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EDIT: Morrow brings up the notion that Koreas have it much harder than foreigners. Don't misconstrue this argument. I'm not saying it's easier for a Korean vs. a Foreigner. It is harder in fact. But they have a clear, tangible path on their way. They have clear goals. Foreigners have to keep playing and hope they get noticed one day. This shouldn't be the case. There should be a way for them to get noticed. There should be qualifiers for major events for them to have a chance to get noticed.
EDIT 2: There are actually subtle differences between NA and EU (which, IMO, is why there are atleast some new european pros emerging). The difference is there are much more online cups and leagues running in europe. On top of the playhem dailies, they have go4sc2s, zotacs, competos etc. etc. etc. While this isn't reliable income, you can one day make some money off of these and get noticed (like Nerchio). NA doesn't have enough of these IMO. And the ones that do pop up are won by Koreans anyways (as the times for them are pretty good for Koreans to play).
EDIT 3: IdrA brought up the point of just dropping everything, going to Korea and trying to go pro (like DesRow is doing). Personally I think a foreigner that wants to go pro needs to do that. Korea has the infrastructure and foreigners can make use of it. But one has to admit it is significantly easier for a Korean to drop his life and stay exactly where he is to do it vs. a foreigner that has to drop his life, then move to korea and worry about where he's going to live and whether he can afford it.
EDIT 4: Many of you bring up the notion that the player numbers dropping is a result of casuals just dropping out of the game and what remains are hardcore players. Let's hope that is this case. Anyways, my entire argument doesn't hinge on just the player numbers. There are still issues with the system.
EDIT 5: Open qualifiers are what has made stars out of anyone that has risen in the SC2 scene. Stephano qualifying for IPL3 and erupting into stardom, ThorZain for TSL3, NaNiwa for TSL3/MLG Dallas. For the health of the scene we need more qualifiers and less inviting.
TL;DR at the beginning because this is huge: foreign player pool is dying. Foreigners are going to stop existing in SC2 one day.
Alright guys, this is going to be long. So get ready. This is a post about where the SC2 community is headed and why, unless we make some drastic changes, our community as we know it will shrink substantially. In the last few weeks we’ve read tons of articles about foreign teams dropping their foreign players and picking up new Korean players. EG dropped Axslav/Strifecro and grabbed JYP, fnatic has dropped the majority of the roster and recently picked up Moon and this trend will definitely continue. It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners. So for a foreign team of course it makes sense to grab a Korean instead; it’s a no-brainer.
So what is the problem? It’s no secret that the best way to succeed with a tournament is to mix the following: top tier well known foreigners (IdrA, Huk, white-ra etc.), a few well known Koreans and a celebrity caster or two (day[9], totalbiscuit, etc.). You mix all of those elements and unless your show is a catastrophe, you will get viewer numbers. Thankfully for us, the celebrity casters aren’t going anywhere. We love day[9] and I like to think he loves us too. So he’s here as long as we are. Koreans obviously aren’t going anywhere. But the last element might.
At some point all progamers retire. Some have extremely long careers (ex. Grubby was a WC3 progamer for almost the entire existence of professional WC3) and others retire quickly (Creolophus was a WC3 progamer that made his mark in a single year and retired, similar to what Stephano intends on doing). At some point all progamers will retire. A sustainable e-sports model requires there be new progamers to replace them. This has always been an issue in e-sports. It is very common for progamers to retire with almost no one to replace them. This is simply because the barrier to entry gets steeper and steeper as a game develops (BW at the start was filled with noobs compared to the level of refinement from a Flash or Jaedong). So you can see why declining player numbers is a huge issue (especially since NA/EU are declining at a much faster rate). This is a large part of the reason why e-sports scene often die.
Of course this applies to both Korean and Foreign progamers but it is more of a concern for foreigners.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/VIkFD.png)
The graph represents player numbers for each region since the games release (taken from sc2ranks). For those really curious, it’s divided by patch. Half a year ago, EU/NA had 3-4x as many players as the Korean server did; now all 3 servers are about equal. That’s astonishing when you think about it. The drop-off for Koreans is minimal compared to Foreigners. And there’s no reason this trend won’t continue.
Let’s try to figure out why. First I’m going to paint you a picture of a Korean that is trying to go pro. He’ll start off a scrub; 4gating his way up the ladder. He’ll land in a lower league and slowly start working his way up. Along the way he has tangible goals; first to get into gold, then platinum, then diamond and finally masters. What happens then? He is ultra-motivated to quality for Code B. Code B represents ~ 1500 of the best Korean players on the ladder (which I believe is mid-high masters on the ladder). Once he finally reaches that plateau he can compete in the Code A qualifiers. He’s going to go to a huge LAN event and have a chance to play against players like Boxer and LosirA. How does that not motivate an individual? I might be playing Boxer next week. I’m going to fucking practice 24 hours a day until then. Once you’re at this level, you have a new goal. Now you want to be noticed by team coaches and players on ladder and maybe get yourself into a B-team house (like ProS). Hell, you might be good enough to skip a step and get straight into a proteam house. There are probably a hundred spots available and considering many players have multiple accounts, I’d venture to guess that anyone that is GM on the Korean ladder is skilled enough to belong in a team house. Now you’re playing in the big leagues. In the team house you’re practicing everyday and will keep going until you can finally beat MMA or DRG or whoever else is in your house.
What’s my point here? There are clear goals along the way. Motivation comes from having a goal. It’s impossible to motivate yourself without a goal. You know who succeeds when they want to lose weight? The guy that says I will lose 5 lbs in a month. Not the guy that says I’m going to lose a ton of weight brah (partially because the second guy sounds like an idiot).
Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum: the life of a foreigner. I work my way up the ladder. I’m masters now fuck yea. I’m going to post this on reddit and be 23rd on the front page of r/Starcraft for about an hour. Sweet. Now what? Might as well keep laddering and get to GM. Awesome I’m GM now. It took forever but I’ve finally done it. You know how much karma this is going to get me on reddit? A ton. I’ll be right at the top for half a day! This seems facetious but it is actual reality. A high masters/low GM player on the NA (and to a lesser extent EU) server have no way of getting noticed. They have no tangible goals. Koreans know exactly what they need to do to get into Code B. They have a very real opportunity to get into a team house once they get there. Foreigners on the other hand have nothing. They have no clear avenue to get into progaming. It’s too much of a crapshoot on the foreigner side. It’s way harder to get noticed and even if you do, it’s so hard to actually get onto a foreign team or into a major tournament.
Let’s put this into perspective. Imagine you’re a GM player on the NA server. You’re not on a pro team but you’re pretty good. How do you get noticed? Streaming doesn’t do anything. No one watches players they don’t know. You’d get 5 viewers. Even players like Vibe have trouble breaking a few hundred viewers despite the fact that his stream is of epic quality (tons of commentary, awesome player). Someone once described streaming as feast or famine (I feel like it was Huk or Tyler on SOTG a long time ago) and that is 100% true.
The other option is to try and qualify for some major events. Let’s look at the leagues. IPL3 held online qualifiers, but they were filled with Koreans. The Koreans won the majority of the spots. The same idea was true for the NASL qualifiers. This pretty much holds true for any major event that holds qualifiers. Here’s an example. Let’s take GoSu.Gatored. He is an outstanding player. At IEM NYC he beat DRG, Top and went pretty damn far. How far can he get in MLG? Nowhere. His highest placing was 33rd and I doubt he’s had many (if any) streamed matches. How’d he do in IPL3? Can’t qualify. He is exactly the type of player that should be getting a ton more recognition than he currently is. Unless a player gets noticed he doesn’t provide any value to a team. But it is nearly impossible, in the game’s current state, to get noticed. See the dilemma?
In my opinion, the state of the foreign scene is pretty bleak. Just take a long hard look at some of the tournament results. If you look at the foreign scene, it is the usual suspects in every event since release. The very first foreign SC2 tournament was IEM Cologne in 2010. Guess who the top 3 were? Morrow, IdrA and Dimaga. The entire player list is represents pretty much the top tier foreigner list to this date. But if you look at the Korean scene there are always new players popping up. There is much more turnover with new players developing, getting noticed and entering competitive. The motivation just isn’t there for foreigners because there is no clear way to get noticed. However there are ways to solve this though.
Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. Of course that doesn’t solve the problem itself. The qualifiers need to be region locked. A NA qualifier should be for NA residents only. The NA qualifiers shouldn’t be won by 4 different Koreans. That defeats the purpose. Organizers need to start doing region-locked qualifiers for all 3 regions. This is part of the reason I love ESL. They get it. They’re doing exactly this. ESL is the reason a guy like Gatored has been noticed. He is a beastly player and got to display that at IEM NYC. Also to their credit, MLG seems to be progressing in this direction for 2012. Yes qualifiers are more work. But to run an open qualifier online, it really doesn’t take that much work. You can set it up on z33k or playhem or binarybeast or whatever and let the system automate it. You only need to invest an afternoon to admin the event (maybe 2-3 people if you have hundreds of signups). Trust me, I’ve personally admined events with hundreds of people and all it takes is an afternoon (+ whatever time you want to spend advertising). Korean qualifiers are a little more difficult (language barrier, advertising in Korea). But hopefully more organizations can adopt the Asus ROG/Korean Weekly model.
Now what can the community do? Let’s stop focusing 100% of our attention on a few select players. There are tons of streamers that are as good as some of the popular guys. Let’s also start branching out and watching some other events. Yes I’m from z33k and playhem is my mortal enemy (sarcasm) but watching their dailies does give some ROI for teams with players competing. It does give you, the viewers, a chance to see some of the lesser known players that are almost, if not, as good as some of the current pros.
Anyways, that’s it for now. It’s 4 am and I’m going to get to bed. I’ll respond to as many people as I can when I wake up.
I wrote this at 4 am and I was dead tired. I'm wide awake now and want to add a few points.
First of HOTS. Yes, this will (hopefully) have a huge impact on the player pool and bring in some new blood. But this is a temporary fix to a systemic problem. For all we know it will have a very minimal impact. For all we know, players will come back, try all the new shiny toys and then say forget it I'm done with this. Basically the point is, the game itself doesn't seem to motivate, so we shouldn't rely on changes in it to fix the issues at hand.
Another thing I didn't mention, the coming of BW A-teamers. This has the potentially to seriously kill the foreigner scene. If the BW pros engrain themselves into SC2 like the current Korean progamers do (actively looking for foreign teams, participating in foreign events, trying to qualify for them) it marginalizes SC2 foreigners even more.
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Nice post. I think it has a lot of weight towards what is happening and what should be happening. 
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On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
The graph represents player numbers for each region since the games release (taken from sc2ranks). For those really curious, it’s divided by patch. Half a year ago, EU/NA had 3-4x as many players as the Korean server did; now all 3 servers are about equal. That’s astonishing when you think about it. The drop-off for Koreans is minimal compared to Foreigners. And there’s no reason this trend won’t continue.
http://xkcd.com/605/
That's a GIGANTIC fucking assumption you just made. Here's an alternative theory: Each region has around 100k really hardcore people. Casual fans are dropping off (which is why the leagues are getting more exclusive), and Korea just never really had a large casual SC2 scene.
Is that the correct theory? Dunno. It is equally as plausible as extrapolating? More so, since there's at least anecdotal evidence, which is slightly better than no evidence.
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Really nice post. It worries me that the scene is shrinking so fast. I felt it too that the activity is dropping at a very fast rate.
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Isn't that a known fact that Foreigners are called to be lazy? (no motivation, no goals, etc).
I guess we need something we can play for, something as prestige as GSL ...
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Good post, I agree that it is very difficult for foreign players to make a name for themselves. I'd also like to note that IPL4 seems to only offer 4 invited spots (through qualifiers) while the rest of the tournament comes from an open bracket. There'll probably be a nice chunk of koreans coming through there but it should also give a lot of foreign players a shot at recognition.
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I for one stop playing because TvP is so fucking retarded, Collosus-Chargelots-Storm-FF made me rage quit the game, I was high diamond.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Read the whole thing. I agree with everything you've lined out, but honestly, it feels like one of the better ways to fix it would be to have a standardized league for every region divided into classes (like GSL - the whole reason why, as you said, koreans know to get into Code B is because every high-tier player is up in Code A or Code S, so there's no chance IdrA or HuK will drop by and eliminate you for sport).
Other than that... Yeah. The reason GSL Code S has top level play is because they go on almost 100% qualification (sadly they've gone in the other direction with MLG seeds and foreign invites now). Invitationals turn into a popularity contest where you're competing with world stars in fan following to get in. I get that ESPORTS is a risky venture right now, and that sponsors want sure fire viewer attractions, but there need to be a mindset ready to take risks to grow this thing.
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It started off well but your conclusion is about as wrong as it can get. If you want to get noticed in the foreign community, play in the online tournaments that are held DAILY where you're more than likely to face off against players who already have a team. If you beat them, you get attention. If you don't, you get more motivation to get better.
I think the high drop in EU/NA server players is interesting, but I'd say it's mostly low league players and it doesn't really affect anyone with ambitions to go pro/get into GM.
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On January 25 2012 19:00 FeelTHeBluEZ wrote:
Isn't that a known fact that Foreigners are called to be lazy? (no motivation, no goals, etc).
I guess we need something we can play for, something as prestige as GSL ...
I feel like this is slightly besides the point that Foreigners are "known to be lazy". I believe Catz talks about this a lot, especially when the Koreans were considered to be given seeds from MLG at the beginning of the previous season. Korea has a system that is much better for a player to practice on. The advantage of a team house isn't just that one can live with other professionals and talk StarCraft all day, but rather they are given an artificial environment where everything else is taken care of for them. Many prohouses back in BW had a maid that would come in to clean the place up and also prepare a lunch/dinner for the team. Having a team house means one doesn't have to worry about anything besides improving at the game.
However, here outside of Korea, very few people are given the chance to have such a lifestyle. Take Spanishwa for example, an prominent American zerg. He isn't given the chance to practice 24 hours of day, there are large portions of his day that are dedicated to college and all the work that entails. In other words, it isn't that he is being lazy, its that he has other commitments that he has to also consider while being a progamer.
Having prestigious tournaments isn't going to fix the problem, what needs to change is that the foreigner professionals need to be given an opportunity to have the same environment as many of the Koreans.
On January 25 2012 19:07 Andreas wrote:
It started off well but your conclusion is about as wrong as it can get. If you want to get noticed in the foreign community, play in the online tournaments that are held DAILY where you're more than likely to face off against players who already have a team. If you beat them, you get attention. If you don't, you get more motivation to get better.
I think the high drop in EU/NA server players is interesting, but I'd say it's mostly low league players and it doesn't really affect anyone with ambitions to go pro/get into GM.
I question this slightly that by participating in the daily playhems you can get noticed. Whenver the playhems are going on, I take a look at the viewers on all the streams, and very few people are actually watching the players that are not already known. For example, Floorboard/Ruxin is top 50 American GM who streams with commentary and such, yet he only get around 50 viewers at most. He has taken out people and placing respectably in multiple runs playhems, and yet that isn't enough for people to "notice" him.
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am i doing something wrong or is the graph in the first post wrong?
according to these numbers
http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all
theres still many many more players in america and europe compared to korea
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There's also another big difference between pro in Korea and NA.
Teams in NA pick up players only if they can get the viewers (stated by incontrol).
Teams in Korea pick up players if they are good or have potential
Its sad
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The player base is decreasing, but the two new expansions in the future could provide player base bumps. We could be looking at a situation where we have a lot of players who previously tried WoL or BW are willing to give another try to the new shiny game HoS, Furthermore the foreign scene is just starting to really pick up momentum. Domestic team houses have been formed in the United States, Poland, and France among other nations. I feel with the new expansions bumping up numbers, and the hard working and passionate indivudals in the community the foreign scene hopefully wont have a very stark future.
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On January 25 2012 19:06 Omar91 wrote:
I for one stop playing because TvP is so fucking retarded, Collosus-Chargelots-Storm-FF made me rage quit the game, I was high diamond.
Watch out, we got a badass over here
User was temp banned for this post.
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The goal for foreigners is the daily cups.
If I was 15 years younger (at least), my goal would be:
- Bronze -> Masters.
- Low masters to high masters (say top 500 in masters league in my region according to SC2Ranks).
- High masters -> Daily cups tournaments etc while ...
- Getting into GM
- Participate in MLG if you are american, qualifiers for dreamhack, assembly, whatever, if you are not (I am not 100% sure).
- Get into a team that promise you a chance to train in Korea if that is your goal.
You can make a fair amount of money participating in daily cups I think. And if you make enough, and get known, you will get invited to local (relatively) tournaments.
An example: Nerchio.
Is it better to be Korean? Absolutely! But there's a clear and easy way to progress for foreigners too.
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On January 25 2012 19:09 Soma.bokforlag wrote:am i doing something wrong or is the graph in the first post wrong? according to these numbers http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/alltheres still many many more players in america and europe compared to korea
can someone help me with this? everywhere i look at sc2ranks america and europe has vastly higher numbers than korea..
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Your nick fits really well
IEM does what you say to certain extent and there are 1-2 players that get noticed at every event. You also disregard the effect expansions will have on the game. It's not as bad as you make it out to be.
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Sc2 is just too hard. Why play SC2 when there is a myriad of easy games. New players play for a little and are put off. There's really no reason to play a game with such a steep learning curve and most players in the foreign scene probably don't know that pro SC players exist.
I see the trend continuing. Even myself, a master's player, have found myself thinking, "eh fuck it. I'll just play MW3 or Skyrim isntead-- SC is too stressful." Video games are for entertainment, not stress.
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Wow I didn't know the foreign player base was shrinking so fast.Hopefully HoTS brings most of these people back. Honestly though I don't think the casual player base has much of an effect on the proscene. Even back when SC2 was more popular, almost all of our top pros came from Brood War or WC3. If you compare the Korean under-18 team vs the foreigner under-18 team, both of which consist mainly of players new to progaming, the gap looks as big as it was in Brood War.
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It will swing up after the expansion.
Also, I dont play myself anymore but I still watch some tournaments, lurk tl/reddit. I dont think that the community shrinks just cos the playerbase does.
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On January 25 2012 19:16 xrapture wrote:
Sc2 is just too hard. Why play SC2 when there is a myriad of easy games. New players play for a little and are put off. There's really no reason to play a game with such a steep learning curve and most players in the foreign scene probably don't know that pro SC players exist.
I see the trend continuing. Even myself, a master's player, have found myself thinking, "eh fuck it. I'll just play MW3 or Skyrim isntead-- SC is too stressful." Video games are for entertainment, not stress.
I haven't read the main point, but are we talking about pro-gaming numbers or casual numbers? :p
You have a point that SC2 is harder than other games and isn't just played for fun. (I get that feeling a lot)
Owning up people requires work, which isn't always fun. (That's why I play teamgames to relax.)
But the reward is that you know you are really better than someone else, which can't always be seen in easier games such as MW3.
If we're talking about pro-gamers, then some/most people say the game isn't hard enough. So the 2 kinda contradict themselves :<
As for casual player numbers. I think they'll rise again with the release of HotS. I'm not sure how it'll affect pro-gamer numbers, though.
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On January 25 2012 19:16 xrapture wrote:
Sc2 is just too hard. Why play SC2 when there is a myriad of easy games. New players play for a little and are put off. There's really no reason to play a game with such a steep learning curve and most players in the foreign scene probably don't know that pro SC players exist.
I see the trend continuing. Even myself, a master's player, have found myself thinking, "eh fuck it. I'll just play MW3 or Skyrim isntead-- SC is too stressful." Video games are for entertainment, not stress.
There's nothing wrong with that train of thought, but if we were to apply the same logic, we could say something like
"There is no point in playing Football (America), I get injured too much. I should just go for a run or something. Sports aren't meant to be so intense."
Personally for me finding a game with such a steep learning curve is what motivates me to play even more. Games such as Skyrim get tiring after a time because all I can feel is a system that tells me to repeat some overarching action that doesn't require too much input to get the same output as the guy next to me. StarCraft on the other hand is this game that I have practiced for a little over two years, and yet I'm still terrible in the grand scheme of things.
On January 25 2012 19:20 johlar wrote:
It will swing up after the expansion.
Also, I dont play myself anymore but I still watch some tournaments, lurk tl/reddit. I dont think that the community shrinks just cos the playerbase does.
I completely agree with this line of though. There are so many people that go to events such as MLG or watch GSL streams or even just enjoy the players that are always showcasing their skills. StarCraft is a unique thing where although there aren't as many people who play it at any given time, there are still a large number of people who watch it rigorously. Back in 2008, I never really played that much BW (getting killed on ICCUP was too depressing), but I would stay up constantly to watch games streamed live.
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On January 25 2012 19:13 aebriol wrote:The goal for foreigners is the daily cups. If I was 15 years younger (at least), my goal would be: - Bronze -> Masters. - Low masters to high masters (say top 500 in masters league in my region according to SC2Ranks). - High masters -> Daily cups tournaments etc while ... - Getting into GM - Participate in MLG if you are american, qualifiers for dreamhack, assembly, whatever, if you are not (I am not 100% sure). - Get into a team that promise you a chance to train in Korea if that is your goal. You can make a fair amount of money participating in daily cups I think. And if you make enough, and get known, you will get invited to local (relatively) tournaments. An example: Nerchio. Is it better to be Korean? Absolutely! But there's a clear and easy way to progress for foreigners too.
The only way to be recognized is to make a big splash in your national scene first by qualifying for some sort of national event and getting far in it. And then do the same as a big tourney, and even with that it's not garanteed (Gatored) Daily cup are fun but means nothing, if you're consistent enough to do semi-finals you're already GM. And quite good because the bo1 is unforgiving and in Europe you'll have half empire roster at each one :D
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It's very worrying that so little new talent has been emerging from the foreigner scene. Almost all the best players now have always been the best players, with just a few exceptions. Especially in NA, there are much fewer tournaments for a good player to be recognized. The best that people can hope for seems to be entering MLG open bracket and somehow knocking out a big name Korean like Gatored and Goswer did.
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This is why TSL is so awesome. It actually fixes many of the problems you mentioned here. In TSL I pretty much learned about all the players.
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On January 25 2012 19:26 ReketSomething wrote:
This is why TSL is so awesome. It actually fixes many of the problems you mentioned here. In TSL I pretty much learned about all the players.
So true. TSL 2 was the first time that I started to get introduced to the Foreigner community and all its players. If it had been an open qualification system where anyone could sign up, I'm sure that there would have been many Koreans who would have won out and I would have been unable to appreciate the Foreigner scene.
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I realize most of this argument is targeting the pro-level scene but I have to agree with the small section you posted about the foreign scene for the average gamer.
I pretty much stopped laddering (like less than 50 games a season right now, probably even less than that actually) shortly after I hit mid-masters on NA. There was just no motivation to practice or get better, the only reason I would play is with a couple of friends occasionally or to try out new builds/strategies/maps. I find it hard to even keep up with the metagame anymore. You have to be constantly looking for new strategies employed in the latest tournament, finding good replays to analyze and see how much you can take away from it, reading that occasional stellar guide that gets posted on TL, then executing said builds/strategies on every map you care to play on. Not doing these things can make the game completely unplayable past a certain level, and I find this especially true for mirrors, as those match-ups tend to thread on very thin lines. Not to mention if you don't play on a regular basis your mechanics slip pretty hardcore (but thankfully it doesn't take too long to get it back).
Unlike the pro-scene, we can't commit our lives to this game. We have school, work, and a separate life to tend to. Unless there is a lot of generated motivation to keep playing, I doubt I would play another ladder game ever again.
Ofc everything above is my 2-cents, don't read it the wrong way.
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Love this thread. You captured the mainpoints and have a call to action. This is a good mindset for our community to have, and I agree with what you've said.
On January 25 2012 19:20 johlar wrote:
It will swing up after the expansion.
Also, I dont play myself anymore but I still watch some tournaments, lurk tl/reddit. I dont think that the community shrinks just cos the playerbase does.
Hypothetically speaking, yes sc2 will spike up once again when the expansions come out, so does that mean a similar trend will occur when the game has a been out for a while. A steady decline until it gets back to the 100,000 player mark.
What do we do once the final expansion has already past it's peak point of existence. What can Blizzard do to make the game more entertaining for the other 500,000+ people. Make the game easier? Gear it towards the average joe. These are very tough decisions.
Johlar, you've mentioned that you don't play any more. What would bring you back to this game, and what made you stop playing in the first place?
Youtube and live streams help out alot, but definitly having more tourneys that are region locked is probably the best bet.
Doomsey, you've definitly hit the nail on the head when it comes to the foriener scene dilema.
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I think alot of player have turned to only watching tournaments/stream. I barely play anymore, (Friends stopped, so did I) but I keep up with the scene by visiting reddit/TL daylie.
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I feel like you had a real point to be made, but approached it wrong or poorly. There was so much more you could have said and better. You could have talked about how it was more difficult for up and coming foreigners to get a spot on professional big-named teams (due to Koreans now being affordable and an easy choice now) while this also creates a pool of big-name players who have little to their name (but because they have so much recognition, they still hold spots on teams).
and then from there talk about motivation, how it is hard to maintain a full schedule of practice and earnest to achieve when not only are all the tournament won by Koreans or qualified only by Koreans, but that without a team to financially support you, it's very hard to get to any of these tournaments (unlike in South Korea, where everything is, in comparison, a lot closer).
I feel your approach to the whole thing is a lot less concrete and with validity as it just gives two anecdotal circumstances (though, set goals is a good point made).
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The problem is that SC2 is boring and not half as exciting as SC/BW or WC3 where even when "fresh".
No wonder people stop playing.
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Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest.
I disagree, when you are going to invite 2 out of 32 players and the rest has to qualifiy, guess who's participating in the qualifiers.
This leads to an even harder qualification for the less known ones. And only if the lesser known beat some of the big names they are going to get recognized.
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I dont see a problem. well for Germany at least. We have a big National league (with more leagues below) - we have a lot of cups, IEMs etc. If you want to hit the scene you have to go for it 100%. The only difference is that in Korea there are more ppl trying to become a pro.
We also have a lot of teams that recruit newer players like mouz does.
I think its more a NA problem since you guys dont have a lot of cups and even then the skilllevel is lower than EU or Korea. (dont argue on this. its the opinion of me and like 99% of all sc2 fans/players).
