chemistry to play as a whole and they got their asses whoop. hehe..
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is awesome32271 Posts
I can feel all the negative waves. TL is turning grumpy lately!
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Great Read Haji. Nothing embodies the thoughts of the players and fans more.
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Great read.
One of the reasons TSL was so great was that it didn't have to deal with all this shit.
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Great fucking FE and I agree with pretty much all of it but the alternative to it is so hard that we're stuck with WCG for a while sadly
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is awesome32271 Posts
Well since we are spilling hate all over I might as well share my knowledge on Argentina :D
Argentina has 2 major gaming sites, Alkon and 3DGames. Well we have more, but those 2 are the ones with "more prestige". To make it short, 3dg holds the more mature players usually, the best ones in each game too (cept maybe for CS) and overall has better organization.
Argentina didn't get a WCG for the year 2007, so 3dgames gathered some money and sent only a wcg representative (which is the one with decent chances of winning, along with FIFA maybe if im not mistaken). He went, got third in the hardest group, etc.
In 2008, everyone wanted argentina to have a decent WCG so Alkon said they would organize it. They got the permission and everything, made online qualifiers in net cafes and some others online. Most qualifiers had entrance fees. Long story short, WCG got cancelled like one week before the finals had to be held? The organization blamed the economic crisis. They said companies didn't want to use money to sponsor, etc. Except for Intel, they said everyone else drew back the money they promised. Anyway, they calculations to pay for trips and stuff were way off, people called to the place where the finals were supposed to be held and they got the manager of the place saying no registrations were settled for that date.
Everyone suspects of the organizer running with the money of the qualies, but who knows. Bleh.
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How hard would it be to fix? Write out a contract stipulating terms that their contractors have to follow if they don't follow them then they have the right to revoke the amount paid. If it comes down to getting paid or not you'd be surprised how much more they'd care about the overall quality of the event.
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Well, I'm assuming that at least part of the reason for this mess is because most people don't take competitive gaming seriously and e-sports is still at its infancy. If you look at the real Olympics, it has been taking place for about 100 years and happens only once every four years (compared to WCG which takes place every year LOL).
So yeah, I'm just saying give it time (maybe 10 or 20 years) and there will be positive change, but not immediately. Feel free to criticize all you want in the meantime though
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World Championships are every year for almost every Olympic sport and they're taken just as seriously as the olympics are in the competitive spirit and for the sense of accomplishment. Not as heavily advertised or even televised most of the time so it's not even about the money for the organizers. So I don't really get that logic
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I enjoyed the read. I also appreciate the fact that you listed SSBM has a legitimate tournament fighter as I was a competitive SSBM player (until Brawl came out and shafted the community >_>). SSBM has always gotten too much hate from the fighting community simply because it's not traditional fighter.
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Haji: I largely agree with you, WCG started off as a small side tournament to a much larger tech expo. and as it has pulled away from it's tech expo roots it has become disgustingly commercial and in some cases corrupt.
However, WCG has always had some problems that I felt you implied were new and shocking. Local WCG events depend so largely on how hard working the national organizer is, if they suck, they suck I'm afraid. In 2001 the BeNeLux qualifier was largely considered a joke as almost all the players left in protest while gosus like Garak and Pixel ended up representing Netherlands at the finals. Mexico had a similarly bad qualifier that year, familiar with the guy that lost like 10 scvs to Elky's scout and completely misplaced his expansion CC so that it was miles from any mineral patches?
I also don't really think it's fair for you to say what game is a "real game" and what isn't. If it really has a decent sized, worldwide community, it should be given a chance. I admit that TH8 was a disaster and DoA4 isn't really a legitimate fighting game but DoA was replaced with VF5 this year and those qualifiers proved to be as sad as the DoA qualifiers with many DoA4 veterans making comebacks simply because there isn't a VF5 community in their country. NFS is taken very seriously in some countries and has professional teams.
I don't really have a solution either, ESWC suffers from the same incompetence, maybe if their were more checks and balances organizers like BFES and PGL wouldn't be allowed to continue their reign of incompetence. The Olympics are as commercial as anything I've ever seen but it still has it's dignity, I wonder how it does it. Maybe because there is so many people watching that they would be outraged if the Nike Sack Race was included in the olympics as an event. Maybe people need to get angry at companies like EA, Microsoft and Samsung for having such a heavy hand in the WCG. Or maybe the WCG should just end, but would that be good for the community or E-Sports as a whole? I honestly don't know...
By the way, the Warcraft 3 player was from Luxembourg, the Belgian organizer was asked to qualify a player from Luxembourg as well as their Belgian team but only after they had held their qualifiers, they apparently attempted to ask the previous winner (DVD) but he was unable to go or something. It was a really shitty thing to happen to a community and I'm glad the community was so upset. I think it happened this year as well but nami was actually able to go instead of some newb.
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I think the point that needs to be emphasized is MONEY. Really, that's all it comes down to. Quite simply, WCG doesn't make enough money to make things run smoothly.
The Olympics is also about money. The difference is, olympics BRING IN money. WCG does not. Countries bribe the Olympic commitee for the chance to invest billions of dollars. The day WCG can get a good audience, plenty of sponsors, and enough money to invest back into a solid infrastructure, will the day this kind of crap won't happen.
I think if you want to look at it positively, at least WCG is bringing in big sponsors and promoting esports in general. That's better than nothing, I guess.
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Your quote from machine should read attr. to machine[light], not 88)machine 
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I've always hated WCG and especially the maps they choose for SC. So fucking bad, fuck them.
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too long to read. basically OP is telling us that WCG is disappointed.
OP is keep comparing WCG to an ACTUAL OLYMPIC.
WCG is not backed/sponsored by government or country like OLYMPIC does.
They dont have money, they do their best to keep things in order.
and about wcg omitting some countries.. i dont see how this is WCG fault when your country or sponsors in your country could have helped the players.
Seriously, you expecting WCG organize hundres and thousands of players themselves in every country? Well shit, what does your country do?
At least WCG is hosting for most of us.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
Really nice article about a subject I care / have thought about very much.
I am really close to the WCG USA people and actually to a certain degree Mr. Lee himself (top korean for WCG). I don't say this as a "look at me" kind of statement but rather as a beacon of hope. I have not-so-subtly told several of the WCG USA people that I want to help them and I think they need it. This is not because they are incompetent or because they have failed. It is because I uniquely know the market from an economic standpoint and a gamer/player standpoint. Paul Brewer comes close as he himself is a gamer and also one of the top WCG USA people who actually cares about the integrity of the competition. Previous to WCG USA he worked for ESPN and ran their Madden competitions where players competed in the very popular game Madden 200X. He however is 1 voice in a sea of people that are a bit older, know a lot less (about games) and care a LOT more about the raw dollar on paper. The aforementioned "corners" that can be cut like $10,000 are constantly being cut because they want to put that money into marketing or straight to the profit margin. I know this for a fact because I discuss things with them on an insider level. I will not go into details because I know/respect those involved and do not want to cause problems for them.
The point I am trying to make is that what I have said in the past.. numerous times here and even in face to face talks with said WCG USA people is that WCG will get left in the dust come SC2 if they continue to operate the way they do. This isn't the quite banter of a SC nerd who doesn't know what he is saying. This is the steely cold logic of a person who cares deeply about eSports and knows enough about both sides to evaluate the situation adequately.
Already MLG has hijacked top teams in games like Halo, CS and other games. The teams that go to national or even world finals are hardly the very top teams.. often it is the 5-10th teams because the top 4-5 are at another tourney far more prestigious with a bigger cash prize. SC has to go to WCG because we have _nothing_ else (save for TSL, a new element). When SC2 explodes the competetive scene and broadens the market from korea to europe, america and beyond we will see WCG scrambling (too late) to make a mark for itself. People will be talking about the ESPN National SC2 finals or the Samsung Euro Championship.
Why does this matter? We have bigger tourneys, so what if WCG falls apart and dies?
WCG is where we (sc players) got our roots. They were the ones who brought this game onboard so many years ago and have kept it despite it being an aged game that is far too complex for most people to understand. For all its faults WCG has made SC what it is today. If we didn't have WCG I PROMISE you SC would be dead outside of korea (and very well within) circa 2004-5. We needed WCG and they need us.. it is a symbiotic relationship. The passionate bleeding heart inside me demands that we return the favor and shake them by their shoulders asking them to adapt and reform.
TL is the most powerful community website regarding SC. They check this website and they speak to individuals (namely me) about what they can do. I will work my hardest to get them to pay attention.. do your part anyway you can.
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man my image of WCG being a quality product was just utterly destroyed.
guess it was for the better...
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I didn't realize that the whole of WCG was this messed up. I thought that it was just a few isolated incidents here and there in the qualifiers, and in some cases a lack of funding. > A very enlightening read. However this doesn't surprise me because as always, it unfortunately comes down to dollar signs.
btw, That is a really cool pic in the OP.
