On March 16 2011 07:49 LegendaryZ wrote: It's not like being born in Korea somehow makes you a superior Starcraft player. If they are more skilled as a group, it's because they've worked hard, built a good system and earned it. If anything, putting them up against foreign competition should only encourage foreign players to work even harder, making their own scene stronger as a whole.
Well said! Limiting the player pool only says "we can't compete" and will make the division between Korea and everyone else even larger.
On March 16 2011 07:53 LoLAdriankat wrote: The NASL should be a furious competition. Not some playground for little babies to build sand castles.
I was gonna say a combination of that, thanks guys.
On March 16 2011 07:56 guluru wrote: Some people are acting like Koreans won't be invited at all which is just wrong, so stop acting like that is the case.
On March 16 2011 07:43 0neder wrote: Growing e-sports in the West doesn't mean you need mostly Western players from the get-go - it means you grow the fan-base by showing the best players, and eventually it will hopefully be more balanced between player regions.
Also, giving Koreans free reign exposes more fans to the Korean scene, BW, etc, which can only be a good thing. Which will get NA a bigger player base eventually, etc.
If they are trying to grow the fan-base, it would come from people who don't already watch a lot of starcraft and will most likely be in NA/EU. Most people would like to relate to their favorite player or have the chance to cheer for someone who is representing them and their country. I root for the US during the world cup even when I know for a fact they aren't anywhere near the best. I root for them because they are representing me and I had a lot of fun watching and cheering for them. If I stepped into this scene brand new and only saw Koreans, I wouldn't be motivated at all to play/watch.
People did connect to BW through Korea and that's where many of you are coming from. But to grow western eSports, that just doesn't seem like a very good option. The players will still be GOOD. Just because they aren't from Korea or aren't the "best" does not mean they aren't good and will not provide entertaining games. They stated they want Koreans, and they most likely will. But we do not need the whole league to only be Koreans to appeal to the western Community.
If we're aiming for a fanbase that has no previous experience with the game or knowledge of the professional scene, why would you assume that they would begin with any bias? The gaming community would clearly be the fanbase here and I would think that gamers more than the average person would be able to appreciate the skills of international talent.
Listening to Pokebunny, at first I thought he was trolling, but I guess this is what happens when you let little kids post whatever they want without supervision. I was insulted by many things that he said.
First of all, he stated somewhere that korean players are only in this for the money. Let's not be naive and pretend that money isn't a factor in this, but to blatantly accuse every single korean player of being a money grubbing ho is just ridiculous. I'm sure that pokebunny is too young to know, but some people have other motivations to play starcraft, such as they find it fun, they love to play starcraft, and they want to be known, they want to show some great games to their fans, and they want to play against some good foreigners and have some great games. People don't become professional starcraft gamers just for the money.
Something that just comes to mind for example is a video I recently saw of Artosis at the 2005 WCG. He said that he just quit whatever job he was doing and spend a few months focusing solely on getting better, and that it was the highlight of his year. That was how dedicated he was and how much he loved the game. Are you going to accuse him of moving to korea and becoming a paid caster just because he's greedy and hes in it for the money?
Pokebunny also said that julyzerg was being fake, and not into whatever just because his english wasn't that great.
Are you serious? Do you honestly expect people who probably studied some korean in highschool to be able to freely speak english? Yah, maybe they've seen titanic, but that's not enough to make you fluent. And you're not even referring to anybody else. Have you heard Moman? I don't even know half the shit he's saying. It's not as if I don't get the subtle reference here is that you don't like english with non-white accents. No matter how racist you don't think you are, it really makes me wonder. All you hear is probably ching chong ling long ting tong, but i can understand them alot more clearly than 90% of the european player videos. I'm not even going to mention some others, like QXC, who doesn't even have sound in his.
reminds me of this
and to say that korean sc2 players have no personality is so lulzy. sure they may be polite, but it's not as if people like socke or white-ra are raging in their face. they can conduct funny interviews to, albeit in korean due to the english language barrier. they have shit tons of personality, most of it showed through the playing style of their games. they don't need to have idra-level BM to have personality.
theres also a few other things i want to point out. first of all is how accepting GSL is of foreigners. can anyone actually name me a better league that has done so much to help foreigners compete?