IF you want to compete with koreans you HAVE to do it early and with full heart. Go train 12 hours a day 7 days a week and you will see that you get results. But I dont see alot of pros in the foreign scence doing this compared to the korean scene
Though a lot of ppl want a better sc2game and wait for HOTS. It will hit big if Blizzard does good - and the mostly do good.
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On January 25 2012 19:32 Defilez wrote:
I think alot of player have turned to only watching tournaments/stream. I barely play anymore, (Friends stopped, so did I) but I keep up with the scene by visiting reddit/TL daylie.
I didn't even think about that, but it definitly helps to have a core group of friends that continue to play the game.
From my personal experience, I played sc since I was young, and its always been my go to game. It doesn't matter how many other games or sports or activities i've done, i've always gone back to sc. I think the main reason I come back is because the game is so hard that you can always get better, where as with most other games you can easily peak to a certain skill level, and then be done with it. But at the same time I also think that the skillcap is so high it scares people away from playing...
Hm, just me rambling on I guess.
On January 25 2012 19:39 Tppz! wrote:
IF you want to compete with koreans you HAVE to do it early and with full heart. Go train 12 hours a day 7 days a week and you will see that you get results. But I dont see alot of pros in the foreign scence doing this compared to the korean scene
Yeah basically, you can't argue with good old fashioned hard work and countless hours.
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Tournaments are almost all about viewership.
Do fans want best of the best players competing?
Do tournament organizers want such players to compete in their tournaments?
Which tournament will have more viewers MMA vs Nestea or Vibe vs Gosu.Gatored? (no offense intended)
Which players get sponsored the best or anyone below the best?
Best way is to mixup things like it has been now. However, if foreigners cant beat Koreans, it is not the problem of Koreans. And artificial making tournament/entry barriers will certainly not increase the viewership, but most likely decrease it.
I can see (and feel) foreigners being left behind. But what is Sports in general? Identifying best athletes. Self-defeating (artifical competetition) esports have no big future. Esports is a quite sensitive and fragile thing.
Question: Is sc2 too hard for foreigners?
When Warcraft 3 came out, and till the end of scene, there were Korean, Chinese, Europe, US stars. And nobody said Koreans dominate it. Is it because game was a less bit complex?
At the begining of SC2 everyone was SURE, having all those MBS and other modern mechanics, foreigners will be on par with everyone else, and pointed out WC3 as an example. But also there is this mentality, practice thing, sacrificing a lot to be the best
Is it early to tell?
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I feel that the European scene still feels vibrant; there always seem to be some new player that turns head a little with solid play, though obviously, they still get crushed once they play the Koreans.
The NA scene however, does seem to lack any notable up-and-coming players.
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On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Let’s take GoSu.Gatored. He is an outstanding player. At IEM NYC he beat DRG, Top and went pretty damn far. How far can he get in MLG? Nowhere. His highest placing was 33rd and I doubt he’s had many (if any) streamed matches. How’d he do in IPL3? Can’t qualify. He is exactly the type of player that should be getting a ton more recognition than he currently is. Unless a player gets noticed he doesn’t provide any value to a team. But it is nearly impossible, in the game’s current state, to get noticed. See the dilemma?
if you look at the Korean scene there are always new players popping up. There is much more turnover with new players developing, getting noticed and entering competitive. The motivation just isn’t there for foreigners because there is no clear way to get noticed. However there are ways to solve this though.
Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. Of course that doesn’t solve the problem itself.
Now what can the community do? Let’s stop focusing 100% of our attention on a few select players. There are tons of streamers that are as good as some of the popular guys. It does give you, the viewers, a chance to see some of the lesser known players that are almost, if not, as good as some of the current pros.
Thanks, DoomsVille.
I took some extracts from the OP because if you care I wrote something very similar about this issue two months ago.
You can find it here if you are interested:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=288681
Nice to see that more people are realising this issue, if we want to have players that can compete with koreans we can't keep feeding some usual suspects unless they deserve it.
Nothing makes me rage more than seeing 'pro'players that are training SINCE THE FUCKING BETA without producing any result being privileged instead of new guys who achieved more in the few months they started playing.
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I have always disliked the invitations that events have, always. I don't care if they are inviting my favourite player or not. It has always been ridiculous to have 30 invite spots and 2 qualifiers. Soooooooooo stupid. The SC2 'foreigner' scene (AKA NA and EU) is a pathetic fanboys club.
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On January 25 2012 19:36 Velr wrote:
The problem is that SC2 is boring and not half as exciting as SC/BW or WC3 where even when "fresh".
No wonder people stop playing.
Yeah, coz SC:BW and WC3 had WAY bigger player bases than SC2 does.
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To be honest, if we really want to have a foreign scene, we have to do 1 of 2 things.
1. change our infrastructure and work ethics to mimic those of koreans. monkey see monkey do style
or
2. label koreans as pros, and foreigners and amateur and bar koreans from entering our tournaments like TSL
I understand most of us probably want 1. but lets be honest... it's pretty damn hard to achieve.. there's a reason why US still use the empirical system. Change isn't easy.
I also can see some people outrageously disapprove method 2 but in reality method 2 is the most realistic. Nobody expect americans (US and Canada in this case) to play football (soccer) the same level as the rest of the world. However, we still have our own leagues and participate in world cup and nobody expects us to win it.
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On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. Of course that doesn’t solve the problem itself. The qualifiers need to be region locked. A NA qualifier should be for NA residents only. The NA qualifiers shouldn’t be won by 4 different Koreans. That defeats the purpose. Organizers need to start doing region-locked qualifiers for all 3 regions.
So tournaments should have brackets that end up with a couple of Koreans smashing everyone else a la BW WCG? They're obviously better than everyone else who would make it through said qualifiers, or else why would they win all of the qualifier slots in the first place?
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On January 25 2012 19:49 b0lt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. Of course that doesn’t solve the problem itself. The qualifiers need to be region locked. A NA qualifier should be for NA residents only. The NA qualifiers shouldn’t be won by 4 different Koreans. That defeats the purpose. Organizers need to start doing region-locked qualifiers for all 3 regions. So tournaments should have brackets that end up with a couple of Koreans smashing everyone else a la BW WCG? They're obviously better than everyone else who would make it through said qualifiers, or else why would they win all of the qualifier slots in the first place?
You're focusing on the wrong parts of this post. You're right that right now, if we were to put ever progamer into a tournament, it would be quick likely that all the Koreans would dominate the top of the results. However, its because of this that for many foreigners, its difficult to find a reason to continue practicing when you know that the Koreans will always just be better than you. As that continues, there will be even less people at the next major tournament that will have the preparation to defeat a Korean, and that would further decrease the number of foreigners that can compete against the Koreans.
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On January 25 2012 19:49 b0lt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. Of course that doesn’t solve the problem itself. The qualifiers need to be region locked. A NA qualifier should be for NA residents only. The NA qualifiers shouldn’t be won by 4 different Koreans. That defeats the purpose. Organizers need to start doing region-locked qualifiers for all 3 regions. So tournaments should have brackets that end up with a couple of Koreans smashing everyone else a la BW WCG? They're obviously better than everyone else who would make it through said qualifiers, or else why would they win all of the qualifier slots in the first place?
Well, right now, koreans compete in - and win - every "local" qualifier. Is that better for the foreign scene?
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Anyone remember TSL3? It had one of the most rigorous qualifications of any tournament. No mistake that the top 4 finishers all had to qualify for the event. Qualification-based tournaments like TSL3 are what make top-tier foreigners' names (Thorzain, Naniwa).
Believe it or not, we're going to get bored of Idra/Huk after awhile.
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On January 25 2012 19:56 zarepath wrote:
Anyone remember TSL3? It had one of the most rigorous qualifications of any tournament. No mistake that the top 4 finishers all had to qualify for the event. Qualification-based tournaments like TSL3 are what make top-tier foreigners' names (Thorzain, Naniwa).
Believe it or not, we're going to get bored of Idra/Huk after awhile.
But the question is if we had allowed Korean pros to compete in the same qualification tournaments, would a player like Thorzain or Naniwa ever be given the chance to become so well known? Hence, the importance of region locking qualification brackets.
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I think the op is forgetting one important things when he does his long term predictions: HoTS (and the next expansion pack). I can bet you that when these come the foreign player pool will once again be substantial larger than the korean. Maybe if you are talking lik 10 years into the future or something he might have a point.
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Winning > not winning.
Sorry but for me it's an international thing and I want to see the best (qualifiers) compete, if the best are Korean, then I am fine with that.
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On January 25 2012 19:56 zarepath wrote:
Anyone remember TSL3? It had one of the most rigorous qualifications of any tournament. No mistake that the top 4 finishers all had to qualify for the event. Qualification-based tournaments like TSL3 are what make top-tier foreigners' names (Thorzain, Naniwa).
Believe it or not, we're going to get bored of Idra/Huk after awhile.
You are getting bored of them but I think every other isnt. If others are the skilllevel and consistent to beat them Im open to watch them and become a fan. But I dont see me watching and being a fan of low-midtier standardplayer who are inconsistant in their results. There is a way to get where the top is and Stephano, Huk, Naniwa etc showed it to the world. But if noone will take the risk then we will get swarmed by koreans in a year or more. They grow up with SC and fall in love with it and wanna make a dram come true. Many fail (look at Code A, B etc) and only a few succeed. But they do put in 100% of their work to get there.
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The problem is live tournaments. Take a look at Korea, someone who lives in Seoul or surrounding areas can go to any code a qualifier and probably be home by nightfall. Koreans can take a short trip and make a lot out of it. There were what about 120 players at the Code A qualifiers this season? and they can make that trip every month if they please to break into the scene.
In North America, whats the big open bracket where everyone is welcome tournament where you can get huge amounts of fame? yeah thats MLG. hosted what 4-5 times a year all in different places of USA. You need to take 3 days of your time to go, pay for a hotel and probably a plane ticket. Either way its gonna be a hell of a lot more expensive unless your sponsored by a team. Chances are, you will only attend one of these if you're just trying to break into the scene.
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I think the main problems lies not in the invite or qualifier tournaments, but more on the lack of small, local LANs. Right now to make it big, you have to travel a fucking lot and spend a shitton of money, since competitions are all over the world. I feel we're missing the large amount of LANs we had in the 2000, where teams and players (CS mostly) would work up the ranks slowly, and most of all, CLOSE TO THEIR HOME. (a few hundreds, not several thousands kilometers away)
Code A qualifiers cost koreans only a train ticket I believe, and happens quite often. It's an attainable objective.
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Code A qualifiers are every 3 month and you dont get through if you arent already better than most players in the world. NO Foreigner ever qualified by Code A qualifiers after the open seasons. There is a reason because of this.
You can qualify for IPL, IEM, HSC etc. Its online. You cant compare MLG with GSL. Southkorea is little country and USA is big. Its like living in Germany. Dreamhack etc isnt in Germany but still ppl go for it.
GSL is the only thing in whole asia. If you are chinese you alos have tofly to seoul for competing
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The different number of players in different countries is not surprising. There are more people in NA/EU than in Korea 
Also the decline is "normal". You will be surprised, but since SC2 hit the shelves, many more games were released!
SC2 got released, many people play. Then - halve a year later - a new, cool game enters the market. (Skyrim anyone?) and you "switch" from SC2 to the new game. Only the "hardcore" gamer remain. I haven't played for ages (no time...  )
Because of Korea's background, I'm not surprised, that the numbers are not varying that much.
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seriously, can someone help me find the numbers the entire thread is based upon!?! nowhere can i find that the european and american servers has as few players as the korean!!
HELP!!
im starting to think that this entire thread is based on a LIE
User was warned for this post
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On January 25 2012 20:19 Soma.bokforlag wrote:
seriously, can someone help me find the numbers the entire thread is based upon!?! nowhere can i find that the european and american servers has as few players as the korean!!
HELP!!
im starting to think that this entire thread is based on a LIE
Is bold the new CAPSLOCK???
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On January 25 2012 20:12 Nouar wrote:
I think the main problems lies not in the invite or qualifier tournaments, but more on the lack of small, local LANs. Right now to make it big, you have to travel a fucking lot and spend a shitton of money, since competitions are all over the world. I feel we're missing the large amount of LANs we had in the 2000, where teams and players (CS mostly) would work up the ranks slowly, and most of all, CLOSE TO THEIR HOME. (a few hundreds, not several thousands kilometers away)
Code A qualifiers cost koreans only a train ticket I believe, and happens quite often. It's an attainable objective.
There aer still "local" Lans? WTF are you talking about?
They just don't broadcast their tournaments because.. well.. theire "smallish" lans...
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I really don't think the shrinking player count has anything to do with the lack of goals for foreigner pros. It's the casual players who drop the game.
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On January 25 2012 20:19 Soma.bokforlag wrote:
seriously, can someone help me find the numbers the entire thread is based upon!?! nowhere can i find that the european and american servers has as few players as the korean!!
HELP!!
im starting to think that this entire thread is based on a LIE
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=298240
OP's numbers might still be correct since there is no Season 5 data aside from sc2ranks.
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wat.
no u see peopel can still break into the scene, its just easier than like a year ago.
you wont get like, a massive burst of popularity, but say im like good n shit, playing on US server, i see say, destiny on ladder.
we have a good game, im like yo, lets play 2v2's.
then we play 2v2's im on his skype talking n shit. if im intresting enough then some of the people on his stream will come and watch mine or something, idk.
(not that that's gunna happen, im a diamond lvl sea player lol)
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Good article, one of the reason I'm in Korea and plan to stay here until I stop playing. And it will become a lot worse once BW teams switch.
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On January 25 2012 20:29 LaLuSh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 20:19 Soma.bokforlag wrote:
seriously, can someone help me find the numbers the entire thread is based upon!?! nowhere can i find that the european and american servers has as few players as the korean!!
HELP!!
im starting to think that this entire thread is based on a LIE http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=298240OP's numbers might still be correct since there is no Season 5 data aside from sc2ranks.
yes, but all the numbers i can find on sc2ranks indicate that the difference is pretty much as big now as it was during s4
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I agree with this but i think that there is also quite a large difrence between european tournaments and american tournaments because there are far more open tournaments in europe with alot of really good players that sign up for them.
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On January 25 2012 19:06 Omar91 wrote:
I for one stop playing because TvP is so fucking retarded, Collosus-Chargelots-Storm-FF made me rage quit the game, I was high diamond.
micro?
Yeah I kinda get annoyed that non-korean teams are picking up koreans coz I'd love to see truly great non-korean teams start to form by taking in and training up promising talent, and keeping those who are alrealy great and trying to propel them higher.
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I really take what you said to heart because the situation you described is exactly where I'm at.
I've finally hit GM, I've taken games off notable names on ladder... But who's going to watch my stream? What team would want me (and pay)? Nobody.
One thing that REALLY upsets me is one of the few ways I could be making money playing this game is through something like Playhem... I have been to the semi's before, and quarters many times... But who takes the crown away? The same Koreans (Revival, Golden, Rainbow, Illusion) etc... Like seriously... I would be a lot more motivated to play if the chances of me actually winning anything were improved by removing said players.
/rant...
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On January 25 2012 19:10 iky43210 wrote:
There's also another big difference between pro in Korea and NA.
Teams in NA pick up players only if they can get the viewers (stated by incontrol).
Teams in Korea pick up players if they are good or have potential
Its sad
Players like ailuJ are perfect examples of this.
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Great post, I agree with most of it
This should definitely be taken into consideration for tournament organizers
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On January 25 2012 20:31 desRow wrote:
Good article, one of the reason I'm in Korea and plan to stay here until I stop playing. And it will become a lot worse once BW teams switch.
I didn't know you were in korea :D
But yeah i guess my comment would be if i were trying to go pro id take the violet route and plan to play everyday and compete in tournies everyday, with the goal being to improve to win tournies....making a name for myself hopefully? Idk
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I took the same data from each three servers, added dates from patches and this is what i got:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tvXq4.png)
What did we do differently?
Here's the data:
+ Show Spoiler +
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As esports gets more popular in the west and becomes more accepted, foreigners will eventually catch up to the Koreans. It might take a while, but remember that Korea has a 10 year head start when it comes to accepting Starcraft and playing it for a living.
So yeah there might be a period where foreigners are sparse, but new talents are going to come up as SC2 becomes more popular and accepted.
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On January 25 2012 20:44 Ewic wrote:
I really take what you said to heart because the situation you described is exactly where I'm at.
I've finally hit GM, I've taken games off notable names on ladder... But who's going to watch my stream? What team would want me (and pay)? Nobody.
One thing that REALLY upsets me is one of the few ways I could be making money playing this game is through something like Playhem... I have been to the semi's before, and quarters many times... But who takes the crown away? The same Koreans (Revival, Golden, Rainbow, Illusion) etc... Like seriously... I would be a lot more motivated to play if the chances of me actually winning anything were improved by removing said players.
/rant...
You find it upsetting that players who are better than you are winning the tournaments you do play in? If you went to Mlg and lost would you find it upsetting that the same people are always reaching the top 4, top 8, top 16, top 32? would you be more motivated to play if your chances of winning were improved by removing said players?
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There are many wrong assumptions in the OP, but also some good points.
Too many people bash on events that don't have highest level Koreans in them. The events that help foreign players to get noticed are very important, but many forum/reddit posters are obnoxiosly vocal about how they don't care about "lesser" players. Shut the fuck up already.
By the way, in Russia/CIS soon there will be a big online league for all skill levels (Sc2tv.ru Non-stop Games league), they have a structure similar to GSL, except they have more tiers -- from Code S, Code A, Code B all the way to Code F. I think this is exactly what OP asks for.
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On January 25 2012 20:44 Ewic wrote:
But who takes the crown away? The same Koreans (Revival, Golden, Rainbow, Illusion) etc... Like seriously... I would be a lot more motivated to play if the chances of me actually winning anything were improved by removing said players.
They should be removed because they play better? Isnt that the way the competition should work?
Remove all South America and Europe players from football World cup, so that African or any other national team could win it.
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@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it.
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For me personally, I'm just tired of doing the same thing over and over I guess, there is little to no variety in a SC2 game at high masters in EU, everyone does the same ~5 builds because, well, there are no other viable builds. I went from playing hundreds of games season 1 to just a few last season and none this so far, and It's piss easy to stay in masters for me even though I don't play at all, that tells me that the foreign scene is really really really bad and empty compared to the korean.
On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it.
In response to this, I think it's a matter of that there are no new players. SC2 has a very small player base and for 2012 it's all set in terms of e-sports viewership but I really do wonder if it will be around for 2013 unless HotS turns out to be amazing
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Would this explain why Masters is harder this season.
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On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it.
I'm sorry but that is an absurd statement... imagine your a pretty good basketball or football player and you tell someone Ive devoted so much time into this game and I haven't received $1 for it.
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All people I know stopped playing. There is just no reason to ladder if you know you will never make money with it.
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On January 25 2012 21:09 Aela wrote:
All people I know stopped playing. There is just no reason to ladder if you know you will never make money with it.
Whenever someone posts something like this it just makes me sad. The reason people play is to have fun, goddamn.
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On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it.
if that's how you feel, then maybe SC2 isn't for you.
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On January 25 2012 21:12 Gheed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:09 Aela wrote:
All people I know stopped playing. There is just no reason to ladder if you know you will never make money with it. Whenever someone posts something like this it just makes me sad. The reason people play is to have fun, goddamn.
Quite Fucking True.
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On January 25 2012 19:36 Velr wrote:
The problem is that SC2 is boring and not half as exciting as SC/BW or WC3 where even when "fresh".
No wonder people stop playing.
You would be banned in 3 seconds if you say something like BW is not half as exciting as SC2 on a BW forum. I am fucking tired of people like you.
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On January 25 2012 21:08 dapierow wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it. I'm sorry but that is an absurd statement... imagine your a pretty good basketball or football player and you tell someone Ive devoted so much time into this game and I haven't received $1 for it.
I would not say your analogy is accurate to the situation I'm in. You can't really compare e-sports to other industries like that. I am not looking to argue with anyone on this... I just wanted to share my views on the matter of the foreigner dilemma, have a nice day.
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On January 25 2012 21:15 Ewic wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:08 dapierow wrote:On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it. I'm sorry but that is an absurd statement... imagine your a pretty good basketball or football player and you tell someone Ive devoted so much time into this game and I haven't received $1 for it. I would not say your analogy is accurate to the situation I'm in. You can't really compare e-sports to other industries like that. I am not looking to argue with anyone on this... I just wanted to share my views on the matter of the foreigner dilemma, have a nice day.
Well i can understand perfectly what u meant. Just in sense of "sports", artificial barriers are kinda not the way to go, even if that make foreigner scene decline. The fact that most foreigners need to make money to play the game, is the fact that eSports won't be as big in western world as in Korea, in terms of competition.
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On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it.
You will get noticed if you hit the skilllevel to beat those koreans. I think this is very important. If someone puts the effort in this like you do (as you say) you will get acknowleged when you beat those koreans. What I understand what you wanna say:
"I put so much time in this game to improve - now give me my money". Im sorry but this isnt how it works. You hit GM and you get deep in tournaments. If you keep working you will get your wins in tournaments. You will win some cups and get acknowleged by a low-mid tier team. They will pick you up and you keep training. Then you will win a qualifier for a big tournament and you ppl will take note of you.
Only because you are GM and you put a lot of work in SC2 it doesnt gurantee you money. Just think about it: there is a GM in Korea, EU, NA, China and most of them are your skilllevel of above yours. Thats 800 ppl. If you consider that GM is packed and a lot of ppl dont get even when they are skilled enough +korea you will have like 1000+ players. You cant support all these ppl by SC2 because it aint big enough. and of those 1k ppl only 1 guy will win the tournament after all. What I want to say: keep improving and dedicate all your time and you can become a progamer. I dont find the quote of the korean BW pro who said that he doesnt want ppl to think that becoming a progamer is easy and fulfilling. its hardwork and more. You have to be really lucky and dedicate every time you have. Im sorry
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On January 25 2012 21:15 Ewic wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:08 dapierow wrote:On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it. I'm sorry but that is an absurd statement... imagine your a pretty good basketball or football player and you tell someone Ive devoted so much time into this game and I haven't received $1 for it. I would not say your analogy is accurate to the situation I'm in. You can't really compare e-sports to other industries like that. I am not looking to argue with anyone on this... I just wanted to share my views on the matter of the foreigner dilemma, have a nice day.
Ok, I hope you get that 3rd place in a daily one day and change your statement to received 10$(14$ if weekend) for all the time you devoted into the game.
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this article is pretty stupid
its actually the other way around.
koreans have a really hard time getting noticed even when they become gosu. there are hundreds of korean gosus but we really just notice and keep an eye on about 10% of them.
how many foreigner gosus are there? doesnt matter we keep an eye on 100% of them, we even follow players that arent gosus but are "pretty good for foreigner".
they have to practice like crazy, to one day qualify for code a (takes from 1 month to 1 year lol) and then hopefully get noticed.
foreigners get to GM in and sign up for weekly cups, after a while he starts getting noticed because he gets like top8 in weekly cups.
the amount of work you have to do, the cheer skill you need as a korean to get noticed is alot higher than for foreigners. because these up and coming foreigners doesnt have to climb up as high in skill to start winning tournaments.
so its easier in a few ways:
1: you dont need as much skill to win weeklys
2: there are tournaments everywhere you can play in the foreigner scene
3: you get noticed much more easily because foreigner scene obviously follows the foreigner scene more
the reason why theres more koreans on the top, why foreigner teams are recruiting more koreans etc is because they are better and the teams want them to win.
i dont know the reason why theres few foreigner progamers or few up and coming. but im 110% sure its not because its too hard to get noticed. its really really easy and anyone could do it that knows what hard work and dedication means.
take nerchio as an example. he was a noname that practiced hard, became a top foreigner in skill, won a shitton of weekly cups and the he started to get invited to tournaments. and now hes famous and skilled enough to get to lans like homestory cup.
if you know how it works on both sides and u put them up together, you soon realize that its alot easier for foreigners to get famous, money and invites to tournamnets
and on a sidenote. the graph you pulled up is the amount of players on the server, that has nothing to do with the amount of players that is trying to become progamers and famous
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I agree especially with that these invitational tournaments, I think they deffinetly need to stop.
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I think a great idea would be a foreign starleague. They have one in broodwar occasionally because of the huge skill difference between koreans and foreigners.
I for one would love to see a non-korean only major tournament where I can see my favourite foreign players battling it out in the final rounds (I don't think I'm racist but I just find it harder to connect with korean pros). Another reason why I enjoyed shoutcraft so much
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I think you are extrapolating too much.
There is a flaw in your assumptions re growth and the conditions of decline.
But you have a material though, I think you can write something better with it.
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Funny how the OP posts about goals and this ad comes up
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mp4Ue.jpg)
This problem has a simple solution, albeit not an easy task. What the people who are opting to b pros can do is focus on gaining popularity. Offering something that can be entertaining enough that stream viewers will watch them. Destiny is a good example.
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On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
In my opinion, the state of the foreign scene is pretty bleak. Just take a long hard look at some of the tournament results. If you look at the foreign scene, it is the usual suspects in every event since release. The very first foreign SC2 tournament was IEM Cologne in 2010. Guess who the top 3 were? Morrow, IdrA and Dimaga. The entire player list is represents pretty much the top tier foreigner list to this date. But if you look at the Korean scene there are always new players popping up. There is much more turnover with new players developing, getting noticed and entering competitive. The motivation just isn’t there for foreigners because there is no clear way to get noticed. However there are ways to solve this though.
Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. Of course that doesn’t solve the problem itself. The qualifiers need to be region locked. A NA qualifier should be for NA residents only. The NA qualifiers shouldn’t be won by 4 different Koreans. That defeats the purpose. Organizers need to start doing region-locked qualifiers for all 3 regions. This is part of the reason I love ESL. They get it. They’re doing exactly this. ESL is the reason a guy like Gatored has been noticed. He is a beastly player and got to display that at IEM NYC. Also to their credit, MLG seems to be progressing in this direction for 2012. Yes qualifiers are more work. But to run an open qualifier online, it really doesn’t take that much work. You can set it up on z33k or playhem or binarybeast or whatever and let the system automate it. You only need to invest an afternoon to admin the event (maybe 2-3 people if you have hundreds of signups). Trust me, I’ve personally admined events with hundreds of people and all it takes is an afternoon (+ whatever time you want to spend advertising). Korean qualifiers are a little more difficult (language barrier, advertising in Korea). But hopefully more organizations can adopt the Asus ROG/Korean Weekly model.
