On May 28 2011 01:17 kNightLite wrote: Thank you for taking the time to post here, we really appreciate it.
I am looking forward to the changes to the GSTL, hopefully they will increase foreigner participation. I'm not sure if they will work, but I appreciate that GSL is making an effort.
I think the main problem that foreigners have with the MLG-GSL exchange program is the prize pool distribution. Winning Code A is only $1400, which is barely enough to cover the round trip flight to Korea. It also requires staying in Korea for 1-2 months, which makes it difficult to participate in froreign tournaments where foreigners can win much more than $1400 in a month. In comparision, MLG only requires a 3 days in the US, and has a $5000 prize for winning the tournament.
Another thing to consider is tournament format. MLG has group stage play, which means that if you're a good player you don't need to worry about getting eliminated due to bad luck. However in GSL Code A you can be pitted against someone like MVP or Dongraegu in the first round, and unless you get really lucky you go home with next to nothing.
Code A is like open bracket where there is no group play and Pool play is like Code S with group stage, same thing?? except that there's a qualifier for Code A.
and why do you assume that people can win much more in NA/EU tournaments? there are probably more players there overall compared to KR so I think the chances are equal. Winning any tournament won't be like a one-two punch, that your sure to win.
I am 100% confident that they would go. They will all fly to States to achieve their dream. Why? Simple : The tournament is worth the effort and these players have the skill to win. If you win you receive 50 thousand dollars and gain popularity from Starcraft2 fans all around the world. Barriers such as “culture/language difference” are worth enduring for such fame and money and should not be a big problem. Such barriers can be overcome if one is willing to put effort.
Quite a bold claim, I must say.
Of course they would go, with their skill they have a good chance to win the whole thing. Just take a look at MC in Dreamhack, for example.
Yes. Exactly this. Look at MC at Dreamhack. Look at how we treated him and then look at how much he enjoyed it and wanted to come back because of it. It speaks for itself.
1) He was invited 2) He was flown over 3) I don't see any Koreans flying over for MLG on their own. Placing high in each event qualifies you for they grand finals which has quite a large prize too. We have EU players already participating in MLG events. There is no excuse. It goes both ways. Heck, there are other tournaments they can play in if they're in it for the long haul. It'd be "easy money" right? Why don't Koreans play in MLG? The same reason why some players don't want to go to Korea.
Most Koreans who are flown over are only there for a weekend or so. I doubt many would stay for an entire MLG season which is the NA equivalent of grinding through Code A for months.
On May 28 2011 01:19 darmousseh wrote: 1. No team house. The team house is a great idea, but it encourages isolation. We need integration. Ogs and teamliquid formed a partnership of their own accord, but I think the other teams will need a little more encouragement. How about something like this instead: When a foreign player moves from the states, that a team can choose to partner with his foreign team. GomTV should pay for living expenses for 3 months for that player. In exchange, the korean team gets a player in a code A spot (improving their odds of being in gstl) and that the foreign team agrees to provide temporary accommodations for a korean player who wishes to travel abroad. If MC comes to the US, i'm sure teamliquid would love to share an hotel room for an event like MLG.
2. Korean language training. One of the cheapest, but most valuable things Gom can do is to provide language training. Living in a house full of koreans will help, but formal training would solidify things more. Not everyone has the desire to learn korean, but if you provide it for free, i'm sure more would take it up.
think about what you're saying, buddy, you're asking GOM to give a foreigner a holiday in korea with free korean lessons to boot. pay for living expenses? seriously?
Thanks for the post, Mr. Chae. you've put so much into this, I don't think there's really much else you can do while still being fair. At some point it's up to the players themselves to make the decision.
anyway here's a picture I found on playxp of JungWon during his playing days:
from what i've heard / understand is that the foreign players feel like its a huge commitment to go to korea because of the fact that they will have to miss out on all of the online tournaments due to lag and timezones. One of these problems can easily be fixed by LAN (lol) the other can be "fixed" by the players commitment to play on the highest level.
If SC2 had LAN i think you will see more people going to gsl to get that experiance esp. now that you opened the door to get mercd by a korean team for practice. Cause i do feel that most if not all players think that going to korea will help you evolve as a player, but the fact that they will be missing out on all of the weekly tournaments / clan leagues of the foreign scene makes it not worth the investment to evolve as player.
So far only a few foreigners have tried going to korea to get that experience and those are the players that want to put themself as a player on a higher level than their income / stability. I hope that once lan gets added and all the foreigners see that you can still play weekly cups / assist your team in clan leagues they will make the jump to Korea.
However until this happens the options you provided should be great incentive for the doubters among the foreign gamers and i cant wait to see them play in a booth at the GSL!
I absolutely love that GOM cares deeply about this and has done so much to accommodate foreigners. It's really unfortunate there are so many issues beyond their control, like the latency issues that supposedly hampers a Korean-based player from results in online tournaments.
Some online tournament results and the sheer explosion of events outside Korea I think has made Korea not as significant as it was during the BW days.
I don't think there are any legitimate excuses for turning down a Code S spot. You and your team doesn't even have to spend any money for such a great opportunity. Lose in the first round then come home, you don't miss anything. Make it far and you'll easily win enough money and gain enough prestige to justify missing a few foreigner tourneys.