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This is the first WCG I've been following so I'm not so sure about the poor tournament setups, but if it's as described it is pretty bad. The game lists for WCG are a joke though. Didn't realize Guitar Hero was actually being included in the tournaments, when I saw it in pictures I thought it was just for people to have fun. Also isn't one of the racing games a cell phone racing games?
Anyways if TL is so upset why not tell their best possible contact to change WCG, Tasteless? He's casting in WCG, lives in Korea, knows people in the proscene, etc. I'm sure if anyone connected to the foreign SC scene has a chance to change WCG it would be him.
On a side note while I'm sure there are more valid fighting games than DOA, but I did see on TV there were progamers that play DOA. The way they live is similar to the way Korean SC progamers live, in dorms , practicing with each other, etc.
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WCG has become just another e-sports FESTIVAL, the competition is merely for show.
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OP has nicely informed many TL.net community that participant of WCG is nothing but a show maker.
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in our country wcg its a disaster.. year after year we waiting for a national qualy and never happens...
its sad for all the gamers around the world dont have a real tournament and organization for test our habilities and knowledge.
i hope tha in a short time, the situation reverts, all want a real e-sport fest!!
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thanks thedeadhaji,
this was a great, informative read.
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wcg... venezuela wcg is prolly the biggest disgrace loool
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I think the main problem is the autonomy given to all the national wcg organisers. It basically is:
WCG Central gives power to local WCG org --> Local WCG org. is run by morons who don't give a fuck about competitive gaming and WCG itself and are there to squeeze some easy bucks --> Morons who don't give a crap about the event itself try to attract sponsors, who can clearly notice this guys have no fucking idea what they are trying to sell them --> they kick moronic representatives out of their offices.
I wonder if WCG Central could get more involved in the local organisers, like send a supervisor or something. But right now their way of acting is more like: let's give them full responsability and see what money they can drag in by fall.
Oh, btw, you guys all realise that the only reason we still have BW in WCG it's because Samsung is the biggest sponsor of WCG(actually I think Samsung owns the majority of WCG)? And not including the national esport would be like not giving the progaming they are so proud of any recognition at all.
Had it not been for Samsung, BW would have been gone from the WCG game lineups a long time ago. Then again, hadn't it been for Samsung, we wouldn't even have WCG in the first place.
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So true...
I was so angry about WCG Canada.
Quite great article, pretty good read.
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I enjoyed the article..
However, the comments on the game selection is a little off.. Your obviously going to be biased cause of your game preference, and I will be the first to say that SC BW is the best competitive game ever, but does it really mean other games shouldn't be played internationally?? That's like saying that no games should have a chance but yours.
Halo for example is a pretty established competitive FPS, and there is a clear skill gap between the pros and the am bracket, its not the best FPS ever, and Halo 3 is actually less competitive then Halo 1, but its still a good game. However WCG is a joke as far as halo community is concerned, not a single top 16 team attended from the US, I could have probably came in top three if my team had attended.. Canada had one top 16 team attend... but mostly due to the scheduling. Who schedules a WCG qualifier the same weekend as the playoffs for seeds for the national championships happen in Dallas??? Now the U.S.A., the only place Halo is played as far as the competitive gaming world goes, is not going to medal.. Fail on WCG's part.
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Thanks to gondolin for filling in the holes for the war3 part, and Beside_kr for pointing out my mistake! (it was 2006, not 2007)
No problem, if you want more information about it, this discussion resume well what happened:
http://www.wcreplays.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-52462.html
+ Show Spoiler +
Frozgard
11-26-2005, 06:52 PM
Some of you may have followed the discussions that arose from the fact that one of the players in WCG apparently had never played a game of Warcraft 3 in his life. This person was representing Luxembourg and was playing under the country's nickname. Here is a bit of information that I managed to glean from forums about gaming in Luxembourg.
First of all, a non-profit organisation called LESF (http://www.lesf.lu/) ( Luxembourg Electronic Sports Federation) contacted the WCG organisers to hold a national qualifier in Luxembourg. By default, only one spot was open for the country, with the possibility of having more spots at the national organiser's expense. Since LESF is pretty new and sponsorship for gaming is hard to come by, they planned to send only one player to Singapour. However, apparently they didn't know which game the spot was for. So they held off organising a qualifier until they would know which game it would be for. Also, they didn't talk about the spot nor the possibility that one gamer may be able to represent the country in the international finals. So nobody except the few organisers knew what was going on at the time.
Then, three days before the WCG Finals were about to start, they recieved confirmation that the spot was in fact for Warcraft III. Now, the organisers didn't publicise this either but in a hurry tried to contact Warcraft 3 players they knew. From what I saw, only a few were contacted and out of these nobody could attend because of the short timeframe and school / work commitments. So in the end they asked around if anybody could go and finally they found this Peter Freitag guy. He had indeed not played any Warcraft before and the only reason he was sent was to not void the ticket.
I'll try and get an official statement from LESF and translate this into English if necessary. The blame lies with them and their inactivity and failure to have any communication at all about the issues they were facing or at least contacting the wider LAN community in Luxembourg. It's a sad story of an inefficient organisation, but at least there doesn't seem to have been a willingness to commit fraud against the War3 community in Luxembourg.
Personnally I'm quite disappointed by the end result and by this failure. I hope the wider Warcraft community will realise that this person's skill doesn't represent the best skill of Warcraft 3 in Luxembourg in any way and that we, the Warcraft 3 players from Luxembourg are the ones who have been really hurt by this turn of events.
As final words, I would like to thank the people who have helped me track down the information I needed to find and all the people who have lent moral support. We all want a fair and square WCG, where players deserve to be there and show the best level their country has to offer. And I hope that this incident will stay isolated, but will still serve as a reminder to those who organise, follow the scene and play Warcraft III.
Frozgard
I don't know if Frozgard is still active, but he was a pretty good and cool orc from luxembourg (although not pro level), and he even got qualified for eswc i think (but he was worth it )
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United States3824 Posts
I don't feel so bad for missing '07 when it was in my hometown. I am kinda disgusted with video gaming now.
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That's why there was no ace combat in the wcg. They only included it when it was exclusive for xbox.
I think Virtua Fighter is included but not too sure about that.
I also agree on some countries not funding their teams. My country hasn't been competing in StarCraft ever since SteelHeart 2-0'ed his group and got 2-0'd by Hwasin, the government said that our players weren't worthy. It wasn't really SteelHeart's fault if he had to go against Hwasin after the group stages. Now they sponsor Guitar Hero (in which we won 2nd place in the South East Asian World Cyber Games).
Even our olympic team didn't get enough funding, I guess its really that corrupted in here.
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lol you forgot the fact that there is actually CELL PHONE RACING GAME at WCG O_O!
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On November 06 2008 12:23 jaesung wrote:
too long to read. basically OP is telling us that WCG is disappointed.
OP is keep comparing WCG to an ACTUAL OLYMPIC.
WCG is not backed/sponsored by government or country like OLYMPIC does.
They dont have money, they do their best to keep things in order.
and about wcg omitting some countries.. i dont see how this is WCG fault when your country or sponsors in your country could have helped the players.
Seriously, you expecting WCG organize hundres and thousands of players themselves in every country? Well shit, what does your country do?
At least WCG is hosting for most of us.
So have you read it or not?
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guitar hero is a legitimately competitive game, in the sense that some people are better than others and it can be pretty impressive to watch someone really good at it. I think it belongs perhaps at a different kind of place, maybe. Like World Bemani Games, if that existed, along with games like DDR, PIU, Pop'n Music, etc. Bemani is just a different genre of game, really. Not sure if it fits in well with all the others at WCG.
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I remember a few years back there was actually online vote for which games should be included. I can't remember which exactly, but most were legitimate titles from each genre.
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Hmmmm... WCG Canada is a bit different. Our organizers are really great people trying their best and they care. So they can be lumped in with the Germans.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On November 06 2008 10:34 LosingID8 wrote:
great job haji, so this is the article you were telling me about lol
wcg is sooooo bad.
especially this year when they have "partner time: microsoft" instead of showing any of the semifinals for games such as bw or cs
but it's ok because we get to watch the consolation 3rd/4th place match for GUITAR HERO YEAH!!!!!
*groan*
Do I even dare to ask what "partner time with microsoft" actually is? The name makes me think of an over-commercialized childrens show..
Haji, very good read.
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Then in 2005, Dead or Alive is included in the list. I could probably list at least 10 games past and present in the fighting game genre that deserved to be included instead of DoA, taking into account community support, popularity, along with competitive legitimacy. Three years later even today, DoA is still not considered a legitimate fighting game title no matter what PueroRican claims. The ONLY reason DoA was included was because of the dollars Microsoft provided to WCG. Oh, and it also looks pretty! There is simply no logical defense one can take to support DoA’s inclusion. And so a title that hadn’t even gone through the arcades, with a miniscule player base entered the fray while games such as Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, CvS, MvC, SSBM, etc etc stood on the sidelines despite a larger fan base, world wide player base, proven game play and balance at the highest levels… the list goes on.