Now what can the community do? Let’s stop focusing 100% of our attention on a few select players. There are tons of streamers that are as good as some of the popular guys. Let’s also start branching out and watching some other events. Yes I’m from z33k and playhem is my mortal enemy (sarcasm) but watching their dailies does give some ROI for teams with players competing. It does give you, the viewers, a chance to see some of the lesser known players that are almost, if not, as good as some of the current pros.
Anyways, that’s it for now. It’s 4 am and I’m going to get to bed. I’ll respond to as many people as I can when I wake up.
I don't think it's the invitational system that hampers the foreign tournament scene as much as the difficulty of making it to live events. Not everyone has the time/money to fly out to LAN events. Unless you're sponsored or have free time it's not an option. Online cups/Tournaments on the other hand are an excellent avenue for an upcoming pro to gain recognition, but online tournament results in general are shrugged off in the face of the LAN events- which very, very few if ANY unknowns break out. Stephano tore the ladder and online tournaments apart for so long before he was finally recognized as one of the best zergs in the world, and there are MANY more like him.
Compare it to Korea where it's much more centralized and easier for players to make it out to GSL qualifiers. This will ALWAYS be an issue to the foreign scene until transportation becomes faster/cheaper, or online tournaments are taken more seriously. I think a GSL-esque style star league is needed in America. NASL almost cuts it, but with much few players, no ranking tiers and only a couple seasons per year it doesn't compare to GSL in what it does for Korea as described by OP.
Oh and lastly, I don't think koreans should be discluded from qualifiers in major tournaments, or even locked to their own region. The Koreans who break out in the Korean scene are much beyond the skill level of foreigners, and it's much easier to get onto a team. I don't think foreigners breaking out who can only take games off of other foreigner pros and then get brushed aside by ANY Korean deserve even the most remote of recognition. NA's standards for top tier players really needs to be kicked up a notch, though it all falls back to the regional differences in skill level, and ultimately, how much more compact Korea is compared to NA.
On January 25 2012 21:23 ThePianoDentist wrote:
I think a great idea would be a foreign starleague. They have one in broodwar occasionally because of the huge skill difference between koreans and foreigners.
I for one would love to see a non-korean only major tournament where I can see my favourite foreign players battling it out in the final rounds (I don't think I'm racist but I just find it harder to connect with korean pros). Another reason why I enjoyed shoutcraft so much
This might help bring more foreigners into the scene, but it certainly won't close the skill gap between Korea and foreigners, which is one of the major reasons why the foreign scene suffers. And in the end, who is really going to care about unknown foreigners breaking out but not standing the slightest of chances against the bottom threshold of koreans. It'd basically create a bubble in NA as it did in BW.
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Am I the only one who doesn't think the playerbase will go up that much again after the expansions are released? Some people will of course try it out, people that may still be watching pro games but are bored of playing WoL themselfs. But the masses are gone for good. They are those people with little to no RTS experience and got into sc2 because of the hype at release and competitive RTS that makes you feel like shit and makes you work hard to improve wasn't their cup of tea. I don't think that many people with no sc2 experience at all will look at HotS and be like "wow that game looks awesome" and then buy WoL and HotS to play, same goes for LotV. Ok maybe for singleplayer but I doubt for multiplayer.
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Here is the main issue: We need new blood in the scene, else our numbers will slowly dwindle away.
Currently, we have corporations that act like leeches and want to suck the money out of eSports. Of course some will argue that they have also done good to increase the size of StarCraft. Yes it is true, but this was not altruism, but plain business strategy.
These corporations only raise popular individuals to the top, which makes it nigh impossible for promising players to rise and results in a crippling stagnation. This is not only true for the player scene but also for the casters and tournaments.
So here is what we need to do and can be done:
1. Establish an independent controlling organization which is accepted by every corporation in the game. This organization needs to handle player transfers, licenses, tournaments and to some extent public relations. Corporations will have to reduce their sphere of influence, which they won't.
2. Provide chances for up and coming players by offering a professional environment. Why don't the top clans establish a squad of players with promising skill? This keeps good players close to their organisation.
3. Build storylines around the players. Be more personal. Don't make a tournament every month with 200 players. Split them into professional organized amateur tournaments, where unknown players can get a dark horse spot but also provide a more stable environment for the best of the best.
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On January 25 2012 21:15 Ewic wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:08 dapierow wrote:On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it. I'm sorry but that is an absurd statement... imagine your a pretty good basketball or football player and you tell someone Ive devoted so much time into this game and I haven't received $1 for it. I would not say your analogy is accurate to the situation I'm in. You can't really compare e-sports to other industries like that. I am not looking to argue with anyone on this... I just wanted to share my views on the matter of the foreigner dilemma, have a nice day.
I don't mean to be rude but I don't think OP's suggestion would help you. If we had region locked qualifiers for all big tournaments it wouldn't get you any money. Those spots would be won by the very best players in each region (huk, idra, white-ra etc). If you're an up and coming player your only shot is daily cups, which there are plenty of. There's still good players competing in them but if you can't win them your simply not good enough. If you manage to win these tournaments you will gain some recognition and can move on to qualifying to the big tournaments if you get good enough. It would be ridiculous if everyone who played this game a lot was entitled to money. I understand your frustration though, but don't see how it could be any other way.
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Mostly Koreans and a very few Europeans managed to stay at the top of WC3 towards the final years, in fact most of the Western/European teams actively went after Korean players to sign. It's not a matter of talent pool, but just a community of efficient learning and training that the US especially lacks compared to Europe and Korea. It's not bad now of course since the game is only 2 years old, but the fact that every big Western team are signing Koreans left and right is a cause of concern for those people that want to see more American players succeed.
The only way to do so is to encourage homegrown talent tournaments and more training houses in the USA itself. The fact that many top players all rather play on the European and Korean server for better practice doesn't help.
This problem will get worst a few years after the final expansion is released, interest and motivation will always go up once a expansion comes out, the problem is continuous nurturing of talented players in the US scene especially.
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On January 25 2012 21:28 sharky246 wrote:Funny how the OP posts about goals and this ad comes up This problem has a simple solution, albeit not an easy task. What the people who are opting to b pros can do is focus on gaining popularity. Offering something that can be entertaining enough that stream viewers will watch them. Destiny is a good example.
Entertainment is good and fine but I think it has come to a point where SC2 is more about entertainment than skill in the foreigner scene - which hurts us in the long run. One reason why Destiny is quite popular is, that he provides more personal information and presence than other players.
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I disagree, there is a reason Koreans are winning and it's not because of their nationality. I LOVE invitationals that have Koreans, because I know no matter who you invite, whether its MMA, the infamous son of BoxeR ,or theSTC, not as known but amazing as fuck, the games will be top-tier.
MorroW is absolutely correct on the point that we always seem to cheer for the foreigner even if they are weak, which is fine, but we shouldn't cater a tournament in favor of foreigners because we believe Koreans = insta-doom.
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So, does the definition on "outstanding" or "beat" depend on the region of the subject on whom you want to use the adjective?
Personally, I don't like region locked qualifiers. I want to see the best possible games that can be, and if a player achieved a level of play necessary to show such a brilliant game, I applaud him for reaching that level.
I agree though, less invites, more qualifiers. That makes it easier for new players to breakthrough.
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This is entirely the result of the attitude held by non-Korean teams and the community in general. Teams and fans aren't interested in rookies, or B-teamers, or practice partners. The only thing they care about is star power, so of course there's no progression open for new players.
Honestly the whole situation is kind of pathetic. The western community is supposed to be at the forefront of SC2 but they have less professionalism than your average kiddy soccer league. Just listen to the excuses they make. "Waah I can't move away from home, that's asking too much." "Waah I can't work 8 hours a day, that's asking too much." How can these people even pretend they're professionals when they can't handle things expected from anyone with an adult job? How can the community play along with it?
Why don't non-Korean teams hire coaches and practice partners and set up an offline team league that people will actually watch instead of online crap that gets 2000 views at most? The money is (supposedly) there. The expectation (should) be there. So why is no one stepping up to prove that the non-Korean scene is more than a dog and pony show?
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On January 25 2012 21:22 MorroW wrote:
this article is pretty stupid
its actually the other way around.
koreans have a really hard time getting noticed even when they become gosu. there are hundreds of korean gosus but we really just notice and keep an eye on about 10% of them.
how many foreigner gosus are there? doesnt matter we keep an eye on 100% of them, we even follow players that arent gosus but are "pretty good for foreigner".
they have to practice like crazy, to one day qualify for code a (takes from 1 month to 1 year lol) and then hopefully get noticed.
foreigners get to GM in and sign up for weekly cups, after a while he starts getting noticed because he gets like top8 in weekly cups.
the amount of work you have to do, the cheer skill you need as a korean to get noticed is alot higher than for foreigners. because these up and coming foreigners doesnt have to climb up as high in skill to start winning tournaments.
so its easier in a few ways:
1: you dont need as much skill to win weeklys
2: there are tournaments everywhere you can play in the foreigner scene
3: you get noticed much more easily because foreigner scene obviously follows the foreigner scene more
the reason why theres more koreans on the top, why foreigner teams are recruiting more koreans etc is because they are better and the teams want them to win.
i dont know the reason why theres few foreigner progamers or few up and coming. but im 110% sure its not because its too hard to get noticed. its really really easy and anyone could do it that knows what hard work and dedication means.
take nerchio as an example. he was a noname that practiced hard, became a top foreigner in skill, won a shitton of weekly cups and the he started to get invited to tournaments. and now hes famous and skilled enough to get to lans like homestory cup.
if you know how it works on both sides and u put them up together, you soon realize that its alot easier for foreigners to get famous, money and invites to tournamnets
and on a sidenote. the graph you pulled up is the amount of players on the server, that has nothing to do with the amount of players that is trying to become progamers and famous
I agree with most of what you said, but don't you think it is bad that there is such a large emphasis on personality and viewership relative to results in the west? This just goes to prove your point about foreigners having it easier, but I think it is a pathetic state of the community when more people know right now who Incontrol is than Jjakji.
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That goes for most games no? Sure the bronze players might have left, but how many top tier foreigners have stopped playing so far?
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On January 25 2012 21:42 BrosephBrostar wrote:
This is entirely the result of the attitude held by non-Korean teams and the community in general. Teams and fans aren't interested in rookies, or B-teamers, or practice partners. The only thing they care about is star power, so of course there's no progression open for new players.
Honestly the whole situation is kind of pathetic. The western community is supposed to be at the forefront of SC2 but they have less professionalism than your average kiddy soccer league. Just listen to the excuses they make. "Waah I can't move away from home, that's asking too much." "Waah I can't work 8 hours a day, that's asking too much." How can these people even pretend they're professionals when they can't handle things expected from anyone with an adult job? How can the community play along with it?
Why don't non-Korean teams hire coaches and practice partners and set up an offline team league that people will actually watch instead of online crap that gets 2000 views at most? The money is (supposedly) there. The expectation (should) be there. So why is no one stepping up to prove that the non-Korean scene is more than a dog and pony show?
Something like msl huh, Yeah I would like to see more of those off line league tournaments in the non korean scene.
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+ Show Spoiler +Warning may contain polemics and hyperboles
Okay, let's talk about how to get recognized, based on regions:
US
Drama Drama Drama. Grab some tits, get wasted on stream. It may be a cultural thing, but I think you are pretty fucked if you want to be recognized as a North American player by skill only. The only chance for you is to start in a smaller team and/or go to Korea.
EU
Often you only get recognition in a specific region. French players will be recognized within the francophon countries. German players will be recognized in Germny. There not really a united European scene. You play lots of small weekly/monthly tournaments and hope to get a spot in one of the few recognized, featured European tournaments.
RU
By far the strongest region outside of Korea. There are players which are the best of the best but you will never hear their names or see their faces. The language barrier keeps them locked way and often there is not enough money to travel the immense distances to other regions.
KOR
Luck. Play hard, play strong and sell yourself entirely to Star2. Since Star2 isn't as big as Star1, the trend will continue and Korean players will become strong mercenaries.
SEA
No chance. You need to get into another region.
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United States5162 Posts
On January 25 2012 21:47 Duravi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:22 MorroW wrote:
this article is pretty stupid
its actually the other way around.
koreans have a really hard time getting noticed even when they become gosu. there are hundreds of korean gosus but we really just notice and keep an eye on about 10% of them.
how many foreigner gosus are there? doesnt matter we keep an eye on 100% of them, we even follow players that arent gosus but are "pretty good for foreigner".
they have to practice like crazy, to one day qualify for code a (takes from 1 month to 1 year lol) and then hopefully get noticed.
foreigners get to GM in and sign up for weekly cups, after a while he starts getting noticed because he gets like top8 in weekly cups.
the amount of work you have to do, the cheer skill you need as a korean to get noticed is alot higher than for foreigners. because these up and coming foreigners doesnt have to climb up as high in skill to start winning tournaments.
so its easier in a few ways:
1: you dont need as much skill to win weeklys
2: there are tournaments everywhere you can play in the foreigner scene
3: you get noticed much more easily because foreigner scene obviously follows the foreigner scene more
the reason why theres more koreans on the top, why foreigner teams are recruiting more koreans etc is because they are better and the teams want them to win.
i dont know the reason why theres few foreigner progamers or few up and coming. but im 110% sure its not because its too hard to get noticed. its really really easy and anyone could do it that knows what hard work and dedication means.
take nerchio as an example. he was a noname that practiced hard, became a top foreigner in skill, won a shitton of weekly cups and the he started to get invited to tournaments. and now hes famous and skilled enough to get to lans like homestory cup.
if you know how it works on both sides and u put them up together, you soon realize that its alot easier for foreigners to get famous, money and invites to tournamnets
and on a sidenote. the graph you pulled up is the amount of players on the server, that has nothing to do with the amount of players that is trying to become progamers and famous I agree with most of what you said, but don't you think it is bad that there is such a large emphasis on personality and viewership relative to results in the west? This just goes to prove your point about foreigners having it easier, but I think it is a pathetic state of the community when more people know right now who Incontrol is than Jjakji.
It's about entertainment, of which being good is only a portion of. And it's not just relegated to esports. Tim Duncan is one of the greatest, maybe even the greatest, power forwards the NBA has ever seen. His star power is hardly top 15.
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On January 25 2012 21:42 BrosephBrostar wrote:
This is entirely the result of the attitude held by non-Korean teams and the community in general. Teams and fans aren't interested in rookies, or B-teamers, or practice partners. The only thing they care about is star power, so of course there's no progression open for new players.
Ironic...
Like Morrow said above you, this kind of "star-gazing" attitude is actually even MORE problematic in Korea. Listen to Hwanni's interview with JP - he says all anyone in Korea cares about is a good game with a famous guy playing. That's the biggest reason why SC2 is so small in Korea right now, and why only the hardcore guys play it. The casuals don't give a shit about MMA or MVP.
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On January 25 2012 21:48 VoO wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Warning may contain polemics and hyperboles
Okay, let's talk about how to get recognized, based on regions:
US
Drama Drama Drama. Grab some tits, get wasted on stream. It may be a cultural thing, but I think you are pretty fucked if you want to be recognized as a North American player by skill only. The only chance for you is to start in a smaller team and/or go to Korea.
EU
Often you only get recognition in a specific region. French players will be recognized within the francophon countries. German players will be recognized in Germny. There not really a united European scene. You play lots of small weekly/monthly tournaments and hope to get a spot in one of the few recognized, featured European tournaments.
RU
By far the strongest region outside of Korea. There are players which are the best of the best but you will never hear their names or see their faces. The language barrier keeps them locked way and often there is not enough money to travel the immense distances to other regions.
KOR
Play hard, play strong and sell yourself entirly to Star2. Since Star2 isn't as big as Star1, the trend will continue and Korean players will become strong mercenaries.
SEA
No chance. You need to get into another region.
RU is like SEA. It has a couple of good players but after all its very weak.
+ Show Spoiler +I played several players who were GM when the RU server was still separated by EU. They were Platin/low Dia in EU after RU and EU server became one.
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i dont know the reason why theres few foreigner progamers or few up and coming. but im 110% sure its not because its too hard to get noticed. its really really easy and anyone could do it that knows what hard work and dedication means
The main reason was mentioned many times: there is no firm perspective. It is much more reliable to graduate. Additionally, the possible profit is not worth the risk. Take for example football: many people try very hard to become pro there. If you fail you are more or less screwed but if you succeed you can earn tons of money quickly.
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On January 25 2012 21:50 Myles wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:47 Duravi wrote:On January 25 2012 21:22 MorroW wrote:
this article is pretty stupid
its actually the other way around.
koreans have a really hard time getting noticed even when they become gosu. there are hundreds of korean gosus but we really just notice and keep an eye on about 10% of them.
how many foreigner gosus are there? doesnt matter we keep an eye on 100% of them, we even follow players that arent gosus but are "pretty good for foreigner".
they have to practice like crazy, to one day qualify for code a (takes from 1 month to 1 year lol) and then hopefully get noticed.
foreigners get to GM in and sign up for weekly cups, after a while he starts getting noticed because he gets like top8 in weekly cups.
the amount of work you have to do, the cheer skill you need as a korean to get noticed is alot higher than for foreigners. because these up and coming foreigners doesnt have to climb up as high in skill to start winning tournaments.
so its easier in a few ways:
1: you dont need as much skill to win weeklys
2: there are tournaments everywhere you can play in the foreigner scene
3: you get noticed much more easily because foreigner scene obviously follows the foreigner scene more
the reason why theres more koreans on the top, why foreigner teams are recruiting more koreans etc is because they are better and the teams want them to win.
i dont know the reason why theres few foreigner progamers or few up and coming. but im 110% sure its not because its too hard to get noticed. its really really easy and anyone could do it that knows what hard work and dedication means.
take nerchio as an example. he was a noname that practiced hard, became a top foreigner in skill, won a shitton of weekly cups and the he started to get invited to tournaments. and now hes famous and skilled enough to get to lans like homestory cup.
if you know how it works on both sides and u put them up together, you soon realize that its alot easier for foreigners to get famous, money and invites to tournamnets
and on a sidenote. the graph you pulled up is the amount of players on the server, that has nothing to do with the amount of players that is trying to become progamers and famous I agree with most of what you said, but don't you think it is bad that there is such a large emphasis on personality and viewership relative to results in the west? This just goes to prove your point about foreigners having it easier, but I think it is a pathetic state of the community when more people know right now who Incontrol is than Jjakji. It's about entertainment, of which being good is only a portion of. And it's not just relegated to esports. Tim Duncan is one of the greatest, maybe even the greatest, power forwards the NBA has ever seen. His star power is hardly top 15.
Right, but at the end of the day even the most entertaining players have to perform well. The NFL is not going to resign a player who has been awful all season because he brings lots of attention to the team. In SC2 we have several western players who have had very poor results going on a year now but are still with the same team purely because of the viewers they draw. I think it is fundamentally wrong for the focus of s sport to be on entertainment over competition, you may as well go watch WWE in that case where it is no competition, all entertainment, and is not recognized as a sport.
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It's sad but it's true that if often times players get noticed by their personnalities
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I think Morrow said it best, and sadly it is so.
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On January 25 2012 21:53 Qaatar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:42 BrosephBrostar wrote:
This is entirely the result of the attitude held by non-Korean teams and the community in general. Teams and fans aren't interested in rookies, or B-teamers, or practice partners. The only thing they care about is star power, so of course there's no progression open for new players.
Ironic... Like Morrow said above you, this kind of "star-gazing" attitude is actually even MORE problematic in Korea. Listen to Hwanni's interview with JP - he says all anyone in Korea cares about is a good game with a famous guy playing. That's the biggest reason why SC2 is so small in Korea right now, and why only the hardcore guys play it. The casuals don't give a shit about MMA or MVP.
That may be the case as far as perception goes, but the practice is completely the opposite. In Korea you can work your way onto a team just by being the guy who 4gates MMA for 6 hours straight until he works a build out. Do you really think a team like EG would even consider paying a guy just to help Idra practice getting bunker rushed?
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On January 25 2012 19:36 Velr wrote:
The problem is that SC2 is boring and not half as exciting as SC/BW or WC3 where even when "fresh".
No wonder people stop playing.
And that's why all the SC2 forums are talking about the thousand of bored SC2 players that are actually switching to the exciting BW and WC3.
Well I think that's not the point...
I think a prestigious foreinger sc2 pro league would motivate the alot EU/NA players.
Even if I don't see all the problems the OP is talking about I think it would be a very nice thing for the foreinger community.
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I laughed when I saw this. Overall shrinking in foreign player pool has NOTHING to do with the pro scene. You think the player base went from 700k to 200k because 500k people figured out they could never compete with the koreans? No, it's because they thought SC2 wasn't a game worth playing and got bored of it.
SERIOUSLY, WTF DOES FOREIGNER VS. KOREAN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH OVERALL PLAYER POOLS? Not EVERY single player thinks about going pro. Why is this assumption made?? Hell, not even 20% of people think about that. They just want a fun game.
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On January 25 2012 22:04 Itsmedudeman wrote:
I laughed when I saw this. Overall shrinking in foreign player pool has NOTHING to do with the pro scene. You think the player base went from 700k to 200k because 500k people figured out they could never compete with the koreans? No, it's because they thought SC2 wasn't a game worth playing and got bored of it.
SERIOUSLY, WTF DOES FOREIGNER VS. KOREAN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH OVERALL PLAYER POOLS? Not EVERY single player thinks about going pro. Why is this assumption made??
You need to read the whole thread, it evolved from the original topic to the "up and coming" players. Which are indirectly related by giving perspectives for players. I don't have data, but I think the player-to-viewer ration in SC2 is the highest in all of current eSports.
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1. eSports has been around for roughly 12-15 years. When you talk about players retiring and no one replacing them, please provide an example. I personally cannot think of a good example of this ever happening.
2. "And there’s no reason this trend won’t continue." Sure there are: expansion pack, times of year (your recent drop off is during the peak of holiday season globally) as well as new and interesting major events growing, more people are going to be interested again. Also, some people (like myself) simply watch, and do not play.
3. You say there are no avenue's for western players to get noticed and make a name for themselves. I cannot disagree with this more, and I will go even further and say that you have it backwards - western players have a far easier time being noticed on a global scale than Koreans do. Here's why:
1. Online cups - the west has them, Korea does not. There are countless showmatches, cups and leagues for a western player, NA or EU, to compete in and gain a name for themselves. They can even be streamed, win some cash, and as you mentioned, become noticed by other players in the tournaments (such as professional gamers).
2. Streaming - you write it off as though only top tier pro-gamers can get viewers. This is simply not true. People follow relevant programming. You mention VIBE being a great streamer, that his quality is very high, and he provides a lot of commentary. In reality, compared to other streamers out there, VIBE offers nothing special or unique nor interesting (at least to me personally, and based on his viewership as stated by you, many others share my opinion on this).
3. Major Tournaments - Both MLG and IPL have open brackets in their events, as well as online qualifiers for IPL. Anyone can play in these tournaments and earn a name for themselves. You say they are dominated by Koreans - so what? Your argument is that the Koreans have a better way of being recognized, so foreigners would have to play against these people anyway in order to become recognized.
I even wrote an article on whether or not "foreign" teams picking up a few Korean players was going to be an issue for western players: http://fnatic.com/feature/9488/are-western-esports-teams-pillaging-korean-teams.html
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Dude, so you wanted that sc2 had the numbers it had from it's launch dade, when it was new and fresh? It will NEVER be the same numbers. This is the second, hardest game to play. People will just quit the game, take a break and get back, or simply not play as much! Server numbers have nothing to do with esports numbers. BW had so few people playing online everyday, compared to the viewer base (10x as bigger), and i don´t see why sc2 is to be different.
League of legends has the numbers it has because it is the most user frendly game ever, and many sc2 players play the crap out of that because its much less tiresome than sc2.
We had the best year in esports ever. And everything is pointing to another brilliant year.
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On January 25 2012 22:07 VoO wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:04 Itsmedudeman wrote:
I laughed when I saw this. Overall shrinking in foreign player pool has NOTHING to do with the pro scene. You think the player base went from 700k to 200k because 500k people figured out they could never compete with the koreans? No, it's because they thought SC2 wasn't a game worth playing and got bored of it.
SERIOUSLY, WTF DOES FOREIGNER VS. KOREAN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH OVERALL PLAYER POOLS? Not EVERY single player thinks about going pro. Why is this assumption made?? You need to read the whole thread, it evolved from the original topic to the "up and coming" players. Which are indirectly related by giving perspectives for players. I don't have data, but I think the player-to-viewer ration in SC2 is the highest in all of current eSports.
Uh, I did, and he tried to use that fact to support his argument with it when it's completely dumb to do so. The two are not related. That's what I was pointing out.
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I don't agree with OP. There are so much daily cups going on on NA and EU, you can play tournaments and get noticed. If you have a good ladder ranking and you post result in online tournaments, you will get noticed by team.
Also western teams are often very open, if you feel that you have the skill, you can contact them. Western teams are always looking for young guns, mTw and eSahara have started B teams that are looking for new players, and help improving their game.
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On January 25 2012 21:58 BrosephBrostar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:53 Qaatar wrote:On January 25 2012 21:42 BrosephBrostar wrote:
This is entirely the result of the attitude held by non-Korean teams and the community in general. Teams and fans aren't interested in rookies, or B-teamers, or practice partners. The only thing they care about is star power, so of course there's no progression open for new players.
Ironic... Like Morrow said above you, this kind of "star-gazing" attitude is actually even MORE problematic in Korea. Listen to Hwanni's interview with JP - he says all anyone in Korea cares about is a good game with a famous guy playing. That's the biggest reason why SC2 is so small in Korea right now, and why only the hardcore guys play it. The casuals don't give a shit about MMA or MVP. That may be the case as far as perception goes, but the practice is completely the opposite. In Korea you can work your way onto a team just by being the guy who 4gates MMA for 6 hours straight until he works a build out. Do you really think a team like EG would even consider paying a guy just to help Idra practice getting bunker rushed?
No, but Slayers also isn't paying the fresh newbie to 4gate MMA all day long either. I'm assuming what you mean is, at least Slayers is giving the guy a chance to 'potentially' become a paid member of the team, while EG isn't. In that case, I agree, but I think this is also a warped and secluded perspective.