If Code A didn't last so long, then there would truly be no excuse left. There should be more player movement between Code S and A, and with a shorter qualification period, foreigners would have much greater incentive to compete.
Thanks for you honest response. Honestly, I agree with you in a lot of ways -- if there was in fact a tournament in the US, for instance, with GSL's prize pool then many Koreans would come here to play for a month. I was really surprised more foreigners didn't opt to go. I think what happened was some were not going and so all decided against it because of the lack of practice partners, funds to travel there, and time to dedicate to the GSL Super Tournament. I think in time, things will smooth out and you will see more foreigners entering it.
I think one other thing you could have done was the same qualifier-type experiment as the GSL World Championship. That way you would have new players around the world who would love to play in GSL but have had no avenue for it yet. I think many of the players who were invited probably feel that they were just there for an extended amount of time and have focused back on European/American tournaments. If you managed to do tryouts for other foreign players, however, I think you would've seen more foreigners come to try out the GSL experience. Just a thought.
Don't get discouraged though -- we are certainly about to see a lot more foreigners in GSL. I think more than anything this was a timing problem and most of the invited players already had commitments to deal with and couldn't spend a month in Korea. There are hundreds of other foreigners who would've jumped at the opportunity though, especially if they haven't had a chance to go to Korea to play before. While the players we saw in the World Championship are SOME of the best foreigners in the world, I would say there's many others that are just as good or better than those that were there so it's not like those were the only foreigners to invite.
Good luck, and keep doing your best to get foreigners over there. They will come, I assure you. If anything, the prize pool is undeniably huge for any player and there isn't a foreigner on the scene who doesn't want to test their skills against the best Korea has to offer.
I see the opportunity to make a reliable VPN from Korean to Western world. If Korean players can play lag freely on NA/EU server, they can enter most of current open tournaments and take all the price pool away. Then those who claim that they just cant go to Korean since they will lose their lifestyle/friends/training environment will lose everything Come on Korean fighters, blow all those lazy western so called starcraft pros away, they dont deserve to be in the history of starcraft!
Cool, this strongly resembles what I suggested in the previous topic:
"1) Set a rule that requires GSL teams to have at least X (maybe 2) foreigners. This has been done in sports before and, while I am not sure GSL teams would be happy about it, might just work.
2) Set a rule that requires GSL teams to have a foreign team as a GSL partner, OGS-TLAF style. Which is a possibly more palatable version of option 1)."
Maybe someone at GomTV read it and thought it was smart! (yeah ok... A man can dream though!)
I mean, let's not even go through the weird hypothetical "reverse-world" scenario. Let's make it more simple.
Say Nestea, MC, MVP or whomever you choose was a German, living in Germany. Then assume they have the same set of Starcraft II skills. Are they really gonna go to Korea for GSL, just because it's the most prestigious tournament? And don't even talk about the money, there's waaaay more money to earn outside Korea, and you can make it without putting all your eggs in one basket.
To reach Mr.Chae's conclusion, you have to assume that Korean players are somehow more ambitious, courageous competitors than foreign players, which I don't think is true at all.
Absolutely amazing changes to the Team League. Getting to see Jinro and HuK play for OGS will be awesome.
I love the way GOMTV is constantly trying to identify problems and come up with solutions. I had let my subscription wane in the past few months (money problems), but now I will resubscribe for next season.
Wow, I'm really impressed (but not surprised) with how much GOM is stretching itself to be more acceptive of foreigners. Obviously if they were rigid, less would watch them, and more would watch NASL, but none the less I am happy that they are trying.
I really am excited to see Korean teams with "foreign mercenaries" hahaha.
I am 100% confident that they would go. They will all fly to States to achieve their dream. Why? Simple : The tournament is worth the effort and these players have the skill to win. If you win you receive 50 thousand dollars and gain popularity from Starcraft2 fans all around the world. Barriers such as “culture/language difference” are worth enduring for such fame and money and should not be a big problem. Such barriers can be overcome if one is willing to put effort.
Quite a bold claim, I must say.
Of course they would go, with their skill they have a good chance to win the whole thing. Just take a look at MC in Dreamhack, for example.
Yes. Exactly this. Look at MC at Dreamhack. Look at how we treated him and then look at how much he enjoyed it and wanted to come back because of it. It speaks for itself.
1) He was invited 2) He was flown over 3) I don't see any Koreans flying over for MLG on their own. Placing high in each event qualifies you for they grand finals which has quite a large prize too. We have EU players already participating in MLG events. There is no excuse. It goes both ways. Heck, there are other tournaments they can play in if they're in it for the long haul. It'd be "easy money" right? Why don't Koreans play in MLG? The same reason why some players don't want to go to Korea.
Most Koreans who are flown over are only there for a weekend or so. I doubt many would stay for an entire MLG season which is the NA equivalent of grinding through Code A for months.
What? You're missing the point. The point was that he's coming back and participating in foreign events all the time now. Koreans are playing in MLG. Koreans played in IEM. Koreans played in Dreamhack winter. If we had a real foreigner league equivalent of GSL they sure as hell would play in it too, I can't believe anyone is arguing that when everything suggests otherwise. At least when it concerns the top players that have a great shot at taking it all.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TbY98.jpg)