The reason I first wanted to watch WCG was to see the top Street Fighter players competing, but instead I saw that they were hosting DOA-WTF?. It was then I saw that WCG was simply a place a event where game developers with deep pockets go to promote their new next generation software. If Daniel Lee wasn't hosting, I wouldn't even bother with the event since it means squat.
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I actually didn't know it was that bad. Wow...
Good read though, good read~
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Sweden33719 Posts
On November 06 2008 13:25 BraveGhost wrote:
I enjoyed the article..
However, the comments on the game selection is a little off.. Your obviously going to be biased cause of your game preference, and I will be the first to say that SC BW is the best competitive game ever, but does it really mean other games shouldn't be played internationally?? That's like saying that no games should have a chance but yours.
Halo for example is a pretty established competitive FPS, and there is a clear skill gap between the pros and the am bracket, its not the best FPS ever, and Halo 3 is actually less competitive then Halo 1, but its still a good game. However WCG is a joke as far as halo community is concerned, not a single top 16 team attended from the US, I could have probably came in top three if my team had attended.. Canada had one top 16 team attend... but mostly due to the scheduling. Who schedules a WCG qualifier the same weekend as the playoffs for seeds for the national championships happen in Dallas??? Now the U.S.A., the only place Halo is played as far as the competitive gaming world goes, is not going to medal.. Fail on WCG's part.
I don't think that's what he's saying, Halo was mentioned as an example because when it was picked, it was completely new and unproven. Obviously today there are far worse choices than Halo..
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It is annoying that they sell the event to uninitiated fans and the curious as the epitemy of competitive videogaming. I hadn't thought of that before
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On November 06 2008 11:22 Roxen000 wrote:
Thank you for this article
Australia had its own Cluster-Fuck with the WCG this year. A lot of the WCG games weren't supported in Australia (including Starcraft :< ). Although there was a decent enough excuse for this, which was, there was just not enough gamers to support each game.
As far as I know, there was no online qualifiers in Australia for any game this year (could be wrong), but there was just 1 or 2 locations chosen in each state of Australia and people would just turn up, pay their entry fee and compete. The winners of each state would then compete in Sydney for the spots to Germany.
There was one incident where the Aus WCG had chosen a specific location to hold one State's qualifiers and people turned up on the day to a completely closed venue. That was it. Apparently they had organized the qualifiers to be played at an internet cafe but because of poor communication it just didn't happen. So because of poor communication and planning, one WHOLE state of Australia was not represented at the national finals. Ridiculous.
There was also another issue where many players who won the state finals, didn't get flights or accommodation to Sydney for the national final. They just had to get there themselves. Where as some people got everything paid for. It was as if the WCG Aus organizes just sat down and said "Ok. Everyone who wins from these states gets paid flights and accommodation but fuck the rest."
Anyway, good article. I thought I would just share that with you guys.
Yeah, its very sad that the organisers in Australia are absoutely useless.
Horror story
I was once a respected member of the cyberslam community (the guys that are in charge of WCG Aus). They were given a tournament to run. A tournament that Aussies could win and get a free flight to somewhere in Asia to compete for a 10k prize. Not bad. The call went out for referees and I signed up. To my horror, I found out I was one of TWO referees for the entire event. I immediately voiced my concerns saying that there needed to be more refs. However I was told that there wouldnt be that many games that needed to be ref'ed.
How? I thought, for a chance at 10k, your going to have a lot of people competing. However I soon realised why when I looked at the schedule for the event. They had decided the best way to run the event was a single elimination 16 person online tournament. How to get into the tournament? Simple, be one of the first 16 people to sign up. I watched horrified as registration opened and the event filled up in seconds.
This however didnt exactly impress the Australian Warcraft 3 community. A tournament that offered the chance at 10k was about to be played by a bunch of nobodys. The best players in Aus had missed out on a spot and the uproar was massive. The response from cyberslam was "We weren't aware that there would be so many people entereing this tournament". After some negotiating, cyberslam gave the hosting rights up to a Warcraft 3 site, but their sheer inability to properely run a tournament almost cost the warcraft 3 community greatly.
This company is in charge of WCG Aus. And year after year they show that they are still unable to run a tournament effectively and professionally.
Great article btw. I agree with every point made.
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United States17042 Posts
Good article Haji. It's pretty bad over in the WCG system, and I think that it's going to take some competition in the esports arena to force them to do better.
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Good article, good read, I hope in the future WCG sucks less. I assume that as e-sports gets bigger WCG will naturally suck less, it's just that the audience isn't big enough to make them care as much yet.
For another wcg sucks story:
I won't mention names, but my friend played vs someone and won the first game, but couldn't play a second game. He asked the player if he could postpone, and the player agreed, and they had a wcg admin also agree to the postponement. So then the guy doesn't show up the next day, blocks my friend on msn, and reports he won despite having no evidence of such, and being 0-1. For some reason, a few days later, it's posted on the wcg brackets that the guy had beaten my friend lol. So I badly copy the guy's hotkeys and fake a short replay, and my friend submits that to a wcg admin along with the other replay and says here're the games, I won, advance me. And they advance him lol. Just, no questions asked at all rofl. They just don't care at all. This was usa wcg btw.
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Another Australian horror story everyone most likely still remembers from last year.
When Fabian Baumann entered the Olympics of video games over the weekend, he intended only to watch.
Little did he know he would walk away with an all-expenses-paid trip to Seattle and the opportunity to represent Australia against the best in the world.
As a last-minute entrant to the Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars tournament at the national finals of the World Cyber Games, held at Luna Park, he first had to overcome one big issue: he had never played the game before.
WCG Aus had announced that there was not going to be a C&C3 player sent that year. However on the day, they changed their minds. None of the competative C&C players showed up and this guy went on to win the spot.
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lol going from DOA4 to VF5 is going from a mediocre game that nobody plays to a good game that nobody plays. And the most current version of VF5 that is actually played by anybody isn't even on console, so while Japan (and to a lesser extent, Korea) plays VF like mad, they're not even playing the same game, as I'm pretty sure VF is being included as a nod to its 360 port (Microsoft~) and I'm 99% sure that WCG isn't going to shell out the money to buy a bunch of hella expensive VF5:R setups.
Ironically, they probably could have gone with Soul Calibur IV instead, which has a much bigger player base (ie. people actually play it outside of Japan), is a newer game, and the console version is the current version and that will continue to be the case thanks to DLC. And it's on 360, too. Dunno why they chose VF5, other than being out of touch with what people actually play and thus compete in~
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I felt that the treatment of SC:BW at WCG USA was borderline offensive. They only had, what, one staged game? And, it was a loser's final! There were a slew of technological failures which made some of the VODs unwatchable! And come on, it's ridiculous when there aren't even sound-proof headphones, so the commentators can't even talk about what's happening in the game! I guess they just don't care...
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AWESOME quote in the end. Fits the context SO well, brilliantly written. Hope this article changes something, or at least enlighten the ones still in the dark. Nicely done, enjoyed it thouroughly
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Great article! I have been "working" for the SC community on my country (yes I know WHERE IS GUATEMALA AGAIN??!!!!),.. anyway, I have been involved since WCG 2003 as a player and help with "organization" since 2006/2007.
I have see a lot of things to improve in that time, and sadly most of them havent change in this years, I will share with you my memories about it later... I need to type it down first, I am going to loook for some mail I sended to WCG organizers first and make a "little" report for TL community, if WCG check this site and the community opinion who knows, maybe it will the start of the the improvement...
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Jeez, I knew things were sketch at WCG but I didn't realize it was this bad. Thanks for the info. Canada not being able to send JF (or even that testie character) was a huuuge disappointment.
Time for a new entity because obviously I don't see how the WCG will ever be anything Olympic-like. Has there ever been an attempt by anyone to have an IOC branch off? Maybe an ICOC?
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On November 06 2008 15:27 Fen wrote:Another Australian horror story everyone most likely still remembers from last year. Show nested quote +When Fabian Baumann entered the Olympics of video games over the weekend, he intended only to watch.
Little did he know he would walk away with an all-expenses-paid trip to Seattle and the opportunity to represent Australia against the best in the world.
As a last-minute entrant to the Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars tournament at the national finals of the World Cyber Games, held at Luna Park, he first had to overcome one big issue: he had never played the game before. WCG Aus had announced that there was not going to be a C&C3 player sent that year. However on the day, they changed their minds. None of the competative C&C players showed up and this guy went on to win the spot.
Ah man. I forgot about that shit. Thinking about that pisses me off =/
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I think a big part of the funding problem lies in the lack of a wider audience. It's probably fairly difficult to find funding for events like WCG since there are so few viewers. Organizers (WCG) probably have to bend over backwards to accommodate the sponsors they actually do get. And when you don't have enough funding to cover certain countries, the only thing you really can do is exclude them. A lot of the funding problems are inevitable for an large event catering to an embryonic field. They may have just overextended themselves.
That's just the funding part though, there really is no excuse for the shitty planning/execution.