How many of these "new gosus" popping out from the Korean scene are actually "new gosus?" Guys like Brown and Parting, sure, we might not have heard of them before, but they've been playing SC2 since the GSL Open Seasons. None of these guys bursting onto the scene are actually new. Almost all of these guys have been around since the beginning. I don't think the Korean scene is growing any more than the foreign scene.
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United States5162 Posts
On January 25 2012 21:55 Duravi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:50 Myles wrote:On January 25 2012 21:47 Duravi wrote:On January 25 2012 21:22 MorroW wrote:
this article is pretty stupid
its actually the other way around.
koreans have a really hard time getting noticed even when they become gosu. there are hundreds of korean gosus but we really just notice and keep an eye on about 10% of them.
how many foreigner gosus are there? doesnt matter we keep an eye on 100% of them, we even follow players that arent gosus but are "pretty good for foreigner".
they have to practice like crazy, to one day qualify for code a (takes from 1 month to 1 year lol) and then hopefully get noticed.
foreigners get to GM in and sign up for weekly cups, after a while he starts getting noticed because he gets like top8 in weekly cups.
the amount of work you have to do, the cheer skill you need as a korean to get noticed is alot higher than for foreigners. because these up and coming foreigners doesnt have to climb up as high in skill to start winning tournaments.
so its easier in a few ways:
1: you dont need as much skill to win weeklys
2: there are tournaments everywhere you can play in the foreigner scene
3: you get noticed much more easily because foreigner scene obviously follows the foreigner scene more
the reason why theres more koreans on the top, why foreigner teams are recruiting more koreans etc is because they are better and the teams want them to win.
i dont know the reason why theres few foreigner progamers or few up and coming. but im 110% sure its not because its too hard to get noticed. its really really easy and anyone could do it that knows what hard work and dedication means.
take nerchio as an example. he was a noname that practiced hard, became a top foreigner in skill, won a shitton of weekly cups and the he started to get invited to tournaments. and now hes famous and skilled enough to get to lans like homestory cup.
if you know how it works on both sides and u put them up together, you soon realize that its alot easier for foreigners to get famous, money and invites to tournamnets
and on a sidenote. the graph you pulled up is the amount of players on the server, that has nothing to do with the amount of players that is trying to become progamers and famous I agree with most of what you said, but don't you think it is bad that there is such a large emphasis on personality and viewership relative to results in the west? This just goes to prove your point about foreigners having it easier, but I think it is a pathetic state of the community when more people know right now who Incontrol is than Jjakji. It's about entertainment, of which being good is only a portion of. And it's not just relegated to esports. Tim Duncan is one of the greatest, maybe even the greatest, power forwards the NBA has ever seen. His star power is hardly top 15. Right, but at the end of the day even the most entertaining players have to perform well. The NFL is not going to resign a player who has been awful all season because he brings lots of attention to the team. In SC2 we have several western players who have had very poor results going on a year now but are still with the same team purely because of the viewers they draw. I think it is fundamentally wrong for the focus of s sport to be on entertainment over competition, you may as well go watch WWE in that case where it is no competition, all entertainment, and is not recognized as a sport.
Professional sports value winning more then esports organizations do because it already has a large viewer base that will pay attention if you win. Esports isn't there yet. They need players who draw attention to the team even if they aren't top caliber. Incontrol is a great example - he hasn't brought in results for a while, but I guarantee that he brings a huge return on investment to EG.
And trying to separate sports and entertainment is foolhardy imo. Entertainment, whether through competition or creation, is still providing the same service.
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On January 25 2012 21:22 MorroW wrote:
this article is pretty stupid
its actually the other way around.
koreans have a really hard time getting noticed even when they become gosu. there are hundreds of korean gosus but we really just notice and keep an eye on about 10% of them.
how many foreigner gosus are there? doesnt matter we keep an eye on 100% of them, we even follow players that arent gosus but are "pretty good for foreigner".
they have to practice like crazy, to one day qualify for code a (takes from 1 month to 1 year lol) and then hopefully get noticed.
foreigners get to GM in and sign up for weekly cups, after a while he starts getting noticed because he gets like top8 in weekly cups.
the amount of work you have to do, the cheer skill you need as a korean to get noticed is alot higher than for foreigners. because these up and coming foreigners doesnt have to climb up as high in skill to start winning tournaments.
so its easier in a few ways:
1: you dont need as much skill to win weeklys
2: there are tournaments everywhere you can play in the foreigner scene
3: you get noticed much more easily because foreigner scene obviously follows the foreigner scene more
the reason why theres more koreans on the top, why foreigner teams are recruiting more koreans etc is because they are better and the teams want them to win.
i dont know the reason why theres few foreigner progamers or few up and coming. but im 110% sure its not because its too hard to get noticed. its really really easy and anyone could do it that knows what hard work and dedication means.
take nerchio as an example. he was a noname that practiced hard, became a top foreigner in skill, won a shitton of weekly cups and the he started to get invited to tournaments. and now hes famous and skilled enough to get to lans like homestory cup.
if you know how it works on both sides and u put them up together, you soon realize that its alot easier for foreigners to get famous, money and invites to tournamnets
and on a sidenote. the graph you pulled up is the amount of players on the server, that has nothing to do with the amount of players that is trying to become progamers and famous
I was exactly going to post something like this. Agree 100%.
It's not that hard to get famous at all.
And getting noticed isn't hard. So yes ur points is legit
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I might not know much about the scene.. But MLG (for NA) and ESL(for EU) should implement a program similar what Code B is..I think this is the only way to cultivate and motivate new talent on NA and EU. Any thoughts!
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people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team.
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On January 25 2012 21:23 ThePianoDentist wrote:
I think a great idea would be a foreign starleague. They have one in broodwar occasionally because of the huge skill difference between koreans and foreigners.
I for one would love to see a non-korean only major tournament where I can see my favourite foreign players battling it out in the final rounds (I don't think I'm racist but I just find it harder to connect with korean pros). Another reason why I enjoyed shoutcraft so much
I can't wait for ISL3 or even something I dreamt long ago.....TSL4 with a BW division....!!
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On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team.
That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist.
I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based.
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On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team.
Think of the difference in skill between effort and the worst B-teamer you can remember. Do you really think EG would go out of their way to hire someone that far below yourself?
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On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based.
The problem is that infrastructure to get good in the west will never "be there" en mass. Sure there will be cases where NA or EU player gets really good, goes to Korea etc.etc. competes at highest level. But cattering whole Esports system to suit the needs of sub-par competetion wont get the viewership, which is kinda the fuel of the scene.
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On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based.
I agree with him, at least partially.
Entering in an already developed scene is hard by itself and no one is Stephano, but there are players who, while not being on Stephano's level, are perfectly able to compete with other proplayers.
Sometimes there are players who are good but don't get the chance of exposition because of the invites: there are 'pro'players who had more than a year to train, learn and practice.
In a proper environment.
While being payed to do that.
Some have a big proplayer house full of goodies, some had stayed in korea, all of them have good teammates to practice with.
Yet, 0 results.
Not everyone can be the best in a category and not everyone can even stay in the mid tier.
These guys had their chances and blew them up.
That's fine, but why should people give them another chance for the tenth time instead of trying someone who could be more worth?
Make some more qualifiers seeds, instead of inviting the same old guys.
Since Idra posted here: do you think you wouldn't be able to grab a qualifier spot if said qualifier was done correctly (delayed casting, no observer if not called, no bullshit bo1)?
I think not.
i think that a good proplayer wouldn't miss a qualifier the 90% of the times.
Protecting a scene that did not bring any result will not be of help.
One day those guys will quit their career and you'll realise what they leave to us: some laughs, some lolol epic moments XD, some funny attics, nothing else.
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On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based.
I just pretty much 100% disagree. There are a ton of online tournaments like craftcup where you can compete. You can make yourself a name without moving anywhere. Who says you have to join EG, Liquid or any of the major teams first? There are smaller pro teams that get less attention of whom I'm willing to believe that they would pick up lesser known talents.
Infrastructure not as good.. seriously? On the one hand people complain about SC2 being too easy, certain races being a-move and win - and then there's people complaining they can't get good without playing it fulltime. Would the community please make up its mind? Is SC2 hard or is it easy?
Regarding infrastructure, the situation in BW wasn't exactly ideal either. People are spoiled by the SC2 situation and expect investing a minimal amount of time to get picked up by pro teams or what? If you want to become pro at something, you spend all your spare time for it.
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On January 25 2012 22:51 NightOfTheDead wrote:
The problem is that infrastructure to get good in the west will never "be there" en mass. Sure there will be cases where NA or EU player gets really good, goes to Korea etc.etc. competes at highest level. But cattering whole Esports system to suit the needs of sub-par competetion wont get the viewership, which is kinda the fuel to the scene.
Well, we can hope it gets there eventually. Maybe a solution would be to develop a B-team style house in North America, with players paying a part of their stream/tournament winnings in order to live there?
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On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based.
how do you think i got that chance to develop? i ignored school and didnt have a social life for 2 years in order to win a tournament and move to korea at 18 to sit in a house and play starcraft1 with 0 return for another 3 years
huk played sc2 all day on a shitty computer during the beta when there was no money in it and did everything he could to get to korea and then spent a year+ practicing in a korean house.
most a team pros dont make salaries in korea. none of the b teamers do, the bottom of the barrel doesnt get to live in the house, they just get the priviledge of playing with the team if theyre good enough for people to want to practice with them. you have to sacrifice pretty much everything while you're on your way up. koreans are better because hundreds of them are willing to do it, a handful of nonkoreans are.
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EU and probably NA both have support from going from good to pro, Many people make their hype. Stephano started winning weekly cups consistently and built a lot of hype that way.
You do not need to be on a top team to reach high tournament placings. Getting top level practice partners is not about which team you are on. No scene has a possibility to go from 0 to hero just because they support players better. It is up to the players to commit hard. Flash didn´t get his first title by support he got it from sleeping a lot less.
Also it makes perfect sense that the EU and NA servers are declining but its will probably stabilize soon. It is natural for this to happen to any game.
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On January 25 2012 21:12 Gheed wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:09 Aela wrote:
All people I know stopped playing. There is just no reason to ladder if you know you will never make money with it. Whenever someone posts something like this it just makes me sad. The reason people play is to have fun, goddamn.
If you played like 500 laddergames, there is not that much fun - especially if you aren't masters+++ Yeah, like 3games a week can be fun, but more is just not that fun as casual.
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On January 25 2012 20:53 slmw wrote:I took the same data from each three servers, added dates from patches and this is what i got: What did we do differently? Here's the data: + Show Spoiler +
You ended yours on 20th October 2011.
I would assume the OP took the most recent figures as being the "current" figures.
SC2Ranks doesnt go through all profiles all the time, and if people play at the tail end of a season they aren't counted until they play.
The total player numbers per season is cumulative over the life of a season, so 1 week after new seasonthere are a lot fewer players than 2 weeks after a season, so the most recent season will always be below its final peak right until the very last day of the season.
This means that taking data by patch can result in peaks and troughs that aren't reflecting the true numbers of players.
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On January 25 2012 22:48 BrosephBrostar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. Think of the difference in skill between effort and the worst B-teamer you can remember. Do you really think EG would go out of their way to hire someone that far below yourself?
they didnt hire them. most of the time that person stopped going to school and paid to live in a practice house. if he did well enough there the owners of the practice house would take him to a group tryout where he got a handful of games to impress the cj coaches. if he managed to do that he'd be allowed to became an online practice partner or if he did really, really fuckin well he could live in the house for free.
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On January 25 2012 22:54 zdfgucker wrote:
I just pretty much 100% disagree. There are a ton of online tournaments like craftcup where you can compete. You can make yourself a name without moving anywhere. Who says you have to join EG, Liquid or any of the major teams first? There are smaller pro teams that get less attention of whom I'm willing to believe that they would pick up lesser known talents.
Infrastructure not as good.. seriously? On the one hand people complain about SC2 being too easy, certain races being a-move and win - and then there's people complaining they can't get good without playing it fulltime. Would the community please make up its mind? Is SC2 hard or is it easy?
Regarding infrastructure, the situation in BW wasn't exactly ideal either. People are spoiled by the SC2 situation and expect investing a minimal amount of time to get picked up by pro teams or what? If you want to become pro at something, you spend all your spare time for it.
1. A player can't compete with top-level Koreans unless he puts in as much effort. Let's say 10-hours a day or so.
2. All the Craftcup-style small tournaments are great, but they do not get enough exposure in order to work as a sustainable source of income for players.
3. If more higher-paying tournaments had more qualifier spots, #2 wouldn't be an issue, however that's not the case right now. For example, a $25k tournament was announced in Europe, there are 14 invite spots and 2 qualifying spots.
4. That doesn't promote the top Craftcup players from wanting to take the risk of going fulltime. The least amount of "open" spots there are for wage-providing tournaments, the less amount of risk people will be willing to take. For example, 2 chances out of 512 that you'll be able to pay for rent & food is a hell of a risk to take versus 32 chances out of 512.
5. Why are you bringing the easy/hard argument into this? It's clearly evident by looking at top level Koreans that there is a very high skill cap in SC2, people saying otherwise have their eyes closed. It's obviously not so easy that anyone can reach the skill cap (if there is one).
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On January 25 2012 23:05 Aela wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 21:12 Gheed wrote:On January 25 2012 21:09 Aela wrote:
All people I know stopped playing. There is just no reason to ladder if you know you will never make money with it. Whenever someone posts something like this it just makes me sad. The reason people play is to have fun, goddamn. If you played like 500 laddergames, there is not that much fun - especially if you aren't masters+++
That is personal I hate starting new games. Once I hit 500-1000 games is when games get the most fun for me.
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Agree with most what has been said, and streaming really is feast vs famine (with skill not really proportional to viewers)
However it is unfortunate that most foreigner teams are now aiming at recruiting Koreans, so its even harder to get noticed.
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On January 25 2012 23:03 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based. how do you think i got that chance to develop? i ignored school and didnt have a social life for 2 years in order to win a tournament and move to korea at 18 to sit in a house and play starcraft1 with 0 return for another 3 years huk played sc2 all day on a shitty computer during the beta when there was no money in it and did everything he could to get to korea and then spent a year+ practicing in a korean house. most a team pros dont make salaries in korea. none of the b teamers do, the bottom of the barrel doesnt get to live in the house, they just get the priviledge of playing with the team if theyre good enough for people to want to practice with them. you have to sacrifice pretty much everything while you're on your way up. koreans are better because hundreds of them are willing to do it, a handful of nonkoreans are.
I think the point is that you both took advantage of the Korean system to get where you are now. Maybe I don't understand the situation well enough but it doesn't seem like western teams are offering the kind of opportunity you got with estro and cj. Does EG have unsalaried practice partners that you play with who could possibly work their way up to full members?
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On January 25 2012 23:07 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:48 BrosephBrostar wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. Think of the difference in skill between effort and the worst B-teamer you can remember. Do you really think EG would go out of their way to hire someone that far below yourself? they didnt hire them. most of the time that person stopped going to school and paid to live in a practice house. if he did well enough there the owners of the practice house would take him to a group tryout where he got a handful of games to impress the cj coaches. if he managed to do that he'd be allowed to became an online practice partner or if he did really, really fuckin well he could live in the house for free.
so if some unknown was really impressive would scoots let him move into the eg house? what about all the other non-Korean teams that don't even have houses?
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On January 25 2012 23:03 IdrA wrote:
how do you think i got that chance to develop? i ignored school and didnt have a social life for 2 years in order to win a tournament and move to korea at 18 to sit in a house and play starcraft1 with 0 return for another 3 years
huk played sc2 all day on a shitty computer during the beta when there was no money in it and did everything he could to get to korea and then spent a year+ practicing in a korean house.
most a team pros dont make salaries in korea. none of the b teamers do, the bottom of the barrel doesnt get to live in the house, they just get the priviledge of playing with the team if theyre good enough for people to want to practice with them. you have to sacrifice pretty much everything while you're on your way up. koreans are better because hundreds of them are willing to do it, a handful of nonkoreans are.
Thanks for the reply.
I understand where you come from, and it's clear you took way bigger risks & sacrifice than pretty much everyone else in NA with SC early on. It's clear that that kind of dedication is required to succeed in a risk thing like (e)Sports, but North Americans seem really scared of taking those risks, part of which is because tournaments are invite-based instead of qualifier based. If more players knew there were bigger opportunities for them through qualifier-based tournaments, they might be more willing to sacrifice everything and go for it.
Or maybe not, in which case... we won't ever see a lot of top level foreigners.
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I couldn't disagree more with the op. The Koreans are so far ahead from the west that they would take 95% of all prizemoney in the scene if they had proper travel arrangements. The only answer to that is to support the top names in the west all the way, to create main stream stars the way Korea created Flash, Jaedong and Boxer. That is the way we will grow future stars with the skill and dedication to rival the Koreans.
How many top players does the US have on the scene, players who can beat Koreans? With all the focus on celebrity in the US, you are going to need money and superstars to even get any attention over there. If you're trying to create some sort of regulation to bring up B level westerners using charity, then Korea will own the Starcraft scene for decades to come.
The west needs the visibility of the few superstars we have. When the BW pros hit the scene this summer, we'll be lucky to get even one top 16 spot for a Foreigner in the MLG's of 2012 and 2013.
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I find this thread very interesting, but I am not qualified to add much. More qualification and less invites seems like a very good idea for me though.
I just though of the similarities between the "foreigner only" tournaments, and "female only" tournaments. Both are meant to protect and nourish a specific (disfavoured?) type of gamers that may not be able to compete with the very best players in the world, and both are a bit controversial and under heavy discussion. So to you people that suggest shutting out koreans from tournaments (like OP), why should we (the esports audience) care about foreigner only tournaments any more than we care about female only tournaments?
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On January 25 2012 23:20 Legio wrote:
I couldn't disagree more with the op. The Koreans are so far ahead from the west that they would take 95% of all prizemoney in the scene if they had proper travel arrangements. The only answer to that is to support the top names in the west all the way, to create main stream stars the way Korea created Flash, Jaedong and Boxer. That is the way we will grow future stars with the skill and dedication to rival the Koreans.
How many top players does the US have on the scene, players who can beat Koreans? With all the focus on celebrity in the US, you are going to need money and superstars to even get any attention over there. If you're trying to create some sort of regulation to bring up B level westerners using charity, then Korea will own the Starcraft scene for decades to come.
The west needs the visibility of the few superstars we have. When the BW pros hit the scene this summer, we'll be lucky to get even one top 16 spot for a Foreigner in the MLG's of 2012 and 2013.
That's an interesting issue. If we would have more opens (especially online based) how do we deal with the really good Korean players? Does it make sense to block them?
The bottomline is: Koreans are already really good and there's a lack of really good NA/Eur players. This is partly due to culture, partly due to lack of dedication from foreigners.
Is coddling our existing top level pros really the best answer? It sounds pretty reasonable, but it won't fix the lack of SC-related infrastructure in NA compared to Korea, so it's not really a long-term solution.
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On January 25 2012 23:10 BrosephBrostar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 23:03 IdrA wrote:On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based. how do you think i got that chance to develop? i ignored school and didnt have a social life for 2 years in order to win a tournament and move to korea at 18 to sit in a house and play starcraft1 with 0 return for another 3 years huk played sc2 all day on a shitty computer during the beta when there was no money in it and did everything he could to get to korea and then spent a year+ practicing in a korean house. most a team pros dont make salaries in korea. none of the b teamers do, the bottom of the barrel doesnt get to live in the house, they just get the priviledge of playing with the team if theyre good enough for people to want to practice with them. you have to sacrifice pretty much everything while you're on your way up. koreans are better because hundreds of them are willing to do it, a handful of nonkoreans are. I think the point is that you both took advantage of the Korean system to get where you are now. Maybe I don't understand the situation well enough but it doesn't seem like western teams are offering the kind of opportunity you got with estro and cj. Does EG have unsalaried practice partners that you play with who could possibly work their way up to full members?
i gave up a ton to get to korea. its much much easier to get to korea and take advantage of that system now. but except for a very few, everyone who comes leaves again after a couple months. people just dont put in the effort. they dont deserve to be succesful.
edit: Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 23:07 IdrA wrote:On January 25 2012 22:48 BrosephBrostar wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. Think of the difference in skill between effort and the worst B-teamer you can remember. Do you really think EG would go out of their way to hire someone that far below yourself? they didnt hire them. most of the time that person stopped going to school and paid to live in a practice house. if he did well enough there the owners of the practice house would take him to a group tryout where he got a handful of games to impress the cj coaches. if he managed to do that he'd be allowed to became an online practice partner or if he did really, really fuckin well he could live in the house for free. so if some unknown was really impressive would scoots let him move into the eg house? what about all the other non-Korean teams that don't even have houses?
that just devolves into quibbling about what counts as impressive. yes, but there arent unknown foreigners who would qualify as impressive. as morrow said its incredibly easy to get known outside of korea if you're actually good. theres tons of tournaments that top players dont play. if you're good enough to be on that level you should be winning those.
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On January 25 2012 23:32 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 23:10 BrosephBrostar wrote:On January 25 2012 23:03 IdrA wrote:On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based. how do you think i got that chance to develop? i ignored school and didnt have a social life for 2 years in order to win a tournament and move to korea at 18 to sit in a house and play starcraft1 with 0 return for another 3 years huk played sc2 all day on a shitty computer during the beta when there was no money in it and did everything he could to get to korea and then spent a year+ practicing in a korean house. most a team pros dont make salaries in korea. none of the b teamers do, the bottom of the barrel doesnt get to live in the house, they just get the priviledge of playing with the team if theyre good enough for people to want to practice with them. you have to sacrifice pretty much everything while you're on your way up. koreans are better because hundreds of them are willing to do it, a handful of nonkoreans are. I think the point is that you both took advantage of the Korean system to get where you are now. Maybe I don't understand the situation well enough but it doesn't seem like western teams are offering the kind of opportunity you got with estro and cj. Does EG have unsalaried practice partners that you play with who could possibly work their way up to full members? i gave up a ton to get to korea. its much much easier to get to korea and take advantage of that system now. but except for a very few, everyone who comes leaves again after a couple months. people just dont put in the effort. they dont deserve to be succesful. Show nested quote +edit: On January 25 2012 23:07 IdrA wrote:On January 25 2012 22:48 BrosephBrostar wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. Think of the difference in skill between effort and the worst B-teamer you can remember. Do you really think EG would go out of their way to hire someone that far below yourself? they didnt hire them. most of the time that person stopped going to school and paid to live in a practice house. if he did well enough there the owners of the practice house would take him to a group tryout where he got a handful of games to impress the cj coaches. if he managed to do that he'd be allowed to became an online practice partner or if he did really, really fuckin well he could live in the house for free. so if some unknown was really impressive would scoots let him move into the eg house? what about all the other non-Korean teams that don't even have houses? that just devolves into quibbling about what counts as impressive. yes, but there arent unknown foreigners who would qualify as impressive. as morrow said its incredibly easy to get known outside of korea if you're actually good. theres tons of tournaments that top players dont play. if you're good enough to be on that level you should be winning those.
Thank you very much for explaining things, it really helps put korea in perspective. I see what you're saying with foreigners not being willing to give up as many things as koreans and work as hard as koreans to get to where they want to be. I'm friends with some semi-pros and other people who want to go semi-pro but can't, and I do see that a lot of them really talk big but in the end don't put in the time required and get too easily distracted from SC2 with other things like TV or forums or other games.
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I agree entirely,having 99 invites and one qualifier seed,that will most likely be a korean pro that aced through a NA qualifier is just silly.If we want foreign e-sports to grow we can't pick "the industry" favourites and go wtih it,we need to have more qualifiers if we want to stay relevant to the scene.
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I completely agree especially on the bit about region locked qualifiers. Its nearly impossible for a lesser known foreigner to get into a tournament with Koreans entering NA and EU quals which is especially true for those on the NA server. So many Koreans get into tournaments that way cause they can just face roll their way through decimating everything they come into contact with hence why you see those like MarineKingPrime qualifying for a huge tournament (I think homestory but im not sure) by going through the NA server cause it's just smarter to do since there will be littler resistance.
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you just made my day... you have touched my dreams...
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On January 25 2012 19:06 Omar91 wrote:
I for one stop playing because TvP is so fucking retarded, Collosus-Chargelots-Storm-FF made me rage quit the game, I was high diamond.
User was temp banned for this post.
Yet you're still gracing us with your presence. Go away.
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On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
TL;DR at the beginning because this is huge: foreign player pool is dying. Foreigners are going to stop existing in SC2 one day.
Alright guys, this is going to be long. So get ready. This is a post about where the SC2 community is headed and why, unless we make some drastic changes, our community as we know it will shrink substantially. In the last few weeks we’ve read tons of articles about foreign teams dropping their foreign players and picking up new Korean players. EG dropped Axslav/Strifecro and grabbed JYP, fnatic has dropped the majority of the roster and recently picked up Moon and this trend will definitely continue. It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners. So for a foreign team of course it makes sense to grab a Korean instead; it’s a no-brainer.
This is a necessity for the evolution of starcraft2 to a higher skill level, the strong survive the weak perish. There is nothing wrong with that.
On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
So what is the problem? It’s no secret that the best way to succeed with a tournament is to mix the following: top tier well known foreigners (IdrA, Huk, white-ra etc.), a few well known Koreans and a celebrity caster or two (day[9], totalbiscuit, etc.). You mix all of those elements and unless your show is a catastrophe, you will get viewer numbers. Thankfully for us, the celebrity casters aren’t going anywhere. We love day[9] and I like to think he loves us too. So he’s here as long as we are. Koreans obviously aren’t going anywhere. But the last element might.
At some point all progamers retire. Some have extremely long careers (ex. Grubby was a WC3 progamer for almost the entire existence of professional WC3) and others retire quickly (Creolophus was a WC3 progamer that made his mark in a single year and retired, similar to what Stephano intends on doing). At some point all progamers will retire. A sustainable e-sports model requires there be new progamers to replace them. This has always been an issue in e-sports. It is very common for progamers to retire with almost no one to replace them. This is simply because the barrier to entry gets steeper and steeper as a game develops (BW at the start was filled with noobs compared to the level of refinement from a Flash or Jaedong). So you can see why declining player numbers is a huge issue (especially since NA/EU are declining at a much faster rate). This is a large part of the reason why e-sports scene often die.