-foreigners not being placed against each other in qualifiers so they don't know each other out -english stream -english casters (tastosis and kellymilkies and doa) -4 free code A spots (not even going to mention how hard the qualifiers are. i'm pretty sure code A qualifiers are alot harder than IEM or MLG) -FREE FOREIGNER HOUSING if you want to stay and train and compete -translators (john) -flying players in for the world team league
all the teams are nice too. OGS works with liquid. Even ST invited Torch. To say that they aren't doing anything to help foreigners is ridiculous.
and someone said that koreans didn't have to stay and live, and that was a huge barrier, and that koreans only had to stay for a weekend to compete. i fail to see how thats a problem, as it's only because of the playing format. the korean matches are played live, so the people have to be there. you can go wherever the hell you want between your matches, as all you have to do is show up.
NASL matches apparently are online, so you don't need to live in that area to compete, or i'm sure that would limit foreigners just like GSL does.
i just want to end what i'm saying with that i understand that NASL is to help foreign esports grow. i'm not advocating having all players be korean. even 5-10 spots would be great. but this blind idiocy that people like pokebunny have is just retarded. i personally think it would be awesome to have NA players beat korean players. Anybody that could take on MVP in a best of 3 and win would automatically become a sc2 celebrity, just like squirtle. if i wanted to settle for ok master level games with entertainment value i'd just watch destiny's stream as his zerg QQ is 10x more entertaining than pokebunny will ever be
On March 16 2011 07:59 red4ce wrote: Oh and for people saying Koreans never show emotion and whatnot, how the heck would you know? Do you understand Korean and watch their Korean interviews? Do you read the comments they leave on playxp? What about MC, Ace, Zenio and John? Is making a funny gesture after a win all it takes for you to conclude that someone has 'personality'? Sure, brood war pros were boring but only because of Kespa's stupid rules.
Not only that, but going back to someone's admittedly poor football analogy (it's English premiership btw, not UK premiership), yes the EPL is the biggest league in the world. Is it held back by the fact that footballers' average IQ is somewhere below 50 and that the majority of post-match interviews are cringe-worthy "erm..."-fests? This emphasis on "building a story" and inviting "interesting" players is deeply worrying, especially for people who know the story of CGS.
If i see playboy bunnies at the launch event i'm giving up on NASL.
On March 16 2011 07:32 Kazang wrote: My personal feeling is that anyone outside of NA shouldn't be invited. Not that non NA residents can't compete at all, but they should have to qualify.
It's a NA tournament, it should prioritise players in the NA. The issue of latency shouldn't be ignored and players playing from Korea or even Europe will negatively effect the quality of the games more than not having the "best" players.
The GSL is there as a Global league, and as such have to make an effort to include "foreigners" as it's not much of a Global league without them. Conversely I don't expect to see Koreans or non NA residents in a North American League. The same way I don't expect to see Milan playing in the UK Premiership or Switzerland in the 6 Nations.
There are other leagues and tournaments that cater for the whole world, such as the TSL and GSL. Just as in other sports the localised tournaments aren't any less important than the global ones. Indeed I prefer watching the 6 Nations over the Rugby World Cup in most cases.
An online version of GSL with mostly the same players but a different format and all the problems that online play brings would be a pretty shitty tournament in my eyes. A completely different, and NA based tournament would be far more entertaining than a half-assed online imitation of the GSL.
Your analogy is terrible though. The premiership has mostly foreign players in, and it's the biggest league in the world because of it.
The NASL should not prioritize a load of unworthy NA players to get in just because they are known. It undermines the competition.
No my analogy is fine. UK Premiership attracts foreign players, they come and play IN the UK. What country they were born in doesn't matter at all, it is where they are that matters. It's the biggest league in the world because it has the most money and attracts the best players. See the point? If a player wants to play in the UK Premiership and and earn their millions they have to come live on a grubby little island and play there. Likewise if players want to compete in the North American star league they should be in NA, not in Korea, or anywhere else.
I said in post it should apply to players resident in NA, not "a load of unworthy NA players to get in just because they are known". If IM want to move to NA to compete in NASL just like Liquid had to to compete in GSL then more power to them. I hope they do, but I really don't want to have them playing from across the pacific on a shitty connection, having it online at all is bad enough without taking it to playing across different continents.
I think it's a joke to ignore the physical boundaries of the world and say it's ok to play in a NA league from another continent.