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That was a very excellent read. I really hope the unparalleled corruption doesn't carry over and continue when Starcraft 2 is released .. or even after this year at all. And to a point, I agree with you, Inc. Who knows where this game would be if WCG didn't hold it, however I must still support Haji.
On November 06 2008 10:26 soudo wrote:
Amazing and enlightening article.
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Very nice article. It's a pleasure to read, pretty smart and to the point.
I think Korea is the only one doing right - having the most competitive game on the gaming scene.
I've been a WCG referee for 3 years in WarCraft3, if I'm not mistaken from 2003-2005.
I always wondered why there were some games and some weren't there. At least I consider WC3 competitive enough and still do, it's just too specific in my eyes.
And what was really pleasurable but we always had SC and most people I knew were proud of that (I don't know anything about after 2005, never cared).
I sincerely hope Blizzard puts the most effort in SC2 rather than any other of their titles, to make it at least as good as SC:BW is gameplay vise.
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its just business. a worldwide competition like this should have never have even happened because who would pay attention to it, let alone sponsor it? all the companies involved in this have something gain.
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On November 06 2008 12:33 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
b]PROMISE you SC would be dead outside of korea [/b]
WCG was actually what made me start watching starcraft, I was watching my favorite warcraft players play, and there was some starcraft so i just watched that too
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the same procedure as every year.. wcg blows, lots of complaints, ran by complete morons and nothing will change
but actually i couldnt care less; nice article btw
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!!!! WOW! That KawaiiRice guy comes into my Team channel all the time... I had no idea he was he was such an asshole.. I dont understand why they didn't see someone helping Darkshadow in a game... Wouldn't the whispers come up on the screen...? Thats absolute bullshit I'm so angry that WCG allows these things to happen...
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I sent this around to some friends of mine at a management consulting firm. They said they've seen worse...
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Netherlands19130 Posts
Best TLFE without a doubt made up until now. Amazing article Haji, well done.
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Agree 100%, great article.
But why writing "I suggest that everyone hack for this wcg, because apparently it's completely okay to do so.” – Chill" just under the picture of the CS French team ?
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So how would you make this right?
You keep cmparing gaming with sports associations, but progaming has been around for 8 years, and sports could evolve for decades.
I play this sport, floorball. It is big in Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Czech Republic. But when I came to the UK, I faced much smaller comunity. And with them the newly born comitee. People are arguing, nobody knows how to organise even the basic things like communication between bodies of Scotland and England, and the referees are utter jokes. But I believe things will pick up, as more people that want to be involved will pour into the game. The rules will be made over time, and a strong Comitee will emerge years from today.
And its very simmilar in Starcraft. The comitees are not established, and the problem starts at national level.
If progaming would be anything like old sports, than each country would have a clear governing body, with stable members, organisers, websites and schedules. Just like in the majority of popular sports. They would organise events for its members, like national championships, cups etc. They would have a stable governing body, which could be voted on meetings of comitee from different parts of the country, in chosen terms, assuring that the right people are at the top.
If this situation will ever happen, than WCG can work just like an olympic comitee. Give limits, throw some general rules (maps, format, funding requirements) at the national comitees (don't have to be wcg, if every country would have one governing body, than it would be given the mandate automatically) and take care of the main event and its smoothness.
The example here is CMSP In Czech Republic. Its the only organisation in Czech Republic and Slovakia, with same people at the top. And although we sometimes bitch about it, it is doing its job like in any sport. It is responsible for all official events in Czech Republic, organises Czech Championships, helps to cover Lancraft, and amongst other things is of course the WCG Organiser. It has its flaws, but its a new organisation so it will develop over time.
The problem here is not on the WCG side, but on the community in each country and lack of competent people being able to form one governing body, as it happened in mass majority of sports.
+ Show Spoiler + I am only talking about the national level problems you complaint about.
The bad strategic level decisions like maps are obviously WCG's problem.
And obviously games are not sports, and as far as I recall there is not a publisher that released athletics lobbying for more disciplines to be at the Olympics. Sad but true - money will always have its say in this industry.
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GJ Haji! It's comforting to read iNc's post, hopefully they'll fix their shit when SC2 comes along. If not than they will fall and be 100% about commercial market and nothing about competitive gaming.
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Nice read but I'd recommend splitting it up into topics or issues if you want more people to read it especially if they're "businessmen" who may be connected to WCG. Otherwise, it's fine if they're not your targeted audience.
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Well written Haji! However this also means something we as gamers need to give : real gamers need to take up key roles in WCG management, not people who have zero/little idea about gaming. Very often, money speaks loudly to them.
I would agree with Lemon. The fortunate thing is that E-Sports is still young, even at 8 years old. Give it time, say 5 to 10 more years. Then we will see how things should be better. When you have passionate ex-gamers running the show, its obviously better since they know their stuff.
Just look at Tasteless doing a fantastic job at GOMTV. Look at the retired korean progamers becoming coaches, observers and commentators. It looks not much for now, but surely there is progress. I think this is crazy, but lets say if Boxer at 35 years old becomes KESPA president or something of equal position in Korea E-Sports, things WILL change.
Personally I've challenged myself to be a referee for WCG SG broodwar next year. No offense, but its a little weird for the lead referee to ask me how to spot the illegal bugs. I took it in good stride to show him how, but I say it made me compelled enough to become a referee myself.
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On November 06 2008 20:31 NeverTheEndlessWiz wrote:
Well written Haji! However this also means something we as gamers need to give : real gamers need to take up key roles in WCG management, not people who have zero/little idea about gaming. Very often, money speaks loudly to them.
The fortunate thing is that E-Sports is still young, even at 8 years old. Give it time, say 5 to 10 more years. Then we will see how things should be better. When you have passionate ex-gamers running the show, its obviously better since they know their stuff.
Just look at Tasteless doing a fantastic job at GOMTV. Look at the retired korean progamers becoming coaches, observers and commentators. It looks not much for now, but surely there is progress. I think this is crazy, but lets say if Boxer at 35 years old becomes KESPA president or something of equal position in Korea E-Sports, things WILL change.
Personally I've challenged myself to be a referee for WCG SG broodwar next year. No offense, but its a little weird for the lead referee to ask me how to spot the illegal bugs. I took it in good stride to show him how, but I say it made me compelled enough to become a referee myself.
Well said. You see this in emerging sports everywhere. Players complaint, post bad comments about the organisers, but they never do the right thing.
Instead of this article there should be separate thread for every problematic national wcg organisation, contacts of the organisers and and urge for people to offer their expertise and managerial skills to them for next wcg with discussion and next course of action.
There is little experience, many of the procedures are made on the run and mistakes are likely to occur, and as I found out in situations like these, what you don't do yourself, you don't get...
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As a spectator, I've had this same feeling since 2006. WCG may try to portray itself as the olympics of video games, but the whole WCG system doesn't have the will, knowledge and support to do it. I think the market for esports is still a little too small to expect anything better from a large international event like this. Selling games is very profitable though and will continue to be that.
I get the impression that the people in charge of arranging national WCG events will often have affiliations to a single gaming community. So you will have CS people arranging WCG for Warcraft 3 and BW players. They will also decide on how many players are sent to the grand final and the distribution of prizes and can even decide that "Hey, we won't even bother with BW. The players are just a bunch of elitist button-bashing noobs anyway".
Sometimes you will have volounteers that are really motivated and work hard to make things happen though. These people and groups take initiative to get things moving, keep things professional and manage to find funding. The countries who have people like this are lucky, and the gamers there should be thankful.
Very well written, Haji. I just wish it came with instructions for improvement of the situation.
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What?
No We Love Katamari?
No Viva Pinata?
This is lame.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On November 06 2008 18:32 Nitro68 wrote:
Agree 100%, great article.
But why writing "I suggest that everyone hack for this wcg, because apparently it's completely okay to do so.” – Chill" just under the picture of the CS French team ?
Had nothing to do with the picture :p i just needed somewhere to edit that pic in lol.
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On November 06 2008 17:56 GearitUP wrote:
!!!! WOW! That KawaiiRice guy comes into my Team channel all the time... I had no idea he was he was such an asshole.. I dont understand why they didn't see someone helping Darkshadow in a game... Wouldn't the whispers come up on the screen...? Thats absolute bullshit I'm so angry that WCG allows these things to happen...
If he msges to lastshadow only it wont come up on the screen.
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Did you all read Roxen000 is comment? there was now Brood War player from Australia! Now rise your hands everyone who remembers Legionarie? He was a great player! He finished 3rd once! That is an achievement, it is so sad not to see him or any other representing Australia. Now, lets go to Panama:
Number of participants for Brood War in the year 2005: 250!!!
Number of participants for Brood War in the year 2008: 6 ???
WHAT? yes! only 6 people why? on 2006 we had about 200 and in 2007 we were 210, how come that now only 6 players compited?
All previous years we use to play on an internet cafe, we all played against the computer and the 32 best scores made it to the round of elimination.
This year they decided to do an online qualification, what a shame it was impossible for me to play, everything was in a rush there was no time, they anounced the qualification process late, the passwords to go in to Battle.net and GameOn didnt worked I wonder how those 6 guys did to play??? It was painfull it was hell.