Wrong conclusion, this is the reason why the weaker player stop playing, you can't logically link "the e-sport scene dies" with "weaker player stop playing because they suck" (and the reason for no new replacement is because those up and comers are also weak)
On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:Of course this applies to both Korean and Foreign progamers but it is more of a concern for foreigners. The graph represents player numbers for each region since the games release (taken from sc2ranks). For those really curious, it’s divided by patch. Half a year ago, EU/NA had 3-4x as many players as the Korean server did; now all 3 servers are about equal. That’s astonishing when you think about it. The drop-off for Koreans is minimal compared to Foreigners. And there’s no reason this trend won’t continue.
This is the only piece of empirical data you have, and why you provide this data? could it be that you want to show there is a decline in player base in order to support your claim that e-sport is dying? What is e-sport? do you think the majority of those players that stop playing were potentially the next idra? If they had what it takes they would not have stop playing, it has nothing to do with what you are saying in the paragraph. the simplest explanation is usually the most sound one, and in this case, people just got bored and moved on, or simply stop playing ladder.
On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Let’s try to figure out why. First I’m going to paint you a picture of a Korean that is trying to go pro. He’ll start off a scrub; 4gating his way up the ladder. He’ll land in a lower league and slowly start working his way up. Along the way he has tangible goals; first to get into gold, then platinum, then diamond and finally masters. What happens then? He is ultra-motivated to quality for Code B. Code B represents ~ 1500 of the best Korean players on the ladder (which I believe is mid-high masters on the ladder). Once he finally reaches that plateau he can compete in the Code A qualifiers. He’s going to go to a huge LAN event and have a chance to play against players like Boxer and LosirA. How does that not motivate an individual? I might be playing Boxer next week. I’m going to fucking practice 24 hours a day until then. Once you’re at this level, you have a new goal. Now you want to be noticed by team coaches and players on ladder and maybe get yourself into a B-team house (like ProS). Hell, you might be good enough to skip a step and get straight into a proteam house. There are probably a hundred spots available and considering many players have multiple accounts, I’d venture to guess that anyone that is GM on the Korean ladder is skilled enough to belong in a team house. Now you’re playing in the big leagues. In the team house you’re practicing everyday and will keep going until you can finally beat MMA or DRG or whoever else is in your house.
What’s my point here? There are clear goals along the way. Motivation comes from having a goal. It’s impossible to motivate yourself without a goal. You know who succeeds when they want to lose weight? The guy that says I will lose 5 lbs in a month. Not the guy that says I’m going to lose a ton of weight brah (partially because the second guy sounds like an idiot).
What is this? your point is saying motivation is the only thing you need to succeed in the korean scene? Then try to figure out why as motivated as nestea and MvP, why did they have to quit bw? why? it is because as motivated as they are, their talents are out shined by even better people. Now you are trying to use this to make your claim that "e-sport is not dying" because "the koreans have motivation" so that you can follow up with your real motive in your original claim "e-sport is dying" because the foreigners have no motivation"
On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum: the life of a foreigner. I work my way up the ladder. I’m masters now fuck yea. I’m going to post this on reddit and be 23rd on the front page of r/Starcraft for about an hour. Sweet. Now what? Might as well keep laddering and get to GM. Awesome I’m GM now. It took forever but I’ve finally done it. You know how much karma this is going to get me on reddit? A ton. I’ll be right at the top for half a day! This seems facetious but it is actual reality. A high masters/low GM player on the NA (and to a lesser extent EU) server have no way of getting noticed. They have no tangible goals. Koreans know exactly what they need to do to get into Code B. They have a very real opportunity to get into a team house once they get there. Foreigners on the other hand have nothing. They have no clear avenue to get into progaming. It’s too much of a crapshoot on the foreigner side. It’s way harder to get noticed and even if you do, it’s so hard to actually get onto a foreign team or into a major tournament.
Let’s put this into perspective. Imagine you’re a GM player on the NA server. You’re not on a pro team but you’re pretty good. How do you get noticed? Streaming doesn’t do anything. No one watches players they don’t know. You’d get 5 viewers. Even players like Vibe have trouble breaking a few hundred viewers despite the fact that his stream is of epic quality (tons of commentary, awesome player). Someone once described streaming as feast or famine (I feel like it was Huk or Tyler on SOTG a long time ago) and that is 100% true.
The other option is to try and qualify for some major events. Let’s look at the leagues. IPL3 held online qualifiers, but they were filled with Koreans. The Koreans won the majority of the spots. The same idea was true for the NASL qualifiers. This pretty much holds true for any major event that holds qualifiers. Here’s an example. Let’s take GoSu.Gatored. He is an outstanding player. At IEM NYC he beat DRG, Top and went pretty damn far. How far can he get in MLG? Nowhere. His highest placing was 33rd and I doubt he’s had many (if any) streamed matches. How’d he do in IPL3? Can’t qualify. He is exactly the type of player that should be getting a ton more recognition than he currently is. Unless a player gets noticed he doesn’t provide any value to a team. But it is nearly impossible, in the game’s current state, to get noticed. See the dilemma?
Ya i see your dilemma, and it has nothing to do with the game's current state, it might have something to do with the current sc2 e-sport scene, where the people who are more skilled are in the spot lights. You are using examples of players who took a couple of series off the Koreans to equate skill, and deserving of recognition. Yes, Gatored deserve recognition for taking a game off DRG, just like IMMVP deserves recognition for taking a game off Flash back in the BW days, we don't see anyone whining about MVP didn't get enough recognition, therefore e-sport is dying.
On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
In my opinion, the state of the foreign scene is pretty bleak. Just take a long hard look at some of the tournament results. If you look at the foreign scene, it is the usual suspects in every event since release. The very first foreign SC2 tournament was IEM Cologne in 2010. Guess who the top 3 were? Morrow, IdrA and Dimaga. The entire player list is represents pretty much the top tier foreigner list to this date. But if you look at the Korean scene there are always new players popping up. There is much more turnover with new players developing, getting noticed and entering competitive. The motivation just isn’t there for foreigners because there is no clear way to get noticed. However there are ways to solve this though.
In my opinion, your opinion is deceptive and manipulative. You are trying to use premises that are not closely relating to your conclusion to make your conclusion convincing. But enough of talking about your opinion, beating a dead horse is no fun, let's talk about mine on this matter, so you can rebut and take your shot at me. In my opinion the scene should reward higher level of game play, spot lights the best players regardless of where they are from, that's what the viewers deserves, better game play. And if the only people who are able to bring this into my stream are the koreans players then they are the one we will cheer for. E-sport will die when people no longer value the highest quality of play by the best player, E-sport will not die because of low skilled players not getting any recognition and hence lose all motivation to improve.
On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. Of course that doesn’t solve the problem itself. The qualifiers need to be region locked. A NA qualifier should be for NA residents only. The NA qualifiers shouldn’t be won by 4 different Koreans. That defeats the purpose. Organizers need to start doing region-locked qualifiers for all 3 regions. This is part of the reason I love ESL. They get it. They’re doing exactly this. ESL is the reason a guy like Gatored has been noticed. He is a beastly player and got to display that at IEM NYC. Also to their credit, MLG seems to be progressing in this direction for 2012. Yes qualifiers are more work. But to run an open qualifier online, it really doesn’t take that much work. You can set it up on z33k or playhem or binarybeast or whatever and let the system automate it. You only need to invest an afternoon to admin the event (maybe 2-3 people if you have hundreds of signups). Trust me, I’ve personally admined events with hundreds of people and all it takes is an afternoon (+ whatever time you want to spend advertising). Korean qualifiers are a little more difficult (language barrier, advertising in Korea). But hopefully more organizations can adopt the Asus ROG/Korean Weekly model.
Now what can the community do? Let’s stop focusing 100% of our attention on a few select players. There are tons of streamers that are as good as some of the popular guys. Let’s also start branching out and watching some other events. Yes I’m from z33k and playhem is my mortal enemy (sarcasm) but watching their dailies does give some ROI for teams with players competing. It does give you, the viewers, a chance to see some of the lesser known players that are almost, if not, as good as some of the current pros.
Anyways, that’s it for now. It’s 4 am and I’m going to get to bed. I’ll respond to as many people as I can when I wake up.
you can rig the rules to let the lesser skilled player into big tournaments all you want, as long as they are not strong enough to take down the best in the end, the only one stands on top and in the spot lights will be the best player of that tournament. In my opinion, the better the player the higher quality of games i will watch in the streams, I want the best of the best from the first round to the last round of the tournament, i don't want to see one sided beat downs.
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Alott of this is also because of geography, Korea is a rather small country, with alott of gamers, alott of teams, US and EU cant compete with that.
In Korea its like 100000 SC2 gamers in Seoul... One city... Compare that too EU and US...
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TL;DR: If you guys want to reduce the drop rate, you should complain less and practice more. Unfortunately, that's impossible for all players, and unless foreign mentality changes, the game will keep on emptying.
In my humble opinion, the problem with the drop rate is balance.
Korean players don't really complain about balance as foreigners do. The problem with western culture is that people want the game to be won for them, without any effort on their part.
Take the GSL: we've seen a single Protoss winning 2 championships, and that was it for Protoss. The Protoss race can't seem to win anything these days and, when they do, it's because there were not enough good players around.
Foreigners, if I'm not mistaken, used to play Protoss a lot more than Terran or Zerg, whereas Koreans are mainly Terran players. There are a few reasons for that, of course, namely Lim Yo Hwan (BoxeR), Lee Yoon Yeol (NaDa), Lee Young Ho (Flash), Jung Myung Hoon (fantasy), Lee Jung Hoon (MarineKing/FakeBoxer). The guys whose name I've just written are LEGENDS and probably every single serious player in the world has already heard of them, know them or have watched them play. I, for one, as my nickname suggests, am a HUGE fan of BoxeR's, and I'm pretty sure many of you also fit in this category.
The second reason for Koreans to play Terran is that, in all honesty, the race is the strongest. You guys can ban me, can sue me, can do whatever the hell you want to me, but truth be told: Terran is by far the strongest race in Starcraft 2. Whereas Starcraft: Brood War required an actual amount of skill from players, thus making the game fairly balanced (if you're not Flash, that is), Starcraft 2 is just a macro game, where you need to gather resources, create a Ball of Death and roflstomp anyone, or be roflstomped if their Ball of Death is bigger than yours.
There is pretty much no room for micro in Starcraft 2. We've seen, time and time again, 'better' players losing because they focused too much on micro and forget to macro. In Brood War you needed BOTH micro and macro, but what REALLY made a difference (and opened the door for geniuses like BoxeR and NaDa) was the micro and mechanic skills the players had. BoxeR's macro, as everyone knows, is flawed and faaaaaaar from perfect. He is, nonetheless, the Emperor.
Foreigners don't like to macro, it seems. Playing macro is playing passively. You need a HUGE amount of APM to be able to macro and harass efficiently at the same time. Foreigners just don't have that kind of skill. Plus, what's more important, they DON'T WANT TO practice to have that kind of skill. We see people complaining all the time about how marines-marauders-roaches-mutas-colossi-chargelots are imbalanced. The more you ban the people saying that, the more you hide the main reason for the huge drop hate of foreigners: the game is flawed.
That's what you would think, right? The point is: Koreans KNOW that perfect balance is impossible to achieve, unless you're incredibly lucky. Koreans KNOW that Starcraft 2 isn't going to be balanced until 2 or 3 years AFTER the release of Legacy of the Void (or you guys think any Korean liked Stephano massing PURE ROACHES against Song Hyeon Deok [HerO] and Jang Min Chul [MC]?). MarineKing is famous for his infinite number of Marines, right? WRONG! He is famous and so loved because of his CONTROL of his infinite number of Marines.
We all know the game is flawed. The game's mechanics are essentially flawed (take warp-ins, and force fields for example), but that's not the point. The point is: Koreans don't whine about game balance. They understand the problems and advantages of each race, and they make the best they can with what they can. In fact, Koreans avoid talking about game balance, because they understand there is nothing to be done, but to play to the best of their ability, so Blizzard will understand where they did wrong and fix it.
If you don't play to the best of your ability, how can you complain about game balance?
The foreign mindset is simple: if the game isn't fun, I'm not playing it anymore. And who the fuck likes to lose, unless they're masochistic?
Foreigners look at e-sports as a way to have fun. It is, essentially, entertainment. First of all because foreigners can't make a living out of e-sports, unless they're already rich. Or you guys think that foreign pro-players were poor like Kim Won Ki (FruitDealer) or Jung Jong Hyun (Mvp)?
Plus, foreigners don't feel the need to present results as Koreans do. I am still at a loss as to why "players" like IdrA, Incontrol and DeMuslim (to name a few) are so loved by the foreign community, since they can't seem to do any good.
So, as long as foreign players look at e-sports as fun, and not as a job or a way to make a living (which is impossible, due to foreign culture, which praises football more than anything, it seems) they will keep on dropping games like Starcraft 2.
To keep people playing this game, Blizzard Entertainment would need to even things out. If you get the numbers, you'll see that Zerg is the least played race, and even so they have 4 combined GSL championships (Lim Jae Duk has 3 and Kim Won Ki has 1), whereas Protoss has 10% more players (it is a lot, when it comes to a game) and only 2 championships. Terran and Protoss have essentially the same number of players, and yet people call this game TerranCraft for a reason: Terran has 6 GSL championships and 8 GSL runner-ups (as well as 15 3rd places).
Like I said before, Koreans get mad at such "imbalanced" numbers, but they don't get "dismotivated" (if such a word exists) by that: they play the race they've chosen, and they try to find ways around the inherent flaws in each game. Foreigners, on the other hand, will simply drop e-sports regarding them as 'just a game' or even 'this shit is broken, fuck it".
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to write such a huge wall of text, but I felt the urge to =X
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tl;dr: The current numbers on SC2Ranks are only for the first month of season 5, while all of the previous patches are each snapshots from 3-4 months into previous seasons.
I think that the data that the OP is using is based off a flawed understanding of how SC2Ranks works. SC2Ranks takes data from the current season, not the current patch. What this means is that if you have not qualified for the current season in a certain league, then you will not appear on SC2Ranks. Yes, they do have data from old patches, but that is just a snapshot from the day the patches ended. These snapshots were taken from the middle of seasons one to three which were each four to six months long meaning that we had months worth of people who played just enough to qualify but then never touched ladder again. Now, the only people who are showing up are people who have qualified for season 5, no one who qualified during season 4 (which was during this current patch) but hasn't played since is going to be shown. So the numbers haven't necessarily fallen down as much as they appear (from ~670k in 1v1 during patch 1.4.1 to currently ~225k in 1v1); we just have far fewer people accumulating through the months to boost up the numbers. Remember that patch 1.4.1 was in existance for the entirety of the four month long season 3. The current number of people shown now have only been accumulating over less than a month. I remember that near the end of season 4, there were about 400k people in 1v1 after only two months of accumulation, so these numbers will definitely rise as the season progresses.
Now, these numbers on SC2Ranks say nothing about how dedicated these players are, but I just wanted to point out that the drawing sweeping conclusions from just taking pure numbers from SC2Ranks is acting on a flawed concept.
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I think the problem isn't at the top, it is at the bottom. All pro sports have a foundation starting from when we are children (little league baseball for example). There needs to be many more tournaments for beginners and players who just do not have the time to put into getting better. The current SC scene heavily favors only the top players and with the lack of a competitive scene before you are top masters there are too many players left out of the mix. We need to grow our players from the bottom up.
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Like IdrA said, electronic sports, and especially Starcraft 2, requires total devotion and nearly life abandon in order to hope to become a pro. Some manage to succeed, some fail miserably after leaving school etc... and waste their youth, and most people don't want to do it because the reward is non existent.
In Korea the stars are so popular that a lot of young ppl might find it worthy to become pro but don't forget the huge mass of players who waste their youth, their future life, for a game in which they will never become pros. This is huge.
The problem with electronic sports is the "electronic" word. With no borders, people have the ability to chose who they watch and support them, and naturally, they will chose the bests one.
Look at the stream views : ppl like Stephano, Kas, MMA, etc... will have thousands of viewers. Other guys get nothing and this will never change because it s directly wired to the core of spectators.
How do a soccer team gets money ?
- People coming in their stadiums
- Investors and Business Angels
- Advertisement
- Television fees goes to leagues and not to players
There are no stadiums in e-sport, and most importantly, teams belong to nowhere. Local people would support their local soccer team because they belong here. It is not the fact in esports. Nobody gives a real shit about that.
Without money, there is no place for the "good players but not good enough to be in the world top domination"... So who can really dare to cancel their social life, professionnal life, school life, for something where nobody gets a future ?
The main issue for the scene is money. We need more cash flowing in esports, for teams and players, not only leagues, and for a larger amount of players.
And this is difficult, because there are no borders for any fan, and not a lot of "shows" where you can go on a regular basis and enjoy more than a stream...
Sport money came first with stadiums, and also because investors found it fun to have their players, etc...
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Idk, I was really motivated to get into masters since I was bronze. I worked my way up the ladder, going through each league just like you said the koreans were doing. But once I got into masters, I realized I'm not good enough to enter tournaments and do well, so that really killed the whole feeling for me. I thought "omg, masters is top 2% of the server! I can enter tournaments and be a beast!" then you actually get there and realize you have to practice just as hard if not harder to get into even high masters, not even GM.
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On January 26 2012 00:00 SonOfBoxer wrote:+ Show Spoiler +TL;DR: If you guys want to reduce the drop rate, you should complain less and practice more. Unfortunately, that's impossible for all players, and unless foreign mentality changes, the game will keep on emptying.
In my humble opinion, the problem with the drop rate is balance.
Korean players don't really complain about balance as foreigners do. The problem with western culture is that people want the game to be won for them, without any effort on their part.
Take the GSL: we've seen a single Protoss winning 2 championships, and that was it for Protoss. The Protoss race can't seem to win anything these days and, when they do, it's because there were not enough good players around.
Foreigners, if I'm not mistaken, used to play Protoss a lot more than Terran or Zerg, whereas Koreans are mainly Terran players. There are a few reasons for that, of course, namely Lim Yo Hwan (BoxeR), Lee Yoon Yeol (NaDa), Lee Young Ho (Flash), Jung Myung Hoon (fantasy), Lee Jung Hoon (MarineKing/FakeBoxer). The guys whose name I've just written are LEGENDS and probably every single serious player in the world has already heard of them, know them or have watched them play. I, for one, as my nickname suggests, am a HUGE fan of BoxeR's, and I'm pretty sure many of you also fit in this category.
The second reason for Koreans to play Terran is that, in all honesty, the race is the strongest. You guys can ban me, can sue me, can do whatever the hell you want to me, but truth be told: Terran is by far the strongest race in Starcraft 2. Whereas Starcraft: Brood War required an actual amount of skill from players, thus making the game fairly balanced (if you're not Flash, that is), Starcraft 2 is just a macro game, where you need to gather resources, create a Ball of Death and roflstomp anyone, or be roflstomped if their Ball of Death is bigger than yours.
There is pretty much no room for micro in Starcraft 2. We've seen, time and time again, 'better' players losing because they focused too much on micro and forget to macro. In Brood War you needed BOTH micro and macro, but what REALLY made a difference (and opened the door for geniuses like BoxeR and NaDa) was the micro and mechanic skills the players had. BoxeR's macro, as everyone knows, is flawed and faaaaaaar from perfect. He is, nonetheless, the Emperor.
Foreigners don't like to macro, it seems. Playing macro is playing passively. You need a HUGE amount of APM to be able to macro and harass efficiently at the same time. Foreigners just don't have that kind of skill. Plus, what's more important, they DON'T WANT TO practice to have that kind of skill. We see people complaining all the time about how marines-marauders-roaches-mutas-colossi-chargelots are imbalanced. The more you ban the people saying that, the more you hide the main reason for the huge drop hate of foreigners: the game is flawed.
That's what you would think, right? The point is: Koreans KNOW that perfect balance is impossible to achieve, unless you're incredibly lucky. Koreans KNOW that Starcraft 2 isn't going to be balanced until 2 or 3 years AFTER the release of Legacy of the Void (or you guys think any Korean liked Stephano massing PURE ROACHES against Song Hyeon Deok [HerO] and Jang Min Chul [MC]?). MarineKing is famous for his infinite number of Marines, right? WRONG! He is famous and so loved because of his CONTROL of his infinite number of Marines.
We all know the game is flawed. The game's mechanics are essentially flawed (take warp-ins, and force fields for example), but that's not the point. The point is: Koreans don't whine about game balance. They understand the problems and advantages of each race, and they make the best they can with what they can. In fact, Koreans avoid talking about game balance, because they understand there is nothing to be done, but to play to the best of their ability, so Blizzard will understand where they did wrong and fix it.
If you don't play to the best of your ability, how can you complain about game balance?
The foreign mindset is simple: if the game isn't fun, I'm not playing it anymore. And who the fuck likes to lose, unless they're masochistic?
Foreigners look at e-sports as a way to have fun. It is, essentially, entertainment. First of all because foreigners can't make a living out of e-sports, unless they're already rich. Or you guys think that foreign pro-players were poor like Kim Won Ki (FruitDealer) or Jung Jong Hyun (Mvp)?
Plus, foreigners don't feel the need to present results as Koreans do. I am still at a loss as to why "players" like IdrA, Incontrol and DeMuslim (to name a few) are so loved by the foreign community, since they can't seem to do any good.
So, as long as foreign players look at e-sports as fun, and not as a job or a way to make a living (which is impossible, due to foreign culture, which praises football more than anything, it seems) they will keep on dropping games like Starcraft 2.
To keep people playing this game, Blizzard Entertainment would need to even things out. If you get the numbers, you'll see that Zerg is the least played race, and even so they have 4 combined GSL championships (Lim Jae Duk has 3 and Kim Won Ki has 1), whereas Protoss has 10% more players (it is a lot, when it comes to a game) and only 2 championships. Terran and Protoss have essentially the same number of players, and yet people call this game TerranCraft for a reason: Terran has 6 GSL championships and 8 GSL runner-ups (as well as 15 3rd places).
Like I said before, Koreans get mad at such "imbalanced" numbers, but they don't get "dismotivated" (if such a word exists) by that: they play the race they've chosen, and they try to find ways around the inherent flaws in each game. Foreigners, on the other hand, will simply drop e-sports regarding them as 'just a game' or even 'this shit is broken, fuck it".
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to write such a huge wall of text, but I felt the urge to =X
Your post started promising, but everything went downhill really fast :[
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As Idra said, if your good enough you'll be spotted. So get entering those daily / weekly cups and if your winning those, then you'll probably make headway. That's how Nerchio got noticed, being an online cup monster.
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I think there's also the psychological factor behind the invitationals as well. Allow me to explain, using a nightclub analogy.
Everyone who's a "nobody" is forced to line-up allow the wall outside the nightclub(even when the club is nowhere near packed), and the VIP's simply walk up to the bouncer, and slip right under the ropes. This does several things:
- builds the desire to be like those VIP's. Not stand outside in the cold, freezing your backside off
- builds exclusivity and emphasizes the divide between the social "haves" and "have-nots".
The only true way for a "nobody" to become a VIP, is to be a regular customer(who the nightclub profits off of in some obvious way, whether you blow tons of $$$ on the drinks, or you have the ability to attract more business to the club, in a consistent manner. Or *groan* you know someone on the inside).
So about the invitational thing. Let's think in terms of the event organizers. There are very clear gains associated with targeting known players like IdrA, Huk, who are "name brand" people that everyone knows about. Just those names alone will guarantee you a revenue stream. You need these players to build the sheer numbers. Remember Jinro vs IdrA from way back(Gorilla vs Gracken)? That was awesome, and we need more stuff like that.
This is why I feel the smaller online cup type event can benefit from a slight change in the format - make it just a pseudo-invitational something like this:
KOTH format where anyone from X league X rank may join(up to a maximum of X players, based on the organizer's timeframe etc). KOTH proceeds as per normal, then...
The "king" of the hill then...must face off against the "final boss" in a BO3 - let's just say IdrA. Have some fancy graphics of a gigantic monster guarding the cave of riches, with the shadowy silhouette(representing the player) approaching.
This accomplishes multiple goals:
- gives "no names" a chance to make a name for themselves
- guarantees viewers the chance to see an established pro at the end
- builds up a sense of momentum...who...in this rag tag group will make to the top? Can he truly take out the Gracken?
- good source of revenue for the organizers
- exposure for the pro
As far as prize pool is concerned - there are almost endless possibilities available and one possible suggestion would be:
- assuming total bucket of $1000
- pro gets $300 for his time automatically(incentive and due to him being on standby) - gains another $400 if he wins
- king of the hill gets $300, but to win another $400, he has to defeat the pro
So it's a tug-of-war between who gets that $400. Again this is just an example.
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On January 26 2012 00:00 SonOfBoxer wrote:
TL;DR: If you guys want to reduce the drop rate, you should complain less and practice more. Unfortunately, that's impossible for all players, and unless foreign mentality changes, the game will keep on emptying.
Telling players that they have to practice more will only increase the drop rate. Not many people want to work, they want to have fun. Right now the community constantly puts pressure on its players to improve and play like the pros. This needs to be changed if we want to continue to have more players enter the scene. We need many more casual players and we need to grow that scene. Its the casual players who will eventually turn into the pros one day.
In my humble opinion, the problem with the drop rate is balance.
In my opinion, balance has no effect on the far majority of SC2 players.
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On January 25 2012 23:03 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based. how do you think i got that chance to develop? i ignored school and didnt have a social life for 2 years in order to win a tournament and move to korea at 18 to sit in a house and play starcraft1 with 0 return for another 3 years huk played sc2 all day on a shitty computer during the beta when there was no money in it and did everything he could to get to korea and then spent a year+ practicing in a korean house. most a team pros dont make salaries in korea. none of the b teamers do, the bottom of the barrel doesnt get to live in the house, they just get the priviledge of playing with the team if theyre good enough for people to want to practice with them. you have to sacrifice pretty much everything while you're on your way up. koreans are better because hundreds of them are willing to do it, a handful of nonkoreans are.
Exactly my thoughts. Granted, BW has its lead due time and culture, but many forget that this heritage had initially to be built upon sweat, blood and tears for the most part. One of the root problems is simply interest. Even for a country like KR there is hardly enough of it to support any basic level of organization. E-sports of all genres has been a "passion project" since its beginning and won't change any time soon. Companies are barely breaking even, let alone make money. Everyone is selling a product, be it a show, a tournament, a team or a player. There is no way to circumvent the prerequisite of hard work, the ability of providing something interesting and a fair chunk of luck.