You're looking at this the wrong way, the North American in NASL doesn't mean a thing when they announced they wanted the best players from all over the WORLD in ONLINE groupstages to ONLY hold the FINALS @ lan.
On March 16 2011 08:00 N3rV[Green] wrote: Since when did the Starcraft community get so demanding and hostile? What happened to the love of the game, and just being glad that tournaments actually exist?
I am just very very confused as to where all this heated debate of KR vs the world came from.
As a comment on this: The topic of whether IdrA should be allowed in foreigner tournaments for BW was one that was discussed at length on numerous occasions on TL. Many people felt because he got to train with them and play professionally he shouldn't be allowed in the foreigner tournaments.
On March 16 2011 07:56 guluru wrote: Some people are acting like Koreans won't be invited at all which is just wrong, so stop acting like that is the case.
On March 16 2011 07:43 0neder wrote: Growing e-sports in the West doesn't mean you need mostly Western players from the get-go - it means you grow the fan-base by showing the best players, and eventually it will hopefully be more balanced between player regions.
Also, giving Koreans free reign exposes more fans to the Korean scene, BW, etc, which can only be a good thing. Which will get NA a bigger player base eventually, etc.
If they are trying to grow the fan-base, it would come from people who don't already watch a lot of starcraft and will most likely be in NA/EU. Most people would like to relate to their favorite player or have the chance to cheer for someone who is representing them and their country. I root for the US during the world cup even when I know for a fact they aren't anywhere near the best. I root for them because they are representing me and I had a lot of fun watching and cheering for them. If I stepped into this scene brand new and only saw Koreans, I wouldn't be motivated at all to play/watch.
People did connect to BW through Korea and that's where many of you are coming from. But to grow western eSports, that just doesn't seem like a very good option. The players will still be GOOD. Just because they aren't from Korea or aren't the "best" does not mean they aren't good and will not provide entertaining games. They stated they want Koreans, and they most likely will. But we do not need the whole league to only be Koreans to appeal to the western Community.
If we're aiming for a fanbase that has no previous experience with the game or knowledge of the professional scene, why would you assume that they would begin with any bias? The gaming community would clearly be the fanbase here and I would think that gamers more than the average person would be able to appreciate the skills of international talent.
I never said they wouldn't appreciate the skills of international talent. What I am saying is that more people would like to be able to cheer for something familiar. I would love 5-15 Koreans in the league. But some people do and WILL have national bias (Americans will support other competing Americans about 9/10 times if it's something they don't keep up with). Even in GSL I support the foreigners as many others on this site do. Why? Because we connect to them and we want them to succeed.
All this talk of inviting the best of the best, simply for the sake of having the best compete in the NASL makes me want to puke. If that is the argument you want to make, then you'd have to agree to an almost strictly Korean NASL...now... how ridiculous does that sound?
Some people mention the quest for global parity in SC2. Letting koreans dominate our home grown tournaments is NOT THE WAY to achieve this. The only way, and I repeat, the only way to level the playing field is to initiate and facilitate grassroots movements. The NASL is an example of this, and it would serve to undermine the quest for parity to allow koreans (certainly in unlimited numbers, i.e. the best of the best) to, in a word, dominate such initiatives.
Some mention (or at least imply by what they say) that parity can only be achieved by forcing koreans to compete with and beside NA/EUR players. No, No, No. That is entirely backwards, that is the "end state", the "goal", the desired culmination of the grassroots movements hitherto mentioned. We need to build an infrastracture that supports NA/EUR SC2 players as they are in Korea, and that enables them to practice as they do in Korea. Only then does it make sense to attempt to homogenize the landscape.
Allowing a few koreans into the NASL for flavour, or to inject a bit more high level talent is fine by me. That said, I believe the NASL should be primarily for NA/EUR players BECAUSE I believe this tournament is for altering the very foundation of the foreigner (ugh i hate that term) scene, and for creating the infrastructure that would ultimately enable parity within the global SC2 community.
On March 16 2011 08:03 SexyHyung wrote: Listening to Pokebunny, at first I thought he was trolling, but I guess this is what happens when you let little kids post whatever they want without supervision. I was insulted by many things that he said.
First of all, he stated somewhere that korean players are only in this for the money. Let's not be naive and pretend that money isn't a factor in this, but to blatantly accuse every single korean player of being a money grubbing ho is just ridiculous. I'm sure that pokebunny is too young to know, but some people have other motivations to play starcraft, such as they find it fun, they love to play starcraft, and they want to be known, they want to show some great games to their fans, and they want to play against some good foreigners and have some great games. People don't become professional starcraft gamers just for the money.