I am very dissapointed as this year I didnt enjoyed to see friends and players that I only see face to face once a year there was no spirit no soul on the WCG2008 Panama.
sad, sad. sad.
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10/10 article.
you neglected to mention the outside coverage of wcg though. for an event trying to be the Olympics of video gaming, why is it that its flat out impossible to find out anything about the event? their site is so poorly coded that even when there's nothing on the horizon it still doesn't load properly, let alone during the wcg itself when everyone is trying to look up results. don't even get me started about the stream.
its basically impossible to follow wcg unless you're there
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I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG.
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
Our modern Olympics did not have a great start either, and they had their ups and down the early years. The initial years had many nations missing and even some important ones skipping an Olympic event too. WCG is growing much faster too.
I agree that the main weakness is when it comes to the election and lack of oversight of their SPs - but in all fairness its not fully their fault. e-Sports is still at its youth, it's still the wild west out there in this industry - and it will take time for the e-gaming events infrastructure (decent SPs for example) to develop fully. Criticism is fair if balanced, and this one omits most of the good done already and to come. ICM has come a long way and the logistics of such event is no small thing. Both Samsung and Microsoft are putting the majority of the money currently - so whining about the election of games is pointless (although there is nothing wrong with doing it).
The number of participating nations and total participants are still on the rise. They are also still supporting CS 1.6 and BW. I definitively see no disgrace though - and if there is, it is partially share by us the gamers too.
It's the same issue always: everyone wants to participate, for free, everyone wants someone else to assume the risks and capital, and even the work - but very few are willing to put the capital and organize national events themselves. These things don't rain from the sky and whining that they should is outright wrong. The modern Olympics would be a disaster too if every nation expected the Olympic committee to arrange for everything. It's people in each nation, each sport division,league and orga that organize themselves, it's the governments and private sectors that put the money etc.. And even the Olympics today is not without blunders and criticism.
In a way, despite WCG excellent start and efforts - it will be ultimately as good as gamers and e-Sports make it.
In summary criticizing is all fine and dandy so long as we don't lose sight of the bigger picture or hurt its cause: which is the growth of competitive e-Sports and bringing greater exposure to e-sports in general - ICM has slowly but surely been working on both. I for one know when to say thanks and appreciate all that we have. Having got all that off my chest - good post Haji just a little too one sided; and I can't really blame you, it hurts to see our game in decline..
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
# SoMuchBetter - yeah they do need better servers for their slow ass site lol, this alone deserves a rant of its own!
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On November 06 2008 21:48 Dvz(Dark) wrote:
All previous years we use to play on an internet cafe, we all played against the computer and the 32 best scores made it to the round of elimination.
This is very very shocking. I thought I've seen enough shit...
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Israel10 Posts
I think Israel also have some players but I haven't heard about qualifiers here.
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I know what you mean NeverTheEndlessWiz, but at least on previous years we had the chance to compete. Anyway once the 32 gamers were selected we all played against each others like normal tournaments (gruop stage, duoble elimination, single elimination). This year nobody liked, understood or even could play for qualifying!
We were waiting for one year for nothing.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG.
This is the stupidest thing i have ever seen....ever.
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whoa... i nvr knew WCG was so bad... maybe i should'nt enve bother trying out for the upcoming one...
hope SC2 bring a better cybergame competition....
On November 07 2008 00:41 Kennigit wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG. This is the stupidest thing i have ever seen....ever.
agreed... every heard of monopoly?? (@Navane
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This is so sad. Look at the South korean E-sport companys. KeSPA and such... Learn from them America and Europe..
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Well written, but there is just one flaw in the article which pretty much breaks the entire argument.. E-sport is about 7-8 years old while the olympics have been around for well over 100 years, so to compare the two is a bit off. If the e-sport industry is still around about 15-20 years from now i'd say we'll see a massive improvements overall in quality, organization and effectiveness, you don't just magicly get experience on how to run things properly, you gain it over time.
Quality of the staff is also a huge concern as the majority of the admins, refreees and local organizers don't even get paid, they voulunteer or get asked to help out. The level of these peoples understanding of WTF they are doing is therefor extremely low. While there are passionate admins who knows what they are doing, the majority of them don't beacuse they don't have any demands on them to perform, they can't get fired or anything.. they are just there to help out and that is a recipe for disaster when dealing with a serious tournament on a large scale.
Another factor that adds to the issue is the fact that alot of the companies that tries to host e-sport events usually goes out of business after a very short period of time - experience wasted. What e-sport needs as a whole is alot of money and a serious business to help organize global events to share experience to the newer ones.
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On November 07 2008 00:41 Kennigit wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG. This is the stupidest thing i have ever seen....ever.
Lol what the hell
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Korea (South)3086 Posts
*Sigh* this is so pathetic... Gives me the same kind of frustration that i felt after predicting and then being proven that the Chinese gymnastics competitors at the Beijing Olympics were like 2 years under-age.
On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG.
^ Fail...
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5386 Posts
On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
pizza's
Please, never make another analogy in your life ever again. You suck so bad.
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United States17042 Posts
On November 07 2008 02:56 SayaSP wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2008 00:41 Kennigit wrote:On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG. This is the stupidest thing i have ever seen....ever. Lol what the hell
He's not serious is he? He can't be.
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I think the eSTRO CS 1.6 "crouchhop" dispute should definitely be mentioned, as should the bracket set up that requires Koreans to throw matches every year...
As stupid as the pizza analogy is, if someone doesn't offer a counter product, and no one stops attending, WCG has little incentive to spend the money and time to improve their service.
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On November 07 2008 03:48 waterGHOSTCLAWdragon wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2008 02:56 SayaSP wrote:On November 07 2008 00:41 Kennigit wrote:On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG. This is the stupidest thing i have ever seen....ever. Lol what the hell He's not serious is he? He can't be.
#1 for the "Worst post of 2008" award.
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great job on the article, i think it truly reflects how the community feels with what is WCG right now.
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On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG.
You have the comprehension value equivalent to that of a turkey sandwich. Did you even read the article?
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United States11637 Posts
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On November 07 2008 00:32 Dvz(Dark) wrote:
I know what you mean NeverTheEndlessWiz, but at least on previous years we had the chance to compete. Anyway once the 32 gamers were selected we all played against each others like normal tournaments (gruop stage, duoble elimination, single elimination). This year nobody liked, understood or even could play for qualifying!
We were waiting for one year for nothing.
I guess what really need is more information, here in Guatemala was the same thing, BUT I was in contact with the organizers asking how will it be played this year and they told me they were thinking about making it online, I say that will be a good idea if they allow the players to play with out an original CDkey, which they of course say a big NO, they told me that if they do it online it will be on GameOn server. I hear about this months before the tournament so I was able to tell eveyone Iknow about this telling them to get an original cdkey if they wanted to play, that is why there were more Guatemalan players on the channel in ogame. Maybe you should try to be that person in Panama, the contact with the organizers cause they just dont take the time to inform the players in advance. (what is really weird is that the Samsung person in charge of WCG of Panama and Guatemala lives in Panama City!!!)
I said I was going to tell about the WCG in Guatemala and that is what I am going to do now, from my experience as player only back in 2003-2004-2006 and then as player / collaborator on 2007-2008.
WCG Guatemala 2003
+ Show Spoiler +
This is when everything started in my country, there were some Internet cafes where people hang around playing CS mostly, and in a less number SC and WC, FIFA was totally underground (and still is!!!) Then this rumours about a big e-sports tournament start to be heared and finally one day it was confirmed with announcements on the newspapers.
From that day on everyone was excited about this new thing called World Cyber Games, the internet cafe choosed to be used by Samsung was "Zona Extrema" which was the first one that start the all business of a place to meet to play videogames. The place was growing and has already around 20-30 computers. In order to play you have to sign on the WCG Guatemalan site and then it will be published a calendar with the date when you have to show up to play. Since it was the first time this happen there were about 300 players between all the games (maybe I recall bad the number, maybe there was 400 this was 5 years ago). The games played were CS, SC, FIFA and WC III.
The qualification consist of playing against the other players, the organizers created groups and was giving points accordingly if you win or lose everything runs smoothly though there start some problems cause you have like 20 minutes to finish your match, some arbiters give you 5 extra minutes sometimes if it gets longer but if it is too long they call it off and pick the winner with the "game points". There were however not too many complaints about it. That way they picked 32 players who will play the "FINAL ROUNDS" in a hotel. It was amazing to see all this, I manage to qualify for the round of 32 with only 1 lose against who eventually win the tournament (a korean guy ^.^).
There I got my first upset, cause the first (and only game, everything was bo1) I played against a zerg, which I contained early on the game, but as the noob I was (I still am a noob but I was even worst lol) I couldnt finish, he tech up attemp to break with guardians, long story short, I defended but the time was over so the judges check the points and I lose it cause I didnt tech as far up as he did.. I really though that wasa lot of BS but... fine.. next year I will do better
Conclusion: Great Tournament, though bo1 is so hard in SC and picking the winner by points!!! I hope they change that.