Many people like to dwell in that gold-rush feeling of being involved in times of changes that has coincided with SC2. Sociological changes and improvements in technology and communication are redefining business models. But at the end of the day there is still not enough money for all the nice things we wish to have, period. It took established industries decades of development to finally acquire working models out of online businesses.
One can ask for streamlining the scene. It would have the side-effect of providing opportunities for newcomers, along with overall increase in efficiency. But it won't change the fact of money being finite. Maybe Gatored simply doesn't provide the amount of ROI needed for teams to hire him. Other industries are able to support many levels of the food chain because of an abundance of funding- SC2 is not there.
The OP wishes for a sustainable middle-class. His proposal includes legitimate solutions. But protectionism is not one of them. I do like the different philosophies behind both the Champions League and the World Cup. Both the NBA and the Olympic Games in Basketball. But I don't wish for either of them to become predominant. Multilateral competition is a nice "gimmick" for special occasions so to say, but the bottom line of day-to-day business is still the fundamental idea of free competition and finding the best. No national sports league is banning foreigners to be part in, there are thriving international transfer markets. Should one region be interested in also curating its own scene? Absolutely. But that is a different matter. NA already has the Collegiate Star League. Each NA, EU and KR already have their own weekly cups. OP is right in the goal of generating more interest in and supporting existing structures. To be able to raise interest, cooperation and mutual support can be a measure to add legitimacy, possible paths to publicity for both the tournament and the participating players. Your "path" of a pro gamer can very well start with the CSL, gain seasonal points via online cups and finish with a seed in one of the major tournaments. But that is a question of cooperation and efficiency between organizers.
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On January 25 2012 18:58 Ribbon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
The graph represents player numbers for each region since the games release (taken from sc2ranks). For those really curious, it’s divided by patch. Half a year ago, EU/NA had 3-4x as many players as the Korean server did; now all 3 servers are about equal. That’s astonishing when you think about it. The drop-off for Koreans is minimal compared to Foreigners. And there’s no reason this trend won’t continue. http://xkcd.com/605/That's a GIGANTIC fucking assumption you just made. Here's an alternative theory: Each region has around 100k really hardcore people. Casual fans are dropping off (which is why the leagues are getting more exclusive), and Korea just never really had a large casual SC2 scene. Is that the correct theory? Dunno. It is equally as plausible as extrapolating? More so, since there's at least anecdotal evidence, which is slightly better than no evidence.
This.
This graph can be interperted in a million ways, I doubt foreigners will die completely.
If we take a look at tournaments, well then Korea only has 1 major sc2 tournament while the foreign scene has multiple like NASL, IEM, MLG, etc.
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On January 25 2012 23:32 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 23:10 BrosephBrostar wrote:On January 25 2012 23:03 IdrA wrote:On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based. how do you think i got that chance to develop? i ignored school and didnt have a social life for 2 years in order to win a tournament and move to korea at 18 to sit in a house and play starcraft1 with 0 return for another 3 years huk played sc2 all day on a shitty computer during the beta when there was no money in it and did everything he could to get to korea and then spent a year+ practicing in a korean house. most a team pros dont make salaries in korea. none of the b teamers do, the bottom of the barrel doesnt get to live in the house, they just get the priviledge of playing with the team if theyre good enough for people to want to practice with them. you have to sacrifice pretty much everything while you're on your way up. koreans are better because hundreds of them are willing to do it, a handful of nonkoreans are. I think the point is that you both took advantage of the Korean system to get where you are now. Maybe I don't understand the situation well enough but it doesn't seem like western teams are offering the kind of opportunity you got with estro and cj. Does EG have unsalaried practice partners that you play with who could possibly work their way up to full members? i gave up a ton to get to korea. its much much easier to get to korea and take advantage of that system now. but except for a very few, everyone who comes leaves again after a couple months. people just dont put in the effort. they dont deserve to be succesful. Show nested quote +edit: On January 25 2012 23:07 IdrA wrote:On January 25 2012 22:48 BrosephBrostar wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. Think of the difference in skill between effort and the worst B-teamer you can remember. Do you really think EG would go out of their way to hire someone that far below yourself? they didnt hire them. most of the time that person stopped going to school and paid to live in a practice house. if he did well enough there the owners of the practice house would take him to a group tryout where he got a handful of games to impress the cj coaches. if he managed to do that he'd be allowed to became an online practice partner or if he did really, really fuckin well he could live in the house for free. so if some unknown was really impressive would scoots let him move into the eg house? what about all the other non-Korean teams that don't even have houses? that just devolves into quibbling about what counts as impressive. yes, but there arent unknown foreigners who would qualify as impressive. as morrow said its incredibly easy to get known outside of korea if you're actually good. theres tons of tournaments that top players dont play. if you're good enough to be on that level you should be winning those.
Well also theres a grand total of NA teams with team houses, EG and RGN, so if your goal is a team house I think it is harder to make it in the foreign scene than in korea, although RGN probably isn't that difficult.
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I'm pretty sure the decrease in players has nothing to do with viewership which seems to be growing steadily. Viewership is what makes progamers able to live their lives in the west, so in conclusion, Nobody is going to retire when they can make money playing video games for an audience. The drop off in LADDER PLAYERS is not really a big concern.
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On January 25 2012 18:58 Ribbon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
The graph represents player numbers for each region since the games release (taken from sc2ranks). For those really curious, it’s divided by patch. Half a year ago, EU/NA had 3-4x as many players as the Korean server did; now all 3 servers are about equal. That’s astonishing when you think about it. The drop-off for Koreans is minimal compared to Foreigners. And there’s no reason this trend won’t continue. http://xkcd.com/605/That's a GIGANTIC fucking assumption you just made. Here's an alternative theory: Each region has around 100k really hardcore people. Casual fans are dropping off (which is why the leagues are getting more exclusive), and Korea just never really had a large casual SC2 scene. Is that the correct theory? Dunno. It is equally as plausible as extrapolating? More so, since there's at least anecdotal evidence, which is slightly better than no evidence.
Rofl, wow that's an impeccably well played link.
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Foreigners should not be picked up and given a chance if they aren't actually that good. Obviously its a lot to expect someone to be good enough to take down top-tier koreans at a tournament and get noticed, but at the same time, those top-tier koreans didn't become top-tier by placing 30th in a tournament, getting picked up by a team and then become the player they are today. People become noticed by winning things and if you can't do it, tough luck. I do agree however, that tournaments should be less invite-based. Players should have the chance to be noticed by qualifying, but they shouldn't be give any more opportunity than that.
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most fans in sc2 are foreigner fans, foreigner fans like foreign players. just like Korean fans probably prefer korean players. its natural. the closer u feel to the player the more fun it is to watch the games no?
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it seems that the foreing pro gamers always seem to be the same 'ol people.never changing. Koreans we see players rise and fall quickly as well.... but outside korea its all the same players from my knowledge that are known.
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On January 26 2012 00:35 Naniwa wrote:
most fans in sc2 are foreigner fans, foreigner fans like foreign players. just like Korean fans probably prefer korean players. its natural. the closer u feel to the player the more fun it is to watch the games no?
Yes, definitely.
Kiwikaki FTW! T'es #1 dans mon coeur.
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On January 26 2012 00:05 steelcurtain09 wrote:
tl;dr: The current numbers on SC2Ranks are only for the first month of season 5, while all of the previous patches are each snapshots from 3-4 months into previous seasons.
I think that the data that the OP is using is based off a flawed understanding of how SC2Ranks works. SC2Ranks takes data from the current season, not the current patch. What this means is that if you have not qualified for the current season in a certain league, then you will not appear on SC2Ranks. Yes, they do have data from old patches, but that is just a snapshot from the day the patches ended. These snapshots were taken from the middle of seasons one to three which were each four to six months long meaning that we had months worth of people who played just enough to qualify but then never touched ladder again. Now, the only people who are showing up are people who have qualified for season 5, no one who qualified during season 4 (which was during this current patch) but hasn't played since is going to be shown. So the numbers haven't necessarily fallen down as much as they appear (from ~670k in 1v1 during patch 1.4.1 to currently ~225k in 1v1); we just have far fewer people accumulating through the months to boost up the numbers. Remember that patch 1.4.1 was in existance for the entirety of the four month long season 3. The current number of people shown now have only been accumulating over less than a month. I remember that near the end of season 4, there were about 400k people in 1v1 after only two months of accumulation, so these numbers will definitely rise as the season progresses.
Now, these numbers on SC2Ranks say nothing about how dedicated these players are, but I just wanted to point out that the drawing sweeping conclusions from just taking pure numbers from SC2Ranks is acting on a flawed concept.
Exactly this, basing your assumptions on team houses, foreigners having no goals, no new foreign stars etc on a flawed interpretation of the player graph just adds no credibility to your post. Looking at the league distribution you can actually see that in EU and US, master and diamond players are gaining a bigger percentage relative to the total player pool. The only thing this says is there are less and less new players starting to play SC2, which can be expected for an almost 2 years old game. It's true that there are less overall players, but that has been the case for most seasons when you look at the stats mid season.
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On January 26 2012 00:19 D_K_night wrote:
I think there's also the psychological factor behind the invitationals as well. Allow me to explain, using a nightclub analogy.
Everyone who's a "nobody" is forced to line-up allow the wall outside the nightclub(even when the club is nowhere near packed), and the VIP's simply walk up to the bouncer, and slip right under the ropes. This does several things:
- builds the desire to be like those VIP's. Not stand outside in the cold, freezing your backside off
I don't know whether I am alone with this opinion, but whenever I see an invitational, depending on what players were invited (and in that case I tend to look at the worst player of that lineup), I am more inklined to think "oh great, another tournament which priotizes popularity over skill".
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Nothing surprising for the popularity of the game decreasing in NA/EU; players who really enjoy the game stick with it and the players that left got bored with the game and move on to another title !
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It is harder to set up a team house here because the players are living in different country! In SK it is quite small compared ,so easier to get the house set up and get best practice session!
Also, this game is hard and going pro requires tons of games!
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Koreans ...
lol, i thought this is a joke, unfortunately it's not... :/
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if your not a competitive person which most people aren't ladder starts to get boring and uninteresting, people are just waiting for new content.
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being one of those GM streamers who gets a depressing amount of viewers and gets knocked out of the NA playhem by [insert korean here] every single day, i can 100% agree with this post. doomsville's thoughts match my experiences perfectly xD
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On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners.
I'm gonna cherrypick something I found silly. Did you know Code A Koreans are better than the majority of Korean players as well? To end a paragraph with such a lousy point diminishes your validity greatly.
You do bring up some facts, but there are numerous flaws in your logic throughout your post (imo).
Also the high amount of attention given to the top players work as an incentive for lesser known players to keep working hard so they can be the top player one day.
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Assuming your graphs are correct, it makes sense that there would be a huge swell in EU and the Americas which would then drop off. Most of the people I know will buy, or at least be interested in new games. So you get massive player numbers. SC2, however. is not like most games. Playing the average FPS, you can get better simply by playing and learning the maps. You might never be top tier, but you can improve by playing. If you only play SC2, you will get a little better, to a point. After that. you actually need to study builds, and practice specific strategies. This will ultimately turn off people who just bought the game because it was the new thing. The player numbers then drop, leaving only those who are really interested in improving. The situation in Korea is different, because the scene is so big there, that generally players knew what they were getting in to before the game came out.
I think that this is natural, and the diminished player numbers just mean that only the dedicated remain.
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On January 25 2012 19:17 red4ce wrote:
Wow I didn't know the foreign player base was shrinking so fast.Hopefully HoTS brings most of these people back. Honestly though I don't think the casual player base has much of an effect on the proscene. Even back when SC2 was more popular, almost all of our top pros came from Brood War or WC3. If you compare the Korean under-18 team vs the foreigner under-18 team, both of which consist mainly of players new to progaming, the gap looks as big as it was in Brood War.
You do need some kind of casual scene; otherwise, there won't be any influx of new blood. Players from SC1 or WC3 are just as likely to retire as to switch to SC2. And they won't have the shelf-life of newer players.
What you never want to have is the stigma that a game is dead. Once a game is believed to be dead, casuals avoid it like the plague.
HotS will bring back a lot of players. But most of them will leave just as quickly. Not everyone wants to pick up a game and stick with it for years. And that is as it should be.
Hardcore competitive play isn't for everyone.
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.. so there are only 500 k people playing this game somewhat actively?
.. or am i reading something wrong?
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First, I already agree with the previous criticisms:
1) the silly extrapolation
2) the more plausible alternative explanation about casual fanbase being the source of your data
3) the fact that foreigners have online cups as their "motivation"
In my opinion, the state of the foreign scene is pretty bleak. Just take a long hard look at some of the tournament results. If you look at the foreign scene, it is the usual suspects in every event since release. The very first foreign SC2 tournament was IEM Cologne in 2010. Guess who the top 3 were? Morrow, IdrA and Dimaga. The entire player list is represents pretty much the top tier foreigner list to this date. But if you look at the Korean scene there are always new players popping up. There is much more turnover with new players developing, getting noticed and entering competitive. The motivation just isn’t there for foreigners because there is no clear way to get noticed. However there are ways to solve this though.
I disagree severely with the OP's opinion. No, Morrow, Idra, and Dimaga do not represent the top tier foreigner list. Kas, Nerchio, Stephano, Huk, Naniwa, and ThorZain round up the top of the foreigners - none of those names listed had much of a presence around that period in IEM Cologne. Kas and Nerchio are notable for their rise through online qualifiers.
A lot more tournaments also use qualifiers than you assume. IEM, IPL, MLG, ESWC, WCG, and Dreamhack all involved either qualifiers or open brackets as part of their tournament. Some of these tournaments have also featured the appearance. of foreigners not well known, such as Gatored.
Additionally, it seems like you haven't read that very well authored article that TL recently featured regarding the IPL team league (which really is a shame, it's an amazing article). Team leagues are another way to get lesser known players into the scene, and the rise of both the NASTL/IPLAC team leagues are signs of a bright future. Already, Vile has made its stamp with its qualifier and wins over Korean teams, giving exposure to lesser known players [who might I add, aren't completely unknown, but too, received some acclaim via tournaments like MLG with open brackets].
So no, your doomsday naysaying doesn't make any sense - all signs considered, things are looking pretty cheery.
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It's pretty simple...if foreigners want to get noticed they need to play better. I realize that the infrastructure isn't as established in the foreigner scene for getting players into a team house with regular practice partners, but that excuse is just that, an excuse. A real competitor would overcome it.
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On January 26 2012 00:53 JustPassingBy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 00:19 D_K_night wrote:
I think there's also the psychological factor behind the invitationals as well. Allow me to explain, using a nightclub analogy.
Everyone who's a "nobody" is forced to line-up allow the wall outside the nightclub(even when the club is nowhere near packed), and the VIP's simply walk up to the bouncer, and slip right under the ropes. This does several things:
- builds the desire to be like those VIP's. Not stand outside in the cold, freezing your backside off
I don't know whether I am alone with this opinion, but whenever I see an invitational, depending on what players were invited (and in that case I tend to look at the worst player of that lineup), I am more inklined to think "oh great, another tournament which priotizes popularity over skill".
that's fine, another thing to ask ourselves is, where did this popularity come from? Did this person know someone on the inside? Why is this person "popular"? Is it from their ability to sell themselves? Their looks?
It kinda goes back to just about any social circle. Why are some people always continually tops on the invite list, whereas the others are just filler or there if the VIP's drop out? I think it's human nature, in the case of a tournament, there are business reasons we all know about as well.
That's why in my previous post here, I believe my solution helps everyone concerned.
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On January 25 2012 19:16 xrapture wrote:
Sc2 is just too hard. Why play SC2 when there is a myriad of easy games. New players play for a little and are put off. There's really no reason to play a game with such a steep learning curve and most players in the foreign scene probably don't know that pro SC players exist.
I see the trend continuing. Even myself, a master's player, have found myself thinking, "eh fuck it. I'll just play MW3 or Skyrim isntead-- SC is too stressful." Video games are for entertainment, not stress.
I'm pretty sure it just got too boring for a lot of people.Also every game can be stressful but most of the times you make it so.
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I really don't know what you're getting at. Shouldn't there be gains if koreans come to teamhouses and knocks out the leechers? Shouldn't a mix of fresh foreign blood and good disciplined koreans be good for the foreign teams? I don't really care for any foreigner because it just doesn't feel like they can compete with the best koreans and that's why i don't really care for smalltime tournaments that don't invite the best of the best.
Sure sometimes a unknown player can do really well against a korean, like your example, Gatored. Yet there's lots and lots more examples where NA/EU players get completely demolished by koreans. Providing more slots to EU/US players lowers any tournament level of play. It's not even debatable.
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The shrinking player base trend is nothing new. It's the shelf-life and Blizzard already addressed this by announcing 2 expansions to try and prolong the game's life more.
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On January 26 2012 01:15 Vicarios wrote:
.. so there are only 500 k people playing this game somewhat actively?
.. or am i reading something wrong?
No, its probably way less!
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On January 26 2012 01:24 Aela wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 01:15 Vicarios wrote:
.. so there are only 500 k people playing this game somewhat actively?
.. or am i reading something wrong? No, its probably way less!
Actually it's probably alot more, the 500k doesn't account for the 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and customs players.
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On January 26 2012 00:19 drgoats wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 00:00 SonOfBoxer wrote:
TL;DR: If you guys want to reduce the drop rate, you should complain less and practice more. Unfortunately, that's impossible for all players, and unless foreign mentality changes, the game will keep on emptying.
Telling players that they have to practice more will only increase the drop rate. Not many people want to work, they want to have fun. Right now the community constantly puts pressure on its players to improve and play like the pros. This needs to be changed if we want to continue to have more players enter the scene. We need many more casual players and we need to grow that scene. Its the casual players who will eventually turn into the pros one day. In my opinion, balance has no effect on the far majority of SC2 players.
Im not so sure about the secong part of your post. I i think that it's not really a question about balance, but it might be about the percieved balance from the individual. It's a frustrating game, and if you get frustrated it's easy to blame the game for your own shortcomings ("that race is fucking stupid"), and maybe in the end you will grow tired and start playing less and less.
Though i find it interesting about the what you said about how people will quit because they want to play casual, and i agree. I think part of the problem is the ladder system as it is now. Blizzard has the current ladder system (with MMR and divisions) so that "everyone are gonna win an equal amount of matches". I.e. not get bashed to pieces as soon as you log in. Then there is division to measure your progress.
The thing is, no one really cares about how many games they win. Sure, no one likes to get completely bashed 10/10 games, but waht people really care about is what division they're in. They're not gonna feel good about themselves if they win 5 or 6 games out of 10 if they're still in bronze. What blizzard needs to do is replace this system (or implement another system) that rewards ACTIVITY. That's how you build an addictive game that people can't stop playing. People don't care about challenging themselves or getting better, all they care about is to have something pretty besides their name. That's why every MMORPG (yes wow) works. Doesn't need to be really fun (i guess that's subjective), it can be super monotone, but as long as there is a reward for activity people are gonna keep logging in.
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That's why we need a KESPA. Without synchronized actions, the biggies won't stop inviting Koreans. The reasoning is as follows:
Having a tourney with a lot of unknowns will benefit the ESPORT in the long run, but in the short horizon it will definitely negatively impacted the viewership. It's a prisoners' dilemma: everyone knows we NEED to do it, but anyone who DOES it will benefit others and harm self.
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On January 26 2012 01:32 mcgriffin wrote:
That's why we need a KESPA. Without synchronized actions, the biggies won't stop inviting Koreans. The reasoning is as follows:
Having a tourney with a lot of unknowns will benefit the ESPORT in the long run, but in the short horizon it will definitely negatively impacted the viewership. It's a prisoners' dilemma: everyone knows we NEED to do it, but anyone who DOES it will benefit others and harm self.
SC2 isn't big enough to have large tournaments with unknowns. There's just about enough to keep tournaments running while feeding the few famous players as it is. Even being a BW pro in korea isn't really worthwhile unless you're part of the few greats.
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i think this post is only looks at 1v1 players there are tons of people who plays starcraft but just not 1v1, customs 2v2-4v4 etc. i once played guy on custom that had 5k custom games played 0 ladders games. so i think that most of the "casuals" are just waiting for hots, started playing teamgames or customs. sure ppl have quited but that is to be expected and 500k ppl playing 1v1 games is alot imo
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I'm convinced that if there actually are no foreign pros, there will be no SC2 scene. What they have in korea isn't large enough to really sustain a healthy scene. There is pretty much just 1 tourney in kroea.
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On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based.
WOOSH, you miss the point still. Korean amateurs trying to get on teams don't have any better infrastructure than anyone else. The only thing they have available to them is battlenet, just like everyone else. If you think training on Korean servers when you're a mid masters player is a huge advantage idk what to say. Idra wasn't even talking about B team players, he was talking about complete amateur no names without teams, which, this entire thread was about.
On January 26 2012 01:49 TORTOISE wrote:
I'm convinced that if there actually are no foreign pros, there will be no SC2 scene. What they have in korea isn't large enough to really sustain a healthy scene. There is pretty much just 1 tourney in kroea.
Probably not, but the SC2 scene couldn't survive without Korea either. Korea vs. foreigner storyline draws in a lot of viewers.
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I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like  Purple,  StuntR &  Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like Devil, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
Anyway, the league finals were won by Beastyqt, I player I have been casting since 2010.
So even if you want to create something to motivate the players, in the end you will not succeed because the viewers will not be interested.
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On January 26 2012 01:27 skyrunner wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 00:19 drgoats wrote:On January 26 2012 00:00 SonOfBoxer wrote:
TL;DR: If you guys want to reduce the drop rate, you should complain less and practice more. Unfortunately, that's impossible for all players, and unless foreign mentality changes, the game will keep on emptying.
Telling players that they have to practice more will only increase the drop rate. Not many people want to work, they want to have fun. Right now the community constantly puts pressure on its players to improve and play like the pros. This needs to be changed if we want to continue to have more players enter the scene. We need many more casual players and we need to grow that scene. Its the casual players who will eventually turn into the pros one day.
In my humble opinion, the problem with the drop rate is balance.
In my opinion, balance has no effect on the far majority of SC2 players. Though i find it interesting about the what you said about how people will quit because they want to play casual, and i agree. I think part of the problem is the ladder system as it is now. Blizzard has the current ladder system (with MMR and divisions) so that "everyone are gonna win an equal amount of matches". I.e. not get bashed to pieces as soon as you log in. Then there is division to measure your progress. The thing is, no one really cares about how many games they win. Sure, no one likes to get completely bashed 10/10 games, but waht people really care about is what division they're in. They're not gonna feel good about themselves if they win 5 or 6 games out of 10 if they're still in bronze. What blizzard needs to do is replace this system (or implement another system) that rewards ACTIVITY. That's how you build an addictive game that people can't stop playing. People don't care about challenging themselves or getting better, all they care about is to have something pretty besides their name. That's why every MMORPG (yes wow) works. Doesn't need to be really fun (i guess that's subjective), it can be super monotone, but as long as there is a reward for activity people are gonna keep logging in.
I do believe that their system needs a change. That is why I believe that LoL is so successful right now. It is so accessible to newcomers and keeps them coming back for the ip and exp. Having the large casual player base feeds the pro scene. I will not be surprised if LoL is the #1 esport by the end of 2012 due mainly to its accessibility and growing casual player base.
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On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best.
I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans.
It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play?
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On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play?
You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing. Not every player out there is supported by a big team. Not every player out there has a good motivation. YOu have a motivation until some point, but then you are losing it.
Starcraft 2 Pro Scene is not that small. Problem is that viewers always chose to see the 5% of what is out there, and we chose to NOT support the rest.
So while we focus on those 5% the other 95% struggle. Some of the players I talked about are very talented. However they can not reach their full talent if they don't have motivation.
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On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it.
You're another perfect example of where this system fails.
For you guys that don't know Ewic, he is a GM player on NA. He is one of VP's best players. He is a beast. But no one knows who he is because there is nowhere he can go to get noticed.
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On January 26 2012 01:59 PET wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play? You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing.
Seriously, name korean invites who hasn't earned their place. You're saying some no name player who has just started working deserves more attention than a korean who has been in the scene and has been competing forever? Ok, we might as well blame players like Huk and Idra who are not only better, but also get free rides to these tournaments. No one invites obscure korean no name B teamers. B teamers have to work through qualifiers just like everyone else, and hey guess what, they fucking win cause they're better and have been working harder for longer. You're blaming the current talent for the woes of the up and comers, and it really should have nothing to do with whether they're korean or not.
Stop acting like we can support everyone. If you're not good, you don't deserve it period. There's not much money in the scene. Hell, koreans don't even make salaries, they have to live off of prize winnings as well. Even A teamers aren't well off if they can't manage to place deep.
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On January 26 2012 02:03 Itsmedudeman wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 01:59 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play? You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing. Seriously, name korean invites who hasn't earned their place. You're saying some no name player who has just started working deserves more attention than a korean who has been in the scene and has been competing forever? Ok, we might as well blame players like Huk and Idra who are not only better, but also get free rides to these tournaments. No one invites obscure korean no name B teamers. B teamers have to work through qualifiers just like everyone else, and hey guess what, they fucking win cause they're better and have been working harder for longer. You're blaming the current talent for the woes of the up and comers, and it really should have nothing to do with whether they're korean or not.
You are the classic viewer I am talking about. This has NOTHING to do with HuK or Koreans in general. It has to do with the declining of Pro-Players in Europe and NA. As I have said before. The SC2 Pro Scene is much bigger than MLG, NASL HuK and IdrA.
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On January 26 2012 01:59 PET wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play? You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing. Not every player out there is supported by a big team. Not every player out there has a good motivation. YOu have a motivation until some point, but then you are losing it.
Starcraft 2 Pro Scene is not that small. Problem is that viewers always chose to see the 5% of what is out there, and we chose to NOT support the rest.
There's an abundance of SC2 and it's really not suprising that people watch the stuff with the best players. I'm sorry but why would i watch your tournament when i have a shitload of GSL, KSL, NASL, MLG, DH, HSC, and other vods available? There's just such an abundance of content and not enough of a fanbase to sustain lots of local small tournaments yet.
