EPT
10/7/2011
Editor's Note
My goal within the Starcraft community has always been simple: to make e-Sports content from Korea accessible for the rest of the world. After all, there's a lot of news and information packed into each article and interview.
Of course, this goal is next to impossible for me at the current state -- there's just far too much content and I do not have enough time to do everything. It also doesn't help that I stopped doing this for a long time, and a lot has happened.
So, this is a compromise, and kind of an experiment. The idea is to give the community a news rundown from Korea with clarification on certain important details, and of course, tidbits from long featured interviews that are simply not translated. Note that this isn't a summary of all the news that had happened in a given time frame (although it will cover some very interesting news) -- it specifically concentrates on things that I believe need a bit more context. Of course, I'll still be bringing the random tidbits that I think most people like, but there's less of that this week.
Note that these aren't direct translations, but more of paraphrases, and I try to add in a lot of context. So given this, here's what I want you guys to do: Give me feedback. Feedback and suggestions are always appreciated, especially regarding what you would like to see covered.
Thanks, and enjoy.
Brood War Updates
- Flash's Surgery: Flash had entered the hospital on September 18th in order to get surgery on his right arm. His surgery was a success, as he was allowed to leave the hospital on the 23rd to be under the care of his parents as he was not allowed to move his arms for 2~3 weeks.
KeSPA has also given him an exception, allowing him to miss the required biyearly progamer seminar as he was not allowed to move long distances during this time. He removed his stitches on the 4th, and he is now scheduled to enter a rehabilitation facility in Pyeongchang on October 6th for one month.
DES ran an interview with the physician representative of the institute that was in charge of Flash's recovery. Flash's injury was considered one of the most serious injuries progamers could have gotten, as Flash's muscles had clumped up and was pressing on his nerves. While CTS patients suffer from pains on the wrist, in the case of Flash the pain was on his entire right arm.
Flash's problem was caused by him overusing his right arm, which led to a spurt in muscle growth. The surgery quickly identified and removed the muscles causing the problem. The representative commented that Flash should be making a full recovery in two to three months. - The 8th Team (Rumors Beware): KeSPA had announced through an interview that they had a special tasksforce for the purpose of finding sponsors for an eight team. The netizen rumors that were confirmed was that the team was being marketed with the "Dream Team" concept of the best player from all three teams. Rumors initially point to LG, who was also the company that had shown interest in sponsoring proteams before. However, rumors have it that they had backed out (they seem to be rumored to be more interested in SC2 teams -- oGs and IM specifically), although the same rumor claiming that a draft will happen in a week or two. As for something more solid, GameChosun, however, had talked with KeSPA on the 7th and stated that there is still nothing for certain and KeSPA is still in discussion with a few corporations.
A more current set of rumors have it that, another corporation, "H", will be creating the Dream Team, with an announcement coming out within this week. (Apparently, this was published, but soon deleted).
Player Updates
- Jaedong gave the community an update on his status on September 30th on Daily e-Sports. He is currently residing at his hometown in Ulsan. Whlie he still practices in the morning and in the afternoon, he notes that it's difficult to practice effectively. In the meantime, he has been spending a lot of time reading, and according to his latest twitter posts, he's been travelling around the country.
- Both Mind and Stats both had gotten surgery regarding their chins, as the chins have been causing problems with their dental health. Mind got his surgery after WeMade Fox had disbanded, while Stats had gotten his after Proleague had ended. The results? Well...
- According to an interview with GOM's observer, Nal_Ra is currently debating whether to come back as a StarCraft II player or a Commentator.
- ForGG had talked about a few players who had asked him about StarCraft II, and mentioned that there is at least one player he had met (from one of the disbanded teams) who is currently playing StarCraft II.
- ForGG thinks Zerg is the best race, and noted that the would play Zerg if he had the opportunity to choose races again. He had started with Protoss, and moved to Terran. His current goal is to get into Code A, and his ultimate goal is to win.
StarCraft II Updates
- StarCraft II is broadcasted on OGN: The WCG preliminaries finally gave OGN the opportunity to broadcast StarCraft II. While OGN had plans to broadcast GSL in the past, soured relationship between GOM and KeSPA caused the plans to fall through. BoxeR also joined the OGN commentating team for the first day as a special guest, as he pointed out key details in matches while also lending the commentators a sense of humor (which, apparently caused one of the SlayerS players to comment that their image of BoxeR had been forever shattered).
The first week was, however, riddled with complaints and errors. At least one of the matches took place on different (older) versions of maps than the ones they had listed on their map pool, while the hardware used ran into some issues in time for Nestea's match -- as there was a significant amount of lag when played on the lowest graphics settings, but not on medium grpahics settings. Many more progamers had complained about the computers used for the WCG matches, which led OGN to invest in new machines that MVP had complimented on his WCG match. - IeSF: While IeSF had selected StarCraft II as an official event for their event, they had failed to reach an agreement with Blizzard or Gretech, the first meaning that IeSF will not be able to broadcast their matches, and the second being the reason why no Korean representatives were selected. This led to IeSF dropping StarCraft II as an official event, leading them to keep it as an exhibition event. The group draws had taken place October 6th, and Sjow and Grubby had managed to make it to the round of 16 as day 1 drew to a close. Some pictures of the event could be found here.
- SC2Con Disbands: Not that surprising of a piece of news, since 1) It's not a player's union, 2) It's not run by sponsors. This means that the organization lacks power to enforce any decision onto another team, leading to disagreements, and SC2Con had no power to punish any team that disobeys their mandate as the StarCraft II scene in Korea is too fragile and so punishing teams by barring them from tournaments would hurt the scene too much. However, it is to note that the final tone of SC2Con's statement was quite ominous, stating that SC2Con finds the need for a more rigid structure with actual power.
- Future plans of GSL: Mr. Chae, in an interview with GameChosun talked a bit about some of the future plans of GSL. He noted that there will be less seeds in Code S -- that is, less people who remain in Code S. He also talked about how the schdules will change so that there will be no matches that take place during the day and the night like the first week of Code A, and that they are planning on moving towards the direction to give players more opportunities to play broadcasted games. This same direction applies to GSTL, as he noted that GSTL's concept will be to give players a lot of opportunities. He also noted that they will be working with the feedback they had received during the GSTL seasons.
When talking about foreign events, Mr. Chae noted that the Blizzcon finals was the first step. He noted that there are a lot of logistical issues that need to be settled. Their goal is to go with a similar format in the future.
Finally, when asked if they were planning a special event with MLG, Mr. Chae noted that there will be clearer details after they figure out their 2012 plans.
![[image loading]](/staff/HawaiianPig/ellyicon.png)
Welp, that's all folks!