WCG Guatemala 2004
+ Show Spoiler +
Next year it was BIG, last year champions were called to make publicity on radio, TV, newspapers and magazines, over 1000 players sign for the tournament. The same 4 games of 2003 will be used and the qualification rounds were like in 2003 except that cause of the massive amount of players it took 2 weekends, cant remember, the quelification was the same way, you have to be day X at time Y to play 1 match against some other player, you play twice a day, during the weekends, then the best 32 players of each game qualify to round of 32, by this time the e-sports communty have grow a lot, there are plenty of internet cafes all over the capital city, Zona Extrema grew as well and have 4 places around the city, by far the biggest tournament, though not the best.
Why? Well there were several weak points. The judes weren´t players which mean they have no idea about what was the rules, what was allow and what was forbidden, to the point of calling hacker a player that want to use his WC hotkeys setup, which is allowed accordingly to WCG rules (eventually thay player won the WC qualification!!!) Also they keep the rule about wining by points after 20 minutes, and they played all the tournament bo1 again.
Conclusion: Was a good tournament but the only difference with the one on the past year is that was bigger, which not mean better at all.
WCG Guatemala 2005
+ Show Spoiler +
Sadly, there was no WCG on 2005, there were roumors about some players making strong critizise to the organization in a not mannered way so the sponsor get mad cause to be hones Guatemalan players aren´t in same level as other countries in the world.
When I found out about this I start asking why everywhere, I wrote to WCG, and to Samsung entities with no response. Just silence. But...
WCG Guatemala 2006
+ Show Spoiler +I was so happy to hear that the WCG were back to my country, but now the rumours were that there will be played only 1 game, will it be CS, SC, WC or FIFA???? Well since it was obvious that Samsung was trying to save money CS was the one with lower chance to be, so I cross my fingers but this time I got dissapointed cause FIFA was the game selected. I dont play that game.. but what the hell.. I want to support the event, maybe if there are enough players Samsung will sponsor another game. So I signed for it and went to the place where the qualifiers will be played, what a big deception, after seeing the 2 past events what I founded was like finding water when you want a beer!!! A small space in a mall with 2 computers and 2 screens. That was pretty much it. Oh well, better than nothing I guess. The qualification was played as the guy from Panama explained already, you have to play vr the PC 2 games, and you get points for wining and the goals you made/received. The best 32 qualify for the next round =_=. From over 1000 players on 2004 we have on 2006 like 100 FIFA players signed for the tournament, only 34 or so show up for the qualification, really good community they picked. My goal on this year was to meet the organizers and learn how they worked. See if it was posible to help somehow and to make suggestions from the gamers. I manage to get this on and there was when I started to "talk" with the organizers. Conclusion: SMALL!!! just plain sad to see what WCG become in my country.Where did that Qualification method come from:+ Show Spoiler +
I am not 100% sure, but I think this started when LG organized a Tournament in Guatemala (The best tournament I have played so far, though not perfect it was really good) They organize to make them being knowed in the country, so they pick that way to play cause they didnt made a online sign method as WCG, they made the tournament in the best, bigger and more popular mall in the country, they signed every person who will to play, even if that was the first time they see the game, so how can you filter that? Well lets make them play against the computer, then by points lets pick the "best" 32 players. Cheap checked, easy to do it checked.
Samsung notice this for sure, and start using it this year.
WCG Guatemala 2007
+ Show Spoiler +
By now I have a better comunication with the organizer, she explained to me that her company was contracted by another company in Panama which was contracted by Samsung to take care of WCG in Guatemala and Panama. Too many hands dont you think? Anyway, things started to roll once again, this time I was with SC on my mouth 24/7 talking to her ear, I probe her that SC was a better organized community in my country and I ask her for a chance to prove it, and somehow SC gods smile too me I guess cause she always reply she didnt pick the game, Samsung does, whatever it was the cause we had SC WCG this year. I was so excited I try to help her in anyway I could. I knew Samsung will not expend money on publicity so I offer to make ass mucho publicity as I can, she offer me some banners so I can go to diffenrent internet cafes to announce the tournament, I am still waiting for them though =(. I made them myself and use my time to do it, I contact every player I know, post in every Guatemalan forum about games. make tournaments with the goal of practicing for the WCG and so on. During the event I took pictures and make news about it in thw different latin games sites.
Well that is a lot of work but is not what matters in this subject, what was not good on this tournament:
1. Judges: they didnt knew a peanut about SC, bugs hacks or anything. Good thing we see every player´s games so no chance for hacking but is simple sad to have judges that know nothing about the game they are judging.
2. Bracket System: Judges didnt knew how it was going to be played. Since I was making a news about this I get into the Panama WCG site (they started a couple of weeks before so I was able to see the brackets) I made a bracket for my use, so I knew that winning of group A will play vr second place of group C and so on, and once the brackets started I could tell who the player that advanced must play in the next round, they have NO IDEA, in fact at the end they give up and start asking me who where the next gamers to play.
3. Small again: there was 4 computers, since there is a limit of time we we forced to play bo1 every bracket, even the final, though I talk with her and hurry everyone to make at least the final a bo3 (the winner bracket champion started with a lead of 1-0 though)
4. The event started late cause they bring computers with out the game installed, they changed and the new computers were patch-less. Good thing a player bring his USB with the game patched, though he arrive 30 minutes after all this.
5. There was 0 publicity, I am pretty sure that at least 85% of the players that arrive to the qualifications did it cause I contact them by mail or phone.
List is long but I think you have the idea, at the end "everything is all right"...
Conclusion: Definitely better than last year, but there is a lot to work on
WCG Guatemala 2008
+ Show Spoiler +
Now that I have talk with the local organizer and see that most of my suggestion werent heared (or maybe she just dont have the power requiered to make decitions) I went to the next level, I send a mail through the WCG official site, I didnt expect a reply since the last times I were ignored but once again SC gods smile at me =) Some one of WCG took a rest and open my mail by mistake probably, but nevertheless he replied saying that I should contact the regional manager, but not only this, he send me his mail. So I contact him and started talking about 2008 event.
He told me about the idea of getting online qualifiers, which is a good idea for several reasons but I think it wont work this year cause Guatemalan players dont have the original game, most of them dont have an internet connection, or at least not a good one. I dont know how about Panama but I was guessing they was in the same position, time show me that they were even worst since only 6 players show up for the qualification....
Before the actual tournament started this person open an account in Facebook.. yes you hear well in FACEBOOK and there he made a Discussion where players of Guatemala and Panama should say which game they wanted to play, the options were SC, WC. AoE, FIFA, NFS. I count the votes and the winner was SC followed by WC. But the games picked where SC and FIFA. Why did they use Facebook for this? I am clueless. PLayers dont use it, at least most of the players I know and I know pretty much all the SC community in Guatemala!!!...
Oh well the games were set now, lets talk the online qualification ahhh the qualifications... there were going to last 5 days on the calendar from a wednesday to a sunday, it will be a ladder type between guatemalan and panameñan players, best 9 of each country advance to next round, where they will join the Panamerican representative (aka SC last year champion, and for FIFA there was an online tournament with like 10 players some months before the WCG).
The schedule for the Ladder was from 15:00 to 21:00 most of the players work/study, does that study on the morning have no problems with this, however all those players thar work, me included along with most of the players, just cant make it at 15:00 at best they can log in at 19:00 which is 4 hours less of playing...
I manage to ask permission at my job to leave early enough to log on at 15:00, but of course not for free, I negotiate it and get one hour ealier for 20 days so I already "work" those hours... but I was a especial case, the rest just wasnt able to log on earlier. So First day, I came at home at 15:00, eat something and then log in.. wait.. how is this suppose to work??? lets read the instruction about the GameOn server.. the WCG site say one thing, the GameOn Site say anohter.. at the end both were wrong!!!... Oh wel I will ask an admin... mmmm where are the admins??? I wrote to the organizer and he say that the admins should log in at 18:00 ZOMG we were with no idea about how to log into the server correctly, which maps we must use (cause one site say ABCD and the other AXYZ) we were there by ourselves for 3 hours.. oh well.. finally admins should show up anytime now... 19:00.. 20:00.... WTF!!! where are they???
Imagine that for 2.5 ladder days... oh but dont worry the organizer apologize for this and say that the ladder will last 2 more days, monday and tuesday... good.. just that I cant be online those days like I did before... so sad.
Another point I make the organizer knew about in advance before everything was that Latin players have problems creating games cause the internet companies block the ports. I told him months in advance and he didnt hear me, and as I said most of the few players that manage to log into the server werent able to create.
Shor history long, the online qualification was a failure, there were like 18 guatemalan players and 6 from Panama, since it was a ladder people refuse to play the best ranked players cause they didnt want to ruin his rank, which they of course got by bashing noobs, sure you can only play 5 times a person per day... lets play him every day then... sad thing. But obviously the way the qualification works push players to behave like this, totally understandable and PREDICTABLE!!!