Something that just comes to mind for example is a video I recently saw of Artosis at the 2005 WCG. He said that he just quit whatever job he was doing and spend a few months focusing solely on getting better, and that it was the highlight of his year. That was how dedicated he was and how much he loved the game. Are you going to accuse him of moving to korea and becoming a paid caster just because he's greedy and hes in it for the money?
Pokebunny also said that julyzerg was being fake, and not into whatever just because his english wasn't that great.
Are you serious? Do you honestly expect people who probably studied some korean in highschool to be able to freely speak english? Yah, maybe they've seen titanic, but that's not enough to make you fluent. And you're not even referring to anybody else. Have you heard Moman? I don't even know half the shit he's saying. It's not as if I don't get the subtle reference here is that you don't like english with non-white accents. No matter how racist you don't think you are, it really makes me wonder. All you hear is probably ching chong ling long ting tong, but i can understand them alot more clearly than 90% of the european player videos. I'm not even going to mention some others, like QXC, who doesn't even have sound in his.
If pokebunny did really say those things, then he really isn't mature enough to be in ANY league at this point.
On March 16 2011 07:46 Baffels wrote: I want good games. Period.
Americans who can't make it in the NFL play in the CFL, Canadians who make it to the NFL don't play in the CFL.
Seriously, c'mon man if your not going to invite these people why dont you just give yourself the prize money now?(EG)
I feel like this point has been mentioned a lot, but I want to reiterate it.
The goal is to avoid that. The way things are headed, the split will be almost inevitable. We have seen nothing so far to suggest than the foreigner scene can keep up with the Koreans if things continue on the path they're going. Granted, the sample sizes have been relatively limited, but they've all been pretty consistent. However, if you focus on perhaps shorter term separation in order to hopefully play catch up, then in the future they could compete on the same level.
I don't think anybody should realistically want sc2 to turn into BW where there is literally not a single player in the world competing with the best. People who want to see the Koreans separated aren't doing so because of some malice against Koreans or because we always want to see Foreigners separated from Koreans. On the contrary I (and I imagine most of the people who are arguing for the separation) are hoping to bring the skill levels and community closer in the future by taking the action now.
(note: obviously this is speculation on my part, as well as everybody's elses. Nobody yet knows what the NASl will look like, how sponsors will react, if there is the desire to put for the amount of effort needed outside of Korea, etc...)
Yes, yes, I understand the point of "we don't want SC2 to go the same way as BW". Well first off its not 1997 anymore. It took less than a month for the GSL to start up. I don't know the history of professional BW from start to finish but, it took longer than a month for paid, sponsored tournaments to start up. Secondly, I can't accept your argument because the top 5 placers in IEM trained and practiced like the Korean winners. All I read after IEM is how crazy Korean practice times and schedules are, well its paying off. Lastly, there is no reason why teams from NA and Europe can't do this. Yes in Korea progaming "may be more accepted" than in the US but, if your like Morrow you practice 12 hours a day because you love the game and want to make a living at it.
Refer to any of the sports analogies in this thread to understand the effort it took to get this far.
On March 16 2011 07:53 LoLAdriankat wrote: The NASL should be a furious competition. Not some playground for little babies to build sand castles.
QFT.
I don't feel like repeating the same thing over and over again on how everyone feels.
Invite most Koreans and be the NA version of the GSL or don't invite them and expect to showcase sub-par talent. I'd have to say a tournament this scale is too premature and we arn't ready to compete with the best.
First of all, we don't even know how many Koreans applied aside of StarTale. It may not be up to the NASL to choose if the majority will be Korean or not.
That aside, I believe Korean participation will be healthy for the league and the foreign scene in general (plus we fans love foreign vs. korea matches). The skill level goes up, we get to measure the level against them and its serves as benchmark for the ones trying to be as good as them.
Around 10 Korean players would be ideal imo, about 2 per division. At least 1 per division in any case.
Further, keep in mind that this is the first season only. if more Koreans decide to join the league then then they will haul their asses to US and play on the TWO separate Opens that will decide who joins the following season. What does this mean? It will be up to them to show interest and make the trip here for the qualifiers.
Now, if later on the number of Koreans gets too high and this somehow generates negative effects on the NASL, then they should so something about it.