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On January 26 2012 02:05 PET wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:03 Itsmedudeman wrote:On January 26 2012 01:59 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play? You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing. Seriously, name korean invites who hasn't earned their place. You're saying some no name player who has just started working deserves more attention than a korean who has been in the scene and has been competing forever? Ok, we might as well blame players like Huk and Idra who are not only better, but also get free rides to these tournaments. No one invites obscure korean no name B teamers. B teamers have to work through qualifiers just like everyone else, and hey guess what, they fucking win cause they're better and have been working harder for longer. You're blaming the current talent for the woes of the up and comers, and it really should have nothing to do with whether they're korean or not. You are the classic viewer I am talking about. This has NOTHING to do with HuK or Koreans in general. It has to do with the declining of Pro-Players in Europe and NA.
Yes, because I have infinity hours and money on my hands that I can support some guy who has probably played the game for about a year for 4 hours a day and who still can't manage to prevent himself from a moving his shit after he turtles for 20 minutes.
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On January 26 2012 02:05 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 01:59 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play? You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing. Not every player out there is supported by a big team. Not every player out there has a good motivation. YOu have a motivation until some point, but then you are losing it.
Starcraft 2 Pro Scene is not that small. Problem is that viewers always chose to see the 5% of what is out there, and we chose to NOT support the rest. There's an abundance of SC2 and it's really not suprising that people watch the stuff with the best players. I'm sorry but why would i watch your tournament when i have a shitload of GSL, KSL, NASL, MLG, DH, HSC, and other vods available? There's just such an abundance of content and not enough of a fanbase to sustain lots of local small tournaments yet.
Exactly
We complain that the EU and NA scene is declining, yet we always talk about the same shit. Check the guy above my post. We don't support our talented players and yet we complain.
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On January 26 2012 02:03 DoomsVille wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it. You're another perfect example of where this system fails. For you guys that don't know Ewic, he is a GM player on NA. He is one of VP's best players. He is a beast. But no one knows who he is because there is nowhere he can go to get noticed.
He's a beast compared to who? He's a beast compared to others on the NA ladder. There's just not enough people that care about that, we all just assume he'll get smashed by the top foreigners and most koreans. That mindset has been proven true more often than not and i just don't know what you want, there's just too much content from high end players that you already can't watch it all.
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On January 26 2012 02:06 Itsmedudeman wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:05 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 02:03 Itsmedudeman wrote:On January 26 2012 01:59 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play? You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing. Seriously, name korean invites who hasn't earned their place. You're saying some no name player who has just started working deserves more attention than a korean who has been in the scene and has been competing forever? Ok, we might as well blame players like Huk and Idra who are not only better, but also get free rides to these tournaments. No one invites obscure korean no name B teamers. B teamers have to work through qualifiers just like everyone else, and hey guess what, they fucking win cause they're better and have been working harder for longer. You're blaming the current talent for the woes of the up and comers, and it really should have nothing to do with whether they're korean or not. You are the classic viewer I am talking about. This has NOTHING to do with HuK or Koreans in general. It has to do with the declining of Pro-Players in Europe and NA. Yes, because I have infinity hours and money on my hands that I can support some guy who has probably played the game for about a year for 4 hours a day and who still can't manage to prevent himself from a moving his shit after he turtles for 20 minutes.
I my friend are something I can not say. You clearly talk without knowing what you talk about. Again, you are the classic VIEWERS who only know the 5%, but there is much more there. You just have to look.
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On January 25 2012 21:22 MorroW wrote:
this article is pretty stupid
its actually the other way around.
koreans have a really hard time getting noticed even when they become gosu. there are hundreds of korean gosus but we really just notice and keep an eye on about 10% of them.
how many foreigner gosus are there? doesnt matter we keep an eye on 100% of them, we even follow players that arent gosus but are "pretty good for foreigner".
they have to practice like crazy, to one day qualify for code a (takes from 1 month to 1 year lol) and then hopefully get noticed.
foreigners get to GM in and sign up for weekly cups, after a while he starts getting noticed because he gets like top8 in weekly cups.
the amount of work you have to do, the cheer skill you need as a korean to get noticed is alot higher than for foreigners. because these up and coming foreigners doesnt have to climb up as high in skill to start winning tournaments.
so its easier in a few ways:
1: you dont need as much skill to win weeklys
2: there are tournaments everywhere you can play in the foreigner scene
3: you get noticed much more easily because foreigner scene obviously follows the foreigner scene more
the reason why theres more koreans on the top, why foreigner teams are recruiting more koreans etc is because they are better and the teams want them to win.
i dont know the reason why theres few foreigner progamers or few up and coming. but im 110% sure its not because its too hard to get noticed. its really really easy and anyone could do it that knows what hard work and dedication means.
take nerchio as an example. he was a noname that practiced hard, became a top foreigner in skill, won a shitton of weekly cups and the he started to get invited to tournaments. and now hes famous and skilled enough to get to lans like homestory cup.
if you know how it works on both sides and u put them up together, you soon realize that its alot easier for foreigners to get famous, money and invites to tournamnets
and on a sidenote. the graph you pulled up is the amount of players on the server, that has nothing to do with the amount of players that is trying to become progamers and famous
Koreans don't get noticed by us the viewers. But you better believe a GM Korean on the ladder gets noticed by a proteam. It's not about necessarily being noticed by the fans. It's more about being able to get yourself in a position to go pro (by getting on a team). They get noticed by other players when they compete in Code A qualifiers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying their path is easier. Quite the contrary, it is probably harder. But there path has clear, tangible goals. A foreigner's does not. A foreigners path to success is as much about luck as it is anything else.
And fan support is only important to a foreigner. A foreigner can't get on a team without popularity/fan support, which is why I brought up the notion.
Yes, I agree the players on the server has nothing to do with the number wanting to go pro. Show me data on that and I'll include it (it doesn't exist). Server numbers are as close as we can get.
And don't give me evidence of a single player like Nerchio. Nerchio is one fucking example compared to the plethora of new Koreans emerging on a very regular basis. Yea there is also Feast that's starting to make a name for himself. How about Snute? But the absolute number of new players outside of Korea is negligible compared to the new talent emerging in Korea on a regular basis.
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On January 26 2012 02:09 PET wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:06 Itsmedudeman wrote:On January 26 2012 02:05 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 02:03 Itsmedudeman wrote:On January 26 2012 01:59 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play? You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing. Seriously, name korean invites who hasn't earned their place. You're saying some no name player who has just started working deserves more attention than a korean who has been in the scene and has been competing forever? Ok, we might as well blame players like Huk and Idra who are not only better, but also get free rides to these tournaments. No one invites obscure korean no name B teamers. B teamers have to work through qualifiers just like everyone else, and hey guess what, they fucking win cause they're better and have been working harder for longer. You're blaming the current talent for the woes of the up and comers, and it really should have nothing to do with whether they're korean or not. You are the classic viewer I am talking about. This has NOTHING to do with HuK or Koreans in general. It has to do with the declining of Pro-Players in Europe and NA. Yes, because I have infinity hours and money on my hands that I can support some guy who has probably played the game for about a year for 4 hours a day and who still can't manage to prevent himself from a moving his shit after he turtles for 20 minutes. I my friend are something I can not say. You clearly talk without knowing what you talk about. Again, you are the classic VIEWERS who only know the 5%, but there is much more there. You just have to look.
You whine about the same stuff over and over yet people have explained to you why they do what they do. I want to watch the best play. Why watch your 95% of low ranked players when the 5% has better quality and better players and a practically endless amount of vods?
Should i start watching the 95% (NA/US players) out of pity for the scene and their plight?
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On January 26 2012 02:09 PET wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:06 Itsmedudeman wrote:On January 26 2012 02:05 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 02:03 Itsmedudeman wrote:On January 26 2012 01:59 PET wrote:On January 26 2012 01:57 karpo wrote:On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:
I know what the OP of this Thread means.
I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much.
This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe.
I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify.
I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like DeViL, Harpner, & nukestrike.
I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte.
I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL.
I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had Insignia.
I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player.
etc
There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck.
This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players.
Don't blame this on the tournament organizers.
I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested.
Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head.
I'm sorry but, at least to me, it's not about popularity. It's about who's the best. I'm pretty sure none of the guys you mention hold up against the best foreigners and they surely won't hold up against code A/S koreans. It's like saying that people enjoy the premier league because the teams are popular. Sure it's that too but surely you recognize the fact that people want to watch the highest level of play? You are missing the point. The point was that the EU/NA players are not motivated because they don't have something to fight for. And even if they sometimes to, you always get a Korean. While for some people will work, for some people will not be fair. There are other events besides NASL, MLG, etc where you do expect the best of the best, but in the meantime you have nothing. Seriously, name korean invites who hasn't earned their place. You're saying some no name player who has just started working deserves more attention than a korean who has been in the scene and has been competing forever? Ok, we might as well blame players like Huk and Idra who are not only better, but also get free rides to these tournaments. No one invites obscure korean no name B teamers. B teamers have to work through qualifiers just like everyone else, and hey guess what, they fucking win cause they're better and have been working harder for longer. You're blaming the current talent for the woes of the up and comers, and it really should have nothing to do with whether they're korean or not. You are the classic viewer I am talking about. This has NOTHING to do with HuK or Koreans in general. It has to do with the declining of Pro-Players in Europe and NA. Yes, because I have infinity hours and money on my hands that I can support some guy who has probably played the game for about a year for 4 hours a day and who still can't manage to prevent himself from a moving his shit after he turtles for 20 minutes. I my friend are something I can not say. You clearly talk without knowing what you talk about. Again, you are the classic VIEWERS who only know the 5%, but there is much more there. You just have to look.
??????
I know what's out there. I've seen it, but I'm not going back to it because
1. it's boring
2. they're not good
3. i'd rather spend my time elsewhere
Point is, these guys ARE GETTING A LOT MORE HELP than anyone who started out in the korean scene. I'm not capable of nurturing these guys until they actually (if ever) get to a point where they can compete. This is the job of the amateur- to get good by themselves until they get noticed in bigger things. It's not unfair, everyone started off this way. Idra, Huk, MVP, hell, even Flash at one point.
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On January 25 2012 20:53 slmw wrote:I took the same data from each three servers, added dates from patches and this is what i got: What did we do differently? Here's the data: + Show Spoiler +
Where did you get this data? I'm just pulling numbers from sc2ranks. It shows nothing similar to what your data does so someone is making a mistake.
Anyways here's the data for current path SC2 players from sc2ranks: http://sc2ranks.com/stats/region/all/all/all
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Foreigners wouldn't get dropped from teams if they perform well and put effort into being a good figurehead in the community.
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On January 25 2012 21:02 XRaDiiX wrote:
Would this explain why Masters is harder this season.
Yes. I think so. I think it's obvious that the players that do stay are those of higher skill (it's obvious that the higher skilled players are more active, which is why blizzard had to manipulate the bonus pool system).
If the lower leagues are dropping off, then yes, the top 2% (masters) previously would account for more than 2% of the current player pool and some would have to be dropped off.
So I'm guessing this is exactly why masters has become harder (although this is purely hypothetical).
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Maybe if Blizzard added a competent custom games system (or copied their own system from years ago (Warcraft 3)), clan support and better chat channels, tournament and spectator systems, or, god forbid, something innovative, people would be more inclined to stay online and play. Instead they seem content to sit on their IP and churn out a few more uninspired Starcraft titles with absolute minimal risk.
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This is one of the most thoughtful threads I've read in a while. I 100% agree with your analysis. Take for example a player like Axslav. He was recently cut from EG despite being an incredibly smart, solid player. There's a huge thread on the reasons why he may have been cut, so I don't want to get into it here, but IMO it's probably because he's hardly marketable.
It's kind of sad when success or failure in this sport comes down to pure popularity and personality. Do we want eSports to be more like pro Football or Baseball, or more like pro Wrestling? Food for thought.
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On January 25 2012 20:30 Bswhunter wrote:
wat.
no u see peopel can still break into the scene, its just easier than like a year ago.
you wont get like, a massive burst of popularity, but say im like good n shit, playing on US server, i see say, destiny on ladder.
we have a good game, im like yo, lets play 2v2's.
then we play 2v2's im on his skype talking n shit. if im intresting enough then some of the people on his stream will come and watch mine or something, idk.
(not that that's gunna happen, im a diamond lvl sea player lol)
Lol. If you think it is anything like this, you're insane. Playing pros on ladder usually consists of them bming you or you being unable to message them after because they can't accept messages from non friends. Attero is the only "pro" I've hit on ladder that wasn't a dick.
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On January 26 2012 02:08 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:03 DoomsVille wrote:On January 25 2012 20:59 Ewic wrote:
@ dapierow & NightOfTheDead - I'm echoing what the OP is saying - tournaments are being won by the same people over and over again and there is little room for up-and-coming players to be noticed or win anything. I think you would understand when you devote as much time into this game I have and haven't received $1 for it. You're another perfect example of where this system fails. For you guys that don't know Ewic, he is a GM player on NA. He is one of VP's best players. He is a beast. But no one knows who he is because there is nowhere he can go to get noticed. He's a beast compared to who? He's a beast compared to others on the NA ladder. There's just not enough people that care about that, we all just assume he'll get smashed by the top foreigners and most koreans. That mindset has been proven true more often than not and i just don't know what you want, there's just too much content from high end players that you already can't watch it all.
Ok let me elaborate a bit.
You know this 3 players ... Kas, Beastyqt, BlinG? Yea. Crappy UNKNOWN PLAYERS.
Oh my GOD what have I said???
I know this players since 2010 when they were the "crappy players". Why they were crappy? Because they are not popular.
This like the user Itsmedudeman said.
Yes, because I have infinity hours and money on my hands that I can support some guy who has probably played the game for about a year for 4 hours a day and who still can't manage to prevent himself from a moving his shit after he turtles for 20 minutes.
You just called described Kas, Beastyqt and BlinG (only some examples). This is the mentality of the SC2 community.
Now let me tell you the real important thing.
Kas, Beastyqt and BlinG were NOT crappy in 2010. Actually there were pretty awesome. Every time I casted them I had a lot of fun. They had creative builds that worked. They practiced a lot.
Kas became known in TSL. Beastyqt is still very underrated. BlinG because popular because he was picked up by Dignitas and had decent results in the past months. How was BlinG picked up? He won a contest that Dignitas held for UK players.
All those players were pretty unknown and CRAPPY as you describe them. Kas and Beasty turtled for 20 minutes... etc etc etc.
Why you say this is because you don't KNOW the actual side of eSports. There are a ton of good players who can put up a show. There are a ton of very dedicated players that people don't know and don't care. Example ... Naugrim.
There are other players who are out there. Good players who can not rise because no one knows about them. So they become demotivated and some "retire".
So you can't expect for our Talent to grow if we don't support them. You can't expect EU/NA scene to grow and constantly get new players if you don't look at them to support them. Yea. Some of them will not beat KOREANS OMG !!1111
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IdrA already contributed to this thread, said all that needs to be said when combined with MorroW's response. The fans wish they understood the scene as much as the pros do, but they don't. That's as much as I gleaned from this.
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Don't want to be the pessimist here but at some point you have to question whether Starcraft 2 can support an industry so robust that random NA players can hope to become pro simply through their skill and results. As popular and important as SC2 may seem to us, you still have to be realistic about the scale of the business models it can support. The fact of the matter is that unless you get really lucky or have prodigy-esque skill, you aren't going to turn a living out of the game.
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On January 26 2012 01:53 PET wrote:I know what the OP of this Thread means. I'm also sick of Invite Tournaments. Yea sometimes they bring more viewers when you have Koreans, ok, but sometimes they are to much. This is why in the League I recently organized I held 19 Qualifiers for several countries in the Europe. I had a Hungarian qualifier where I saw some really talented players like Purple, StuntR & Breach. StuntR managed to qualify. I had a Czech qualifier where Thebis managed to qualify even that players like Devil, Harpner, & nukestrike. I had a Polish qualifier where I got Indy & Forte. I had French qualifiers where I saw Eeel and SonG. SonG actually managed to beat Laukyo and MoMaN and NeOAnGeL. I had a Bulgarian qualifier where we had insignia. I had 2 Italian qualifiers where I got StarEagle and ZyM a 16 years old player. etc There are shitload of talented players out there, the problem is that nobody gives a fuck and nobody will ever give a fuck. This is why you always see 80% Koreans. This is why you always see Invite players. Don't blame this on the tournament organizers. I tried and man it sucked. While I think some players apreciated what I tried to do, I know that Hungarians got inspired and they started their own Hungarian League, this is not going to work because the mentality of the VIEWERS can not change. And no, this didn't sucked because the players I had. I had some really awesome players. It sucked because no one was interested. Popular players are always going to get the attention. Popular players are not always the good players. There are plenty of examples which I'm not going to give ... because if you say something critical about someone popular you get the "community" on your head. Anyway, the league finals were won by Beastyqt, I player I have been casting since 2010. So even if you want to create something to motivate the players, in the end you will not succeed because the viewers will not be interested.
I sympathize, but you can't just blame the viewers. THey want some degree of familiarity. So a tournament with hald known and half known might be cool. Especially if these guys are as good as you say they are.
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Foreigner or not, this is the STARCRAFT 2 scene aka the 2nd most competitive esport. Players have to sacrifice everything in order to be the best at starcraft. if they're not willing to do that, and they're content with being "average" then it's a shame.
Nonetheless the #1 problem is that 99% of relevant tournaments are invite only.
the #2 problem is that foreign teams prefer to recruit top koreans instead of recruiting up and coming foreigners in order to train them and release their potential
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This is actually a huge problem. I would say that certain teams do have training programs, such as Complexity, which had created new talents like gowser. Furthermore, there is the CSL, which could develop homegrown talent. But as Idra once stated, the costs of raising a foreign player and developing them into a champion is too high for many teams, and teams would be better off buying a Korean.
What the foreigner scene needs are ways to develop talent. For many of the major sports here in the US, there are high school teams, where the best players get recruited to college teams, then the best players from the college teams get signed onto pro teams in the NBA or NFL.
We need to focus more attention on leagues like the CSL, where players can be part-time players and students. It's just too risky to go all-in as a pro-gamer, since you would give up school and your career.
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I have a friend who played like 8-10 game on the ladder. And quit starcraft after because the game was to humiliating
for him.
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On January 26 2012 02:27 Al Bundy wrote:
Foreigner or not, this is the STARCRAFT 2 scene aka the 2nd most competitive esport. Players have to sacrifice everything in order to be the best at starcraft. if they're not willing to do that, and they're content with being "average" then it's a shame.
Nonetheless the #1 problem is that 99% of relevant tournaments are invite only.
the #2 problem is that foreign teams prefer to recruit top koreans instead of recruiting up and coming foreigners in order to train them and release their potential
That's just not true at all. MLG, DreamHack, IEM, and IPL all have open qualifier brackets. NASL, HSC, and SCI and Team Leagues are the only relevant tournaments I can think of that are invite only.
I didn't even mention Playhem Dailies, Korean Weeklies, or any of the other tournaments featured on the right side toolbar.
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Well its pretty obvious why there are less players now, SC2 is a videogame and 90% of its buyers are casual gamers. As with any game, you lose interest, and this is especially true in starcraft. For serious gamers and pros, patchs make all the difference, but most gamers probably didn't even notice immortal range upgrades, ghost emps range changes, ect. its the same game to them, except to them, its becoming less fun because the competition is getting harder. Thus they lose interest after a while like any casual gamer. my roommate hasn't played a real game of starcraft since summer. And when he does, he plays custom games.
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On January 26 2012 01:10 Ballack wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners. I'm gonna cherrypick something I found silly. Did you know Code A Koreans are better than the majority of Korean players as well? To end a paragraph with such a lousy point diminishes your validity greatly. You do bring up some facts, but there are numerous flaws in your logic throughout your post (imo). Also the high amount of attention given to the top players work as an incentive for lesser known players to keep working hard so they can be the top player one day.
I meant majority of top tier foreign progamers.
It is only an incentive for lesser known players if they can reach that level of stardom one day. I see very few actually accomplish that. In 2011, there was only a single player that really achieved superstardom status (stephano). The rest of the "stars" were there pre-2011 (IdrA, Huk, White-ra, Destiny, NaNiwa, etc.).
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On January 26 2012 02:35 DoomsVille wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 01:10 Ballack wrote:On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners. I'm gonna cherrypick something I found silly. Did you know Code A Koreans are better than the majority of Korean players as well? To end a paragraph with such a lousy point diminishes your validity greatly. You do bring up some facts, but there are numerous flaws in your logic throughout your post (imo). Also the high amount of attention given to the top players work as an incentive for lesser known players to keep working hard so they can be the top player one day. I meant majority of top tier foreign progamers. It is only an incentive for lesser known players if they can reach that level of stardom one day. I see very few actually accomplish that. In 2011, there was only a single player that really achieved superstardom status (stephano). The rest of the "stars" were there pre-2011 (IdrA, Huk, White-ra, Destiny, NaNiwa, etc.). NaNi (and I think ThorZaIN should be included) were relative unknowns pre 2011 tbfh, but I see your point. Before, NaNi was mainly seen as a bm teamhopper really, not some superstar. Not until spring 2011 did people see how sick he was.
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On January 26 2012 02:39 Elem wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:35 DoomsVille wrote:On January 26 2012 01:10 Ballack wrote:On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners. I'm gonna cherrypick something I found silly. Did you know Code A Koreans are better than the majority of Korean players as well? To end a paragraph with such a lousy point diminishes your validity greatly. You do bring up some facts, but there are numerous flaws in your logic throughout your post (imo). Also the high amount of attention given to the top players work as an incentive for lesser known players to keep working hard so they can be the top player one day. I meant majority of top tier foreign progamers. It is only an incentive for lesser known players if they can reach that level of stardom one day. I see very few actually accomplish that. In 2011, there was only a single player that really achieved superstardom status (stephano). The rest of the "stars" were there pre-2011 (IdrA, Huk, White-ra, Destiny, NaNiwa, etc.). NaNi (and I think ThorZaIN should be included) were relative unknowns pre 2011 tbfh, but I see your point. Before, NaNi was mainly seen as a bm teamhopper really, not some superstar. Not until spring 2011 did people see how sick he was.
And he was still pretty good in 2010.
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The problem is not just a lack of goals but social interaction in-game. Starcraft is a very lonely game and it's pretty hard to play such a hard game every day loosing and still have motivation. The reason people prefer games like CoD, BF3 or LoL is the social aspect, blizzard has completely ignored this, shit B.net for most of SC2 so far and no clan support. Clan support is REALLY important to new player looking for groups of people to play with, it keeps you interested and motivated. That's the reason I quit anyway, I get to talk to people about Pro SC2 but not actually playing SC2 so now I just watch and play BF3 competitively instead.
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On January 26 2012 02:41 DoomsVille wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:39 Elem wrote:On January 26 2012 02:35 DoomsVille wrote:On January 26 2012 01:10 Ballack wrote:On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners. I'm gonna cherrypick something I found silly. Did you know Code A Koreans are better than the majority of Korean players as well? To end a paragraph with such a lousy point diminishes your validity greatly. You do bring up some facts, but there are numerous flaws in your logic throughout your post (imo). Also the high amount of attention given to the top players work as an incentive for lesser known players to keep working hard so they can be the top player one day. I meant majority of top tier foreign progamers. It is only an incentive for lesser known players if they can reach that level of stardom one day. I see very few actually accomplish that. In 2011, there was only a single player that really achieved superstardom status (stephano). The rest of the "stars" were there pre-2011 (IdrA, Huk, White-ra, Destiny, NaNiwa, etc.). NaNi (and I think ThorZaIN should be included) were relative unknowns pre 2011 tbfh, but I see your point. Before, NaNi was mainly seen as a bm teamhopper really, not some superstar. Not until spring 2011 did people see how sick he was. And he was still pretty good in 2010. Yeah, but far from a superstar. More on the level of "known" like say, Kas. Or maybe Socke. So many people who underestimate that guy. :o
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On January 25 2012 19:16 xrapture wrote:
Sc2 is just too hard. Why play SC2 when there is a myriad of easy games. New players play for a little and are put off. There's really no reason to play a game with such a steep learning curve and most players in the foreign scene probably don't know that pro SC players exist.
I see the trend continuing. Even myself, a master's player, have found myself thinking, "eh fuck it. I'll just play MW3 or Skyrim isntead-- SC is too stressful." Video games are for entertainment, not stress.
This. Where is the casual element to sc2 that allows viewers to stay engaged in actually playing? Think about how ridiculous the ladder system actually is compared to precedent set by tons of other online games. Not only is the only major online structure through matchmaking, but you essentially can't play a game thats not a custom without affecting your rank. Other games either have unranked matchmaking or a cumulative ranking system. There's no unranked matchmaking and unless a player is incredibly set on investing time into a game with no certainty of improving (not part of gaming culture in US) it jus gets tiring.
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On January 26 2012 02:48 Elem wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:41 DoomsVille wrote:On January 26 2012 02:39 Elem wrote:On January 26 2012 02:35 DoomsVille wrote:On January 26 2012 01:10 Ballack wrote:On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners. I'm gonna cherrypick something I found silly. Did you know Code A Koreans are better than the majority of Korean players as well? To end a paragraph with such a lousy point diminishes your validity greatly. You do bring up some facts, but there are numerous flaws in your logic throughout your post (imo). Also the high amount of attention given to the top players work as an incentive for lesser known players to keep working hard so they can be the top player one day. I meant majority of top tier foreign progamers. It is only an incentive for lesser known players if they can reach that level of stardom one day. I see very few actually accomplish that. In 2011, there was only a single player that really achieved superstardom status (stephano). The rest of the "stars" were there pre-2011 (IdrA, Huk, White-ra, Destiny, NaNiwa, etc.). NaNi (and I think ThorZaIN should be included) were relative unknowns pre 2011 tbfh, but I see your point. Before, NaNi was mainly seen as a bm teamhopper really, not some superstar. Not until spring 2011 did people see how sick he was. And he was still pretty good in 2010. Yeah, but far from a superstar. More on the level of "known" like say, Kas. Or maybe Socke. So many people who underestimate that guy. :o
You know what it took to get him to the superstardom level? An open tournament with qualifiers :D (TSL3). That and MLG Dallas which is also open but at the time wasn't filled with a dozen Koreans. That's also what it took ThorZain (TSL3). That's also what it took Stephano (IPL3). It's crazy to think that ThorZain might not even have been noticed if he TSL3 didn't exist. Sure he would probably have won something at some point eventually, but we need more events to bring some of these guys to the forefront. This is why we need more qualifiers and less invites.