The final round has less thing to critisize.. sorry, I mean less NEW things to critisaze... same problems that in previous years, only bo1 were played, I didnt pay too much attention to the FIFA side of the event, however I notice that 1 of the FIFA qualified players were there cause he wants to see the SC games, since in the calendar online it say it was that date BUT he got a mail.. I mean a letter in REAL PAPER saying the FIFA-s games will be next weekend, WOW.. he almost lose his chance of playing cause someone from Samsung send him a letter with the wrong dates!!!! He finish in second place if I recall it correctly.
As always the judges didnt know what is allowed or not on FIFA. Also they should now how to apply the rules, there was an incident, there was 4 computers 2 for FIFA and 2 for SC, one of the FIFA players show up with a X-Box controller but with out the drivers, the judges told him that he cant play with it cause he was supposed to bring his drivers, he say that they must fix it and that he wont play with another controller... the judges obey him.. WTF!!! they get the drivers but when they install them they fucked up the computer.... so we lose like 1 hour of SC gaming cause the organizer decided to use a SC computer for FIFA and fix the other for SC... obviously we play everything bo1 cause there was "no time" for bo3...
Conclusion: I just dont know what to say.. different way but with a lot of problems to solve again. I hope they get closer to the community and hear what we have to say about it, we know is not an easy work, we know it requieres a lot of effort to make it happen but I wish they hear our suggestion. When everything was going wrong I got asked about what to do, I even got calls from Panama several times to ask me how was everything going, I wish they contact before the problems to avoid them intead of solving them
Sorry for the long post, a lot of bitching I know, it is just really frustrating to talk with them, suggest things and see that at the end people in suits take the decitions, persons that just dont know about games. Hopefully future exgamers will run this things, or at least have some power on the decition making, that way we will see better tournaments, tournaments that will make money and that will, at the same time, be of high competition quality.
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thedeadhaji
You are really moronic bashing on WCG, which is by far the best thing international esports has ever had.
YOu really fucking can;t expect them to organise a HUGE worldwide qualification process without some problems man... especially because the local administration isn't big or any shit like that
(and because esports is less than 10 years old..)
YOu fucking compare Olympics? You tell me how big the Olympics is.. they are still fucking huge because Olympics, which has been for hundreds of years, is FUCKING BIG compared to the GROWING industry of esports...
YOu TELL ME if Olympics were as great as they are now when they started
The WCG is an HUGE effort from a small group of people (ie Samsung) trying to boost esports. THe Olympics is fucking GLOBAL
DO YOU HONESTLY THINK SAMSUNG IS MADE OF MONEY?
DO you have any clue how much it costs to fund all the gamers?
C'mon man, can't you understand it would be impossible for them to give spots to every single country or make the number of players "fair"?
YOu fucking can't honestly ask so much more than what they are doing right now.. just shut up if you want to be naive as fuck about every mistake from wcg
JUST GROW UP
I'm glad at least many of us are sensible
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Beautiful article haji. BEAUTIFUL.
kawoq's post is also a great read. Pretty much proves haji's post.
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Very interesting, I've never heard about that before.
I won't look at the WCG the same way anymore...
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On November 06 2008 15:27 Fen wrote:
WCG Aus had announced that there was not going to be a C&C3 player sent that year. However on the day, they changed their minds. None of the competative C&C players showed up and this guy went on to win the spot.
Hahah i read that on the paper, the guy was braggign about how he "never played C&C3 before"
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/he-came-played-and-conquered/2007/08/28/1188067085510.html
He was a friend of a friend.
But yeah, joke.
I knew about WCG back in 02/03, but back then, i was following CPL and ESWC which were decent enough comps for cs/q3 (i didnt follow sc back int he day)
The scene has, changed.
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Good article but how can you expect some corporate guys who haven't even seen a game to know how to choose games, +big money from gaming corporations and you have a ludacris line-up of games!
Anyways I fully agree with the article and stupid games with no "C" from "competitive" can't be even remotley compared and have the same weight as Starcraft, counter strike, unreal and/or quake 4.
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Yeah I am pissed. This was suppoed to be my first ever WCG (watching it and keeping track)
Some reasons I am not happy:
1. NO CANADA!! I mean how am i supposed to become professional if my country is not even competing internationally!!!!!! I sent them an e-mail and they said it was some financial problems.
2. Stupid games. Ok Age of Empires 3 is good. but a mobile game??????? Virtua fighter? iv never heard of that. Carom 3D???? Wat is that? Judging by the pic it looks like pool -_-.
3. Everything else. After reading this article... I have changed my mind about WCG. Oh well, it must be 10 times better next year. Wtih Starcraft 2 in it, if it gets realeased in time.
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You've never heard of Virtua Fighter?
Carom3D has a decent sized community but they only know about Carom3D, they don't read other E-sports sites and whatnot so they aren't very vocal. Also, it's only popular in some countries like Lithuania, Bulgaria and Brazil for some reason...
I agree with Asphalt 4 though, there really isn't a community playing that game, of the 10 players at the grand finals, 2 are ex-Starcraft players ([-Bluewolf-] and Phoenix66) and 2 are ex-C&C players (a-L.Beta and WarMachine_BuJa)
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Guitar hero 3 is a legitimate choice. There is a large competitive following, with high amounts of skill required to play it at a top level.
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O.o i didn't even know guitar hero had a multiplayer
lolz
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I always wondered how WCG was set up and how the qualifications went down. Now that I know, we need to start a mutiny and have TL take over WCG USA!!!
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On November 07 2008 11:27 siggy wrote:
Guitar hero 3 is a legitimate choice. There is a large competitive following, with high amounts of skill required to play it at a top level.
-_- hell no.
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Nice article.
Good on Inc. for trying to get them to see some sense.
I have a couple LOLs to share from WCG US.
First is the new game which is called Red Stone I think.... at WCG US, only one actual team showed up, so eliminated players from the other RTS's started forming teams on the spot. Why the fuck not, eh? Incontrol and Idra teamed up and did decently well in the Red Stone tournament despite never having played it before. I didn't recognize the first place finishers at the ceremony (maybe they were the actual team?), but the second place team was two of the eliminated Age of Empires players. I'm pretty sure they hadn't played it before either, and they each got a few hundred bucks out of the deal.
And as Xeris mentioned, there was a fucking cell phone racing game being played as well. Saturday night I ran into some guys on the elevator, and one of laughed and told me "I'm going to be on the main stage tomorrow to play some cell phone racing game that I just started playing yesterday!" I recognized him in the second place spot on the podium the next day.
Did I mention there was no soundproofing at WCG US? Me and Diggity had to cast without giving away information about what was going on. The other casters didn't even try, though, and I heard reports of the CS teams responding to what was being said.... immediately going to the room that was mentioned to kill a guy, for instance.
That all said... I would like to be optimistic, too, though. We tried talking to some WCG people as well, and will continue to do so. The guys at the bottom seemed to be pretty good, I must say. The refs on the scene handled things well, I thought. The guys at eSportsTV, who were in charge of all the technical stuff (cameras, MCs, etc) were mostly in agreement with us (all but the head guy) about the game selection and what have you, but they didn't have much say in the matter, either. The way they see it... more people play GH3 so more people will want to watch GH3 than something as old as Starcraft. And to be completely honest..... GH3 had the seats pretty packed every time it went on stage. WCG is catering to the lay person crowd who don't really care if a game is competitive because they will just watch games that they play at home.
Okay, I'm not sure where I'm going with this anymore, and I'm kindof ruining my own point about trying to be hopeful now. But we did convince some people that BW was exciting, though. And when we showed everyone gathered around the RTS tournament area while the stage seats were empty for FIFA08, we even convinced them to put the BW 2/3 match on stage, so... who knows.
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On November 07 2008 11:27 siggy wrote:
Guitar hero 3 is a legitimate choice. There is a large competitive following, with high amounts of skill required to play it at a top level.
The thing about guitar hero is ANYONE can be good at it, and it requires no thought whatsoever. In fact, I the only reason I don't like that game is that thought actually interferes with you playing it. I have a friend who's a drummer and 100% all the drum songs on rock band on expert, but it's not because he's a pro gamer, it's because he's an amateur drummer.
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On November 06 2008 21:48 Dvz(Dark) wrote:
Did you all read Roxen000 is comment? there was now Brood War player from Australia! Now rise your hands everyone who remembers Legionarie? He was a great player! He finished 3rd once! That is an achievement, it is so sad not to see him or any other representing Australia.
It is pretty sad. I remember back at the start of the year, I believe only 30 or so people expressed interest in competing in Starcraft from Australia. 30 people was not enough to support the game for this year so yeah =/ I am really hoping that changes for SC2.
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I really could not disagree more with the article.
Of course there are going to be several problems but they can be found in any international tournaments. Just like the beginnings of nearly all professional sports leagues, there are problems, especially with money. Be grateful for WCG - they've done a lot for eSports.