For now lets just be happy that such a league is being made and support the NASL as this is their league and they have their vision of how it should work. If a need for changes arise, I'm confident they will adress is properly.
If they don't apply, they don't get in and must go through the qualifying tournaments for future seasons. Why should one group of players not have to do this when others did?
NASL has to be for entertainment. If we dont have players willing to challenge the best players than why are they even considered a "top" player outside of korea? Whos to even say the difference between the top players and the top players from korea? We havent had a league with a bunch mixed together only a few select events. Koreans in this league will promote Sc2 in korea as well.
anyone who is in favor of inviting players based on their personality or nationality instead of their skill level is not a true fan of this game.
i honestly and truly feel bad for you if you would rather watch someone play based on where they live or what language they speak over watching someone because of how great they are at starcraft. this is such a beautiful game and you should be appreciating how these players play it after countless thousands of practice hours, not concentrating on their fucking post-match interview. it is one thing to be a fan of a player from your region, it is another to dismiss the ability of a player because you don't like that they don't speak your language.
anything other than invites or qualifiers based purely on playing ability is a travesty.
On March 16 2011 07:32 Kazang wrote: My personal feeling is that anyone outside of NA shouldn't be invited. Not that non NA residents can't compete at all, but they should have to qualify.
It's a NA tournament, it should prioritise players in the NA. The issue of latency shouldn't be ignored and players playing from Korea or even Europe will negatively effect the quality of the games more than not having the "best" players.
The GSL is there as a Global league, and as such have to make an effort to include "foreigners" as it's not much of a Global league without them. Conversely I don't expect to see Koreans or non NA residents in a North American League. The same way I don't expect to see Milan playing in the UK Premiership or Switzerland in the 6 Nations.
There are other leagues and tournaments that cater for the whole world, such as the TSL and GSL. Just as in other sports the localised tournaments aren't any less important than the global ones. Indeed I prefer watching the 6 Nations over the Rugby World Cup in most cases.
An online version of GSL with mostly the same players but a different format and all the problems that online play brings would be a pretty shitty tournament in my eyes. A completely different, and NA based tournament would be far more entertaining than a half-assed online imitation of the GSL.
Your analogy is terrible though. The premiership has mostly foreign players in, and it's the biggest league in the world because of it.
The NASL should not prioritize a load of unworthy NA players to get in just because they are known. It undermines the competition.
No my analogy is fine. UK Premiership attracts foreign players, they come and play IN the UK. What country they were born in doesn't matter at all, it is where they are that matters. It's the biggest league in the world because it has the most money and attracts the best players. See the point? If a player wants to play in the UK Premiership and and earn their millions they have to come live on a grubby little island and play there. Likewise if players want to compete in the North American star league they should be in NA, not in Korea, or anywhere else.
I said in post it should apply to players resident in NA, not "a load of unworthy NA players to get in just because they are known". If IM want to move to NA to compete in NASL just like Liquid had to to compete in GSL then more power to them. I hope they do, but I really don't want to have them playing from across the pacific on a shitty connection, having it online at all is bad enough without taking it to playing across different continents.
I think it's a joke to ignore the physical boundaries of the world and say it's ok to play in a NA league from another continent.
No it's still a terrible analogy, what are you even blabbering on about? I don't think you even understand the format of the tournament. There is an online section which obviously no one needs to be in any location, then there's the offline where the Koreans will need to be there. Is this hard to understand or what?
On March 16 2011 07:59 red4ce wrote: Oh and for people saying Koreans never show emotion and whatnot, how the heck would you know? Do you understand Korean and watch their Korean interviews? Do you read the comments they leave on playxp? What about MC, Ace, Zenio and John? Is making a funny gesture after a win all it takes for you to conclude that someone has 'personality'? Sure, brood war pros were boring but only because of Kespa's stupid rules.
Did you even watch Brood War or what, there's constant interviews and we know what all the players personalities are like even the lesser players so this is just bullshit.
This tournament would be pointless without Koreans. We already have tournaments like MLG that is Western only, and they're ok. But this is a Star League, which should represent the best and most entertaining games. The best are obviously Koreans. And for me personally, the most entertaining games for me are the foreigners vs Koreans. I'd be disappointed if there isn't a healthy number of Koreans in this tournament. I think the foreign scene owes it to them.
EPT