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China6327 Posts
Nice write up, directly to what really needs sth. to be done here, or can we see yet another HuK rising in the near future?
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wow. I'm not really informed enough to comment on this, but I will say that this is something I'll keep in mind.
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with two expansions to come i wouldnt worry for now about the player pool
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Respect for Idra and Huk and all the guys putting in their time.
I did not know it was THAT hard. I heard about koreans putting in some ridiculous time but jesus... it's like a competitive hell over there.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Let’s try to figure out why. First I’m going to paint you a picture of a Korean that is trying to go pro. He’ll start off a scrub; 4gating his way up the ladder. He’ll land in a lower league and slowly start working his way up. Along the way he has tangible goals; first to get into gold, then platinum, then diamond and finally masters. What happens then? He is ultra-motivated to quality for Code B. Code B represents ~ 1500 of the best Korean players on the ladder (which I believe is mid-high masters on the ladder). Once he finally reaches that plateau he can compete in the Code A qualifiers. He’s going to go to a huge LAN event and have a chance to play against players like Boxer and LosirA. How does that not motivate an individual? I might be playing Boxer next week. I’m going to fucking practice 24 hours a day until then. Once you’re at this level, you have a new goal. Now you want to be noticed by team coaches and players on ladder and maybe get yourself into a B-team house (like ProS). Hell, you might be good enough to skip a step and get straight into a proteam house. There are probably a hundred spots available and considering many players have multiple accounts, I’d venture to guess that anyone that is GM on the Korean ladder is skilled enough to belong in a team house. Now you’re playing in the big leagues. In the team house you’re practicing everyday and will keep going until you can finally beat MMA or DRG or whoever else is in your house.
What’s my point here? There are clear goals along the way. Motivation comes from having a goal. It’s impossible to motivate yourself without a goal. You know who succeeds when they want to lose weight? The guy that says I will lose 5 lbs in a month. Not the guy that says I’m going to lose a ton of weight brah (partially because the second guy sounds like an idiot).
Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum: the life of a foreigner. I work my way up the ladder. I’m masters now fuck yea. I’m going to post this on reddit and be 23rd on the front page of r/Starcraft for about an hour. Sweet. Now what? Might as well keep laddering and get to GM. Awesome I’m GM now. It took forever but I’ve finally done it. You know how much karma this is going to get me on reddit? A ton. I’ll be right at the top for half a day! This seems facetious but it is actual reality. A high masters/low GM player on the NA (and to a lesser extent EU) server have no way of getting noticed. They have no tangible goals. Koreans know exactly what they need to do to get into Code B. They have a very real opportunity to get into a team house once they get there. Foreigners on the other hand have nothing. They have no clear avenue to get into progaming. It’s too much of a crapshoot on the foreigner side. It’s way harder to get noticed and even if you do, it’s so hard to actually get onto a foreign team or into a major tournament.
this is what you think happens from your point of view; but I see it different.
you list one Korean house (ProS) that isn't really associated with a pro team and you think there are houses like that everywhere where a person can get into easily if motivated enough. They might be the only house other than the Pro-gaming team houses. It's also funny that you think they would get extra motivated if they get a chance to play someone like losira or boxer. In online cups, there are good players in which a non-korean can play against well known players too. MLG tournament format allows this to happen via open bracket; I would even say that getting out of open bracket is easier than qualifying for code A.
If you want to look at vibe as an example (like you stated), he has never made it out of open bracket (MLG). Then there are Koreans that are better than him and can't get out of code B; but Vibe is more well known and has more stream viewers.
"Koreans know exactly what they need to do to get into Code B. They have a very real opportunity to get into a team house once they get there."
You make it sound like code B is a huge goal, it's not lol. You also make it sound like there are gaming houses everywhere in Korea and one who is simply "good" enough can get into one. If someone is good enough to be GM in Korea, then if that person were to be from NA or EU, they would be on a team most likely. What's the difference to getting good enough skill level to be GM in Korea and joining a team house and a foreigner that plays at a GM in Korea and joining a foreign team. The motivation is the same if not more for the foreigner; simply because that means it is easier to be a top foreigner than a top Korean (also, top foreigners get travel and salary being on a good team). There are a lot of good Koreans that are better than foreigners who are well known and who get more opportunities. Why is it that a lot of Korean players are looking for foreign teams? You have GSL every two months now, how is that more motivating for a Korean?
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im not sure lower level koreans are as motivated as you think
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"We have real lives to attend to."
Everyone does. But only some are willing to make the complete sacrifice to be the best.
Most people aren't aware of the extent of Korean work ethic. Middle school students are sent to hagwons, or cram schools until 11 PM (23:00). Fucked up, but it gets results.
Taken to an extreme: when Flash joined KTF as a rookie he would practice 20 hours a day until they forced him to sleep, then he would get up and do it again.
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On January 26 2012 03:32 rift wrote:
"We have real lives to attend to."
Everyone does. But only some are willing to make the complete sacrifice to be the best.
Most people aren't aware of the extent of Korean work ethic. Middle school students are sent to hagwons, or cram schools until 11 PM (23:00). Fucked up, but it gets results.
Taken to an extreme: when Flash joined KTF as a rookie he would practice 20 hours a day until they forced him to sleep, then he would get up and do it again.
20 hours a day? is there a source O_O
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i do not agree with your view that korea has new faces popping up all the time where as the foreigners dont. if you pay attention to the EU scene it is still quite virbant and we have new up and coming players all the time whilst extremely exciting up and comers pop up every few months. recently its been the hype around the young belgium protoss feast. a few months back it was titan, verdi, bling and many others. if we went even further back it was satiini/happy and who could forget elfi. for me its clear you arent very well informed on that specific issue.
p.s ive left so many names out but i think ive made my point.
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On January 26 2012 02:56 DoomsVille wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:48 Elem wrote:On January 26 2012 02:41 DoomsVille wrote:On January 26 2012 02:39 Elem wrote:On January 26 2012 02:35 DoomsVille wrote:On January 26 2012 01:10 Ballack wrote:On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
It’s no secret that the way to win is to hire Koreans. They are the best players in the world, no doubt about it. Even Code A Koreans are better than the majority of foreigners. I'm gonna cherrypick something I found silly. Did you know Code A Koreans are better than the majority of Korean players as well? To end a paragraph with such a lousy point diminishes your validity greatly. You do bring up some facts, but there are numerous flaws in your logic throughout your post (imo). Also the high amount of attention given to the top players work as an incentive for lesser known players to keep working hard so they can be the top player one day. I meant majority of top tier foreign progamers. It is only an incentive for lesser known players if they can reach that level of stardom one day. I see very few actually accomplish that. In 2011, there was only a single player that really achieved superstardom status (stephano). The rest of the "stars" were there pre-2011 (IdrA, Huk, White-ra, Destiny, NaNiwa, etc.). NaNi (and I think ThorZaIN should be included) were relative unknowns pre 2011 tbfh, but I see your point. Before, NaNi was mainly seen as a bm teamhopper really, not some superstar. Not until spring 2011 did people see how sick he was. And he was still pretty good in 2010. Yeah, but far from a superstar. More on the level of "known" like say, Kas. Or maybe Socke. So many people who underestimate that guy. :o You know what it took to get him to the superstardom level? An open tournament with qualifiers :D (TSL3). That and MLG Dallas which is also open but at the time wasn't filled with a dozen Koreans. That's also what it took ThorZain (TSL3). That's also what it took Stephano (IPL3). It's crazy to think that ThorZain might not even have been noticed if he TSL3 didn't exist. Sure he would probably have won something at some point eventually, but we need more events to bring some of these guys to the forefront. This is why we need more qualifiers and less invites. Yeah OFC, I agree with your points 100%, just being picky on the NaNi/ThorZaIN comment lol :D
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The reason that starcraft is doomed is because it just takes too much effort to maintain a high level of skill (high rate of skill deterioration), and its extremely damaging to the ego of most people when you lose directly as a result of your actions in a 1v1 situation. The stress from losing remains very high for all levels of play, and I think that the most successful players all share the ability to not be upset by losses. I consider myself a cool person and sometimes when I lose a few in a row I still get very upset and these times are when I most consider switching to a more relaxed game (i'm a high masters player not a scrub). It also sucks that you have to devote constant large amounts of time to starcraft or you will really lose alot of your skills (mostly macro).
Most online games which attract casual playesr have an environment where the player can't be directly blamed for a loss or at least can share the blame around among a few people. I think this legitimately does result in more fun for most people. What actually attracts me to starcraft is the individual aspect because I can get very good on my own without needing a team that I have to commit to a demanding practice schedule with, but most gamers are not as time restricted as me.
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On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:EDIT 5: Open qualifiers are what has made stars out of anyone that has risen in the SC2 scene. Stephano qualifying for IPL3 and erupting into stardom, ThorZain for TSL3, NaNiwa for TSL3/MLG Dallas. For the health of the scene we need more qualifiers and less inviting.
This This This and This
Invites are killing it for me. For like this new Iron Squid Tourney 16 Players 14 Invites and 2 able to qualify. Two of which will be Koreans. I love high level play more than anything but the story that TSL3 brought out was amazing.
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TSL 3 with Thorzain changed my life forever. I'm not even kidding.
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It's all mental mates, obviously the competition is there, the skill slopes are there, but the only source of stress is yourself and whoever understands that to win you have to work and fight and that you do both for and against yourself, will remain on a clear and straight path to victory. I mean, it's cool to analyze everything as deeply as possible, especially, regarding this topic, considering all the cultural influence and such things, but at the end of the day, once your actions, thoughts, plans become more introspective than extrospective, you will have a much easier way of achieving your goals (assuming you have any, which is a completely different matter).
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On January 26 2012 03:36 johnnywup wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 03:32 rift wrote:
"We have real lives to attend to."
Everyone does. But only some are willing to make the complete sacrifice to be the best.
Most people aren't aware of the extent of Korean work ethic. Middle school students are sent to hagwons, or cram schools until 11 PM (23:00). Fucked up, but it gets results.
Taken to an extreme: when Flash joined KTF as a rookie he would practice 20 hours a day until they forced him to sleep, then he would get up and do it again.
20 hours a day? is there a source O_O
He didn't practice 20 hours a day but he was a full time high school student so he had to put in practice time after doing all his hw etc. That adds up to about 20 hours for school + Sc.
Flash's parents didn't want him to be a progamer but he made a deal that if he didn't win a major title after 1 year he would quit and focus on school full time.
Edit:
+ Show Spoiler +He did win that OSL btw so this story has a happy ending.
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On January 26 2012 03:41 aFganFlyTrap wrote:
i do not agree with your view that korea has new faces popping up all the time where as the foreigners dont. if you pay attention to the EU scene it is still quite virbant and we have new up and coming players all the time whilst extremely exciting up and comers pop up every few months. recently its been the hype around the young belgium protoss feast. a few months back it was titan, verdi, bling and many others. if we went even further back it was satiini/happy and who could forget elfi. for me its clear you arent very well informed on that specific issue.
p.s ive left so many names out but i think ive made my point.
I do agree that the european scene is much healthier than the NA scene (I think largely because of the millions of online cups running all the time). And the fact that there is a team house starting in poland bodes well for the EU scene. I do think my post applies much more to NA than EU (but to an extent EU as well).
And I know all about satiini, happy and elfi. I followed WC3 very closely and all 3 have their origins in WC3. Just keep in mind that none of those 3 were "up and comers". They were very well established in the RTS scene in EU in WC3. But yes, the EU scene is much better off than the current NA one.
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While I agree with several points listed (mainly more qualifiers are needed, less invites), the reason foreigners fall behind has nothing to do with popularity or lack of said tournaments.
It's because Koreans work harder at it and have more coordinated teams. I have had the pleasure of having most of the NA scene and KOR scene on my real-id friends list for quite awhile now. Koreans are on A LOT more doing productive stuff A LOT more. The foreigners that are practicing as hard as Koreans are the top guys anyways (HuK, IdrA, Naniwa etc).
That was what impressed me most about HuK back in the beta, you could log on at about any time of the day and HuK would be there grinding out game after game after game, 10-14 hours a day. After a full year-ish of that on a shit comp, he got his chance. Because of hard work, not because of random luck.
Most foreigners are too busy worrying about what is said about them on TL (I can't even count how many NA pros search TL for their name every day multiple times a day and read every post about themselves), watching streams, playing Nexus Wars or some other stupid custom, playing team games, playing other games (*cough*LoL*cough), or just generally not being productive.
There is tons of foreigners that have the potential to be the next HuK or IdrA, but until they stop wasting endless time doing stuff that's not practicing they won't push it to that next level.
With regards to teams, foreigner teams are nothing more then a unified shirt to wear for most foreign teams. They don't coordinate practice, they don't work on certain things ("here you bunker rush me 100 times in a row vs my hatch first"), they have no head coaches, and just generally are just a guaranteed way to make some money and highly uncoordinated mess. Of course some teams like EG are working to solve that problem, but most top teams are not.
Korean teams on the other hand are unified, practice together a stupid amount, they work on certain things together, and are the true embodiment of a team. When they want to work on a build they don't go ladder vs random scrubs, they grab a teammate and say "you do this, I want to try something" or sit and discuss it with the coach of the team.
Those two factors alone are what holds the foreigner scene back. The players that are willing to give that level of dedication to SC2 are the same ones that are in Korea already. Guys like HuK, IdrA, DesRow, IdrA, etc. It's not just random luck, it's a year + of hard work.
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On January 25 2012 19:09 Soma.bokforlag wrote:am i doing something wrong or is the graph in the first post wrong? according to these numbers http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/alltheres still many many more players in america and europe compared to korea
Did anybody adress this? The numbers dont fit the OPs graph. The foreigner scene is still bigger than the korean by a good margin.
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On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote:
Talk about a poorly made graph... :/
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On January 26 2012 02:34 mbr2321 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:27 Al Bundy wrote:
Foreigner or not, this is the STARCRAFT 2 scene aka the 2nd most competitive esport. Players have to sacrifice everything in order to be the best at starcraft. if they're not willing to do that, and they're content with being "average" then it's a shame.
Nonetheless the #1 problem is that 99% of relevant tournaments are invite only.
the #2 problem is that foreign teams prefer to recruit top koreans instead of recruiting up and coming foreigners in order to train them and release their potential That's just not true at all. MLG, DreamHack, IEM, and IPL all have open qualifier brackets. NASL, HSC, and SCI and Team Leagues are the only relevant tournaments I can think of that are invite only. I didn't even mention Playhem Dailies, Korean Weeklies, or any of the other tournaments featured on the right side toolbar.
HCS had online qualifiers for each regions (2 or 3 slots each) with paid flights/stays for the winners. But I don't think the DH/MLG open qualifier/brackets are a possibility (unless they live close by) for some amateur players without the financial backings of a team cause you have to fly through half europe/usa (and carry your whole PC with your for the DH BYOC qualifier).
To get lesser known players into your events online qualifiers are nice imo. While I think IEM is subpar compard to other bigger tournaments in many degrees, that they select players via qualifiers always makes nice storylines/surprises
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On January 26 2012 04:28 Chewie wrote:Did anybody adress this? The numbers dont fit the OPs graph. The foreigner scene is still bigger than the korean by a good margin.
His graph is of all brackets including team games, which is kinda funny when the OP is talking about foreigners dwindling in 1v1 vs Korea while the opposite is the case.
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You guys are getting too caught up on the graph/statistics. Let's focus on the concept.
It's hard for foreigners to make a name for themselves because of invites and a lack of opportunity to showcase their talents. Focus on that and the issues around that.
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On January 26 2012 04:37 Neelia wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 02:34 mbr2321 wrote:On January 26 2012 02:27 Al Bundy wrote:
Foreigner or not, this is the STARCRAFT 2 scene aka the 2nd most competitive esport. Players have to sacrifice everything in order to be the best at starcraft. if they're not willing to do that, and they're content with being "average" then it's a shame.
Nonetheless the #1 problem is that 99% of relevant tournaments are invite only.
the #2 problem is that foreign teams prefer to recruit top koreans instead of recruiting up and coming foreigners in order to train them and release their potential That's just not true at all. MLG, DreamHack, IEM, and IPL all have open qualifier brackets. NASL, HSC, and SCI and Team Leagues are the only relevant tournaments I can think of that are invite only. I didn't even mention Playhem Dailies, Korean Weeklies, or any of the other tournaments featured on the right side toolbar. HCS had online qualifiers for each regions (2 or 3 slots each) with paid flights/stays for the winners. But I don't think the DH/MLG open qualifier/brackets are a possibility (unless they live close by) for some amateur players without the financial backings of a team cause you have to fly through half europe/usa (and carry your whole PC with your for the DH BYOC qualifier). To get lesser known players into your events online qualifiers are nice imo. While I think IEM is subpar compard to other bigger tournaments in many degrees, that they select players via qualifiers always makes nice storylines/surprises
Agreed. The the majority of IEMs have some neat storylines or some lesser known players emerging.
IEM Cologne - MaNa (although this ones a bit of a stretch since he was pretty well known already)
IEM Guangzhou - Elfi
IEM NYC - Gatored
IEM Kiev - Feast
Anyways, qualifiers are always great at bringing new talent to the forefront. There are players out there that are as good a the top tier foreigners, they just never get a chance to shine.
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TLDR:
Open qualifying rounds region-locked, with only x/y/z qualifiers from KR/NA/EU.
People wishing to go pro need to sacrifice and put the work in to do it, rather than complaining they're giving too much up.
Regarding top tournaments and invites:
Invites aren't as bad as people say - but the invites at least could be based off actual reasons for inviting (i.e. they came top x in MLG/GSL/etc) rather than on the name alone.
Qualifier's probably should be region-locked (or at least a person may only apply to qualify from one of the regions, not multiple) but it must be done in a correct way.
Note: I've made comparisons like the following in previous threads and believe the core of the competition is the best for all parties involved. Here goes:
Base it on the UEFA Champions League. I have no idea exactly how their co-efficients work in order to rank each Country and each of their teams (for those unfamiliar the "better" nations get more teams seeded directly into the finals and qualifying, while the worst nations at the very least get their top team(s) entered into qualifying), but it would be hard to argue against the rankings at any point in time.
"Region-locked" open qualifying could be done as follows:
Instead of 8 from each of SEA/NA/EU/KR, how about something more like 14 from KR, 6 from NA, 6 from EU, 6 from SEA? Obviously adjust these ratios according to how "good" the regions are relatively when/if they change and scale them depending on the size of the tournament. This could change to 28KR/14EU/12NA/10SEA for a 64 player tournament.
Some stipulations could exist such as pro-players are seeded into the 2nd or 3rd round of the open bracket (as happens in Tennis Masters series').
There may be some problems with this such as only 1 good NA player enters, rest are from bronze and take up 7 spots that could have been filled by A-Class Koreans. But whatever, It's just another format idea that could (and I believe should) be used and refined by actual tournaments. I don't want to spend time figuring out every possible hypothetical scenario that may occur in a tournament that doesn't exist - that's just my idea for a qualifying structure. Also for the record, I heavily favour the tiers used in Code-S this system but that's another discussion I'm sure...
And the issue on "team opportunities":
Ok so with that out of the way, it is pretty hard for people to be noticed. In Korea at least they do have the opportunity to "easily" get to the Code-A qualifiers and make a name for themselves by making it through. Trouble with this being there are so many more and better players trying the same thing. A lot of hard work and dedication is required be good enough to get that far.
Similarly, in EU/NA you need a lot of effort to improve to a level that you're competing for a top-4 or higher finish consistently in daily/weekly tournaments. After that you have open qualifiers and brackets for the larger tournaments that aren't invite only.
Either way you need a lot of hard work and dedication to become good enough to become the best in the region and along with that you'll get recognition. I honestly do not believe that people who are saying things like "There are more team houses in Korea for the Koreans to join that we do not have over here" would actually like to live in some of the conditions that those Korean pro-gamers live under just to get better at the game. I would also not be surprised if it was illegal to have the same/similar team houses here in the West due to Human Rights laws, or Health and Safety laws (max. number of occupants/tenants).
As others have said, Koreans don't magically get good enough at the game to live in a team house, they put the game first above other things. Reducing/halting all social lives, jobs, other hobbies - everything is given up. Actually, this could be said about any sport - any JOB! Sure there are more grassroots opportunities available for people taking up sports but to make it big, huge sacrifices must be made. If you want a career change mid-life you have to work your way up by studying again in your spare time potentially giving up all other hobbies and social life until you're at a level to quit your old/current job and risk it in your new career.
If pro/semi pro players really want to go pro sacrifices need to be made. Anyone with a normal job can easily practice at least 4 hours a day Monday - Friday and more on weekends, with very little sacrifice. Cutting down the amount of hours, or getting a job that allows more free time to practice would be a good start if you really want to compete at the top level against those in the open qualifiers/dailies.
I'm going to assume someone may bring up a fact about "real" sportsmen not having to train 14 hours a day to be top of the top unlike in SC, but they sacrifice a lot of other things such as physical exertion, strict diets, etc.
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Obviously you are a bit more experienced than me, being high masters, i'm not there yet. But for me, I find that the most time consuming part of SC2 is not necessarily the mechanics but the meta game. If you don't have time to play hours a day, and analyze your replays, and keep up on the current professional builds and transitions you will be left behind in a matter of days or weeks. Obviously the metagame isn't changing up so quickly that a one week break will cause you to get demoted but you might notice that builds you've relied upon and practiced extensively are suddenly resulting in a lot of build order losses. Like for instance, I used a reactor hellion opening into a 3 tank push a lot in TvZ and then suddenly a few weeks ago Zergs started CRUSHING my push that would typically win me the game or do heavy game altering damage. I think the metagame shifted a bit and zergs started getting mass slings with upgrades early and this mass of units simply overwhelms my push that would usually hit when zergs were droning. To me this is the biggest problem with not having ample time to devote to SC2.
Oops, that's all pretty off topic. On topic.. :p, I agree with the OP in that the NA region is very underdeveloped in terms of a pro scene. The only weekly tournament here is the Playhems and they are completely dominated by Korean players. I never understood why Blizzard didn't implement an ingame tournament system akin to a poker site. It'd be easy if you could just sign up and play tournaments through Bnet and it'd give Blizzard an easy way to manage tournaments. However, I think a lot of the reason for the undervelopment of NA SC2 can be attributed to the culture here. Korea and to a lesser extent, EU have had a much more established history of RTS games as a competitive sport. I know it's been said before, but many of the top NA players are college and high school students. Many of these players have no desire to pursue a profession in gaming, they play for fun, not for money. I think it's safe to assume that most of the top players are very intelligent with hardworking personalities, these types of people usually have much more stable and lucrative long term goals than scraping out a living playing SC2. Even if youre the top in NA, it's generally a much better life choice to finish college and get a real job and just play SC2 in your free time.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
On January 26 2012 04:59 DoomsVille wrote:
You guys are getting too caught up on the graph/statistics. Let's focus on the concept.
It's hard for foreigners to make a name for themselves because of invites and a lack of opportunity to showcase their talents. Focus on that and the issues around that.
Foreigners have more opportunities, if anything, koreans are the ones that rely on invites. IEM has qualifiers and MLG is open to everyone. There are many online cups for foreigners and more tournaments in the western scene.
GSL's happen every 2 months.
discuss.
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On January 26 2012 05:33 illsick wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 04:59 DoomsVille wrote:
You guys are getting too caught up on the graph/statistics. Let's focus on the concept.
It's hard for foreigners to make a name for themselves because of invites and a lack of opportunity to showcase their talents. Focus on that and the issues around that. Foreigners have more opportunities, if anything, koreans are the ones that rely on invites. IEM has qualifiers and MLG is open to everyone. There are many online cups for foreigners and more tournaments in the western scene. GSL's happen every 2 months. discuss.
It's pretty difficult to play both EU and NA tournaments if you're on a semi regular sleep schedule. This limits the number of tournament options to foreigner players a lot. And yes, the Korean scene is pretty scarce in terms of tournaments. Outside of Korean Weeklys, GSTL and GSL, what Korean tournaments are there?
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I agree with Diamond.
Having completely open qualifiers is the way to go. You can't baby the foreign scene and then expect it to try and compete with the Koreans when the tournament rolls around. I'd rather watch Koreans take 8/10 of the Qualifier Spots and show amazing games against eachother instead of seeing 4/10 North Americans 3/10 Koreans 3/10 Europeans and then have the Koreans go on to destroy their foreign competition 2-0 first round.
If the foreign scene wants to survive, they have to PLAY like they want to survive. It shouldn't be acceptable as a team manager having your players only work 2-3 hours a day and then go off and do other things. There's a reason the Korean system is what it is; It's because it works.
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On January 25 2012 19:37 ZeitgeisT wrote:Show nested quote +Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. I disagree, when you are going to invite 2 out of 32 players and the rest has to qualifiy, guess who's participating in the qualifiers. This leads to an even harder qualification for the less known ones. And only if the lesser known beat some of the big names they are going to get recognized.
And that's exactly his point. I don't understand you. If you don't even have the chance to beat one, how could you get recognition ? Region locked qualifiers and no more invite should be the norm.
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That chart is actually not even close to a big deal. Its actually a relatively standard cycle for games to get a major mainstream following (the top of the chart) then fall off a bit. Those numbers actually remind me a bit of the halo games were halo 2 and 3 would have 1 million people and at times 1.2 million people playing online at launch and then over time that dipped down to around 500,000 (reach dipped to about a 100k but thats more because of reach itself) and then just diddnt go down any further because thats the passionate group of people who play your game and only want to play your game online.
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if you follow the scene closely enough you will find it quite easy to notice up and coming players. i think people are just to casual and dont follow the scene as closely as say a fanatical man united fan or a green bay packers fan. i myself watch every cup i can in Europe and most of the SEA cups not to mention all the major lan tournaments. i feel most people just watch the major tournaments and have this bubble they live in where all they see are the huks/idras/stephanos/naniwas when in reality great playerse are playing great games in great cups every day. just as there are casual players there are also casual fans which i think makes up a large majority of the scene. the fact that most are ignorant and ill informed doesnt make something true.
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On January 26 2012 05:58 Erasme wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 19:37 ZeitgeisT wrote:Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. I disagree, when you are going to invite 2 out of 32 players and the rest has to qualifiy, guess who's participating in the qualifiers. This leads