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CA10825 Posts
On November 06 2008 23:10 Navane wrote:
I honestly don't see any problem with WCG. So a company decided to do a bad job at organizing a world wide tournament.
If I bake shitty pizza's, who the hell is gonna complain? No one, people will just buy someone elses pizza and I will go out of bussiness. Since WCG is not going out of business, appearantly people buy their pizza's. And I don't think people buy pizza's if they don;t like them. Ergo, WCG has no problem. And if some one does not have a problem, they will not change.
Since you are the one with the problem, i suggest you change. Not WCG.
wait... you're being serious?
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edited most of it out: i was just repeating myself
But when I say "I suggest you change" i didnt mean personally to the op. That was a bit sloppy written. I ment it like: "People who don't like WCG's pizza's should not buy it"
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To me this article seems mainly motivated by frustration over the North American qualifiers. The point it makes about WCG not being the olympics is quite moot. Obviously, there is bound the be a big difference between state-run Olympics and an international gaming tournament. Still, WCG does well to create some of the same spirit and does mimic the real olympics. It all boils down to the fact that it represents the olympics in gaming.
The WCG 2002 Grand Finals in Korea was sublime because of the huge interest from the Koreans, which really did make the whole spectacle feel like real olympics. I can definately say that I have been a bit dissapointed ever since because I wanted the tournament to be as big and special as that. However, despite not being able to carry that kind of scene, WCG still is huge. I don't really think it's importance has diminished any bit through the years. The thing that has hurt them the most is the big amount of prominent players not being able to go due the visa problems year after year, something which I'm sure they are only partially to blame for. The fans enjoy the idea that WCG provides an event big enough to gather all the best teams and players year after year, and this is really all the matters. It doesn't seem likely to change. Obviously, WCG has rivals, but it is establishing a great tradition, and since it only comes once a year, of course there will be other big tournaments for the most popular games. I have to say, that I don't see Starcraft 2 being so popular that another event will take on the role of WCG. In Counter-Strike there have been other tournaments with similar success, like CPN and ESWC, but they don't take anything away for WCG.
Having been part of the gaming scene for a long time, having followed the Counter-Strike, Warcraft 3 and Starcraft scenes, I have seen so many organizers make so many foolish and frustrating decision. Really, WCG does nothing that will set them apart. Time after time, I have seen organizers be out of touch with the fans, fail to provide coverage, replays, decent playing condition, the right playing format, good qualifiers, etc. I think WCG are doing fairly well, considering that surely they have limited resources. The only concrete points that I can point to them really messing up, where they could easily make a change, is in regards to their website and how they sometimes don't release replays for games and often not in good time. WCG have failed with many national qualifiers, and I have heard some horrible stories, but no doubt it is hard to get everything right in such a big organization. I actually didn't know that they hired local organizers; often I have seen that they just coorporate with other people, who want to organize a big event and make it a WCG qualifier. The local organizers normally have to get sponsors themselves to fund the tournaments, and I don't see how WCG could make ends meet if they had to pay for everything. I don't really consider the missing qualifiers, I just greatly appreciate the fact that WCG are making an event such as this possible. Even though some of the best players cannot come, many good players still come. And we enjoy it, year after year. It's truly fantastic that they have got this up and running and they seem to be very stable running it. I have heard of great qualifiers as well, and overall WCG adds up to many exciting and enjoyable tournaments each year.
There is no doubt that if WCG had money to pay for it all, they could have almost flawless qualifiers for every game. However, it is quite limited by the fact that this is just about gaming, and often there aren't a lot of people around willing to organize or fund qualifiers. WCG seems like quite a beaurocracy, and there are definately things that could be improved, but in the end we don't know what lies behind it all. I have heard that for several years, a guy in Bulgaria who got the license for hosting the national Warcraft 3 WCG qualifier, has made it impossible for anyone the play at the qualifier. So, each year he went himself and kept the money. If WCG were more hands-on, they'd see through this and do something about it, but furtunately there are better conditions for organizing qualifiers in other countries where there are already big gaming organization or a huge interest in the games. Many Central European and Scandinavian countries often have good qualifiers for some of the games because of their popularity. When there is great interest, more things become possible, and we see many different organizations and people involved in carrying out different tournaments. Korean qualifier do not seem to have failed either.
WCG is definately no disgrace, and the tournament is indeed, in spirit, the olympics of gaming, helping esports prosper.
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Calgary25974 Posts
Re: Canada. They cut SC this year and every WCG I've ever been to has been terribly run. They can be grouped into the "Very nice people with good intentions who run a bad event." I know you're biased because you're close to the organizer, Testie, but I'm biased the other way because I've been screwed by them in one way or another for year after year.
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On November 08 2008 01:08 Navane wrote:
edited most of it out: i was just repeating myself
But when I say "I suggest you change" i didnt mean personally to the op. That was a bit sloppy written. I ment it like: "People who don't like WCG's pizza's should not buy it"
The entire point of Hajis article was that WCG has pretty much said "Hey fuck that dominos shit over there, come get the best pizza in the world at WCG!". Then all these fucking people show up and try their hardest to get to the pizza before WCG closes. Anyway your pizza analogy sucks.
WCG should not have set the bar so high for themselves because now people like Haji and myself, amongst many others I am sure, feel cheated. This is not the epitomy of world wide e-Sports. I daresay that this is honestly the worst tournament of its kind, though there arent many others that are not based in Korea.
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unfortunatelly this is not about to change.
Starcraft, beeing a game we love, can only be kept alive by the gamers.
All websites well know do their best to keep this game active, but without money, well...
I have to give a great credit to Teamliquid, thou i hardly visit it, for TSL; money price, good stream, many good gamers, lack of koreans yes, but still.
Right now, we may be able to make this game a hard nut to crack, but odds are still agianst us:
SC2, economical crysis, poor wcg...
THe only thing i can ask for, is another TSL, but as we all know, its ahrd to get sponsors for a "old game".
Mayb asking ASUS? reason for this is asus gain so much with MOBOs that they went rogue, going even sound cards....
Hell, this game pulled 10 years, it can pull another 10.
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On November 08 2008 05:04 SpiralArchitect wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2008 01:08 Navane wrote:
edited most of it out: i was just repeating myself
But when I say "I suggest you change" i didnt mean personally to the op. That was a bit sloppy written. I ment it like: "People who don't like WCG's pizza's should not buy it" The entire point of Hajis article was that WCG has pretty much said "Hey fuck that dominos shit over there, come get the best pizza in the world at WCG!". Then all these fucking people show up and try their hardest to get to the pizza before WCG closes. Anyway your pizza analogy sucks.
You kind of said it yourself now. As long as people keep coming to WCG and treat it like its the olympics, they get away with it.
The weird part to me is, if it is so bad, how come it is so big?
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lol, as soon as I saw Haji's name as the author, I knew there was gonna be some DOA bashing =P
edit: I really really hope Street Fighter 4 will make it into WCG. It's not 3rd strike or ST, but at least it will give the fighting game community more exposure.
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the USA Red Stone team was skootz and zsta who are both NFS players, they hadn't played Red Stone before the tournament to the best of my knowledge.
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I hope our culture will grow up from retarded point of view on games till sc 2. At least a bit .
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you forgot to mention red stone
the game which had 2 spots (more than sc) at us finals with idra & incontrol placing third (just deciding to play it the day of the competition in a walk in type of a deal after they were eliminated). That was a pure JOKE game / competition rofl.
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amazing article, i completely agree with it
i remember looking through the game choices for wcg and seeing project gotham racing and all that garbage, and i was just in shock!! how can they even compare those childish games with starcraft! lulz
at least include diablo2 in there come on!!! (#1 right here <--)
I laughed quite a bit at comparing storks gold medal to some kid spinning a skateboard...aahaaaaa my god that was just priceless
great post
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luxury the 12pooler made it. I'm happy for him. Tho WCG this year was so bad. Sweden, canada and some others where missing. Well.. It should be the olympics, the best of the best but it wheren't. I got very dissapointed plus for the stream... I couldn't watch the games :<
Well hope next year will be better. PLUS having SCBW left!
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On November 10 2008 17:51 RoSe. wrote:
luxury the 12pooler made it. I'm happy for him. Tho WCG this year was so bad. Sweden, canada and some others where missing. Well.. It should be the olympics, the best of the best but it wheren't. I got very dissapointed plus for the stream... I couldn't watch the games :<
Well hope next year will be better. PLUS having SCBW left!
I really agree with you, Sweden/Canada not going to WCG is really bad . And i hope SCBW won't die out just because of SC2.. I wonder why really sweden didn't get a spot for the wcg? have someone told us something about it? =O
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lol, this year? Sweden hasn't sent for SC since 2004. It was pretty much a trade off, we lost countries like Brazil and Canada but Netherlands and Hungary sent for BW again.
Red Stone is played 2v2, you can't really send one person.
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Here in philippine they swap starcraft for this two ugly games ( guitar hero and c&c )...
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i got my hacks ready for next wcg : P
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Kennigit/Rings_Disgraced.png)
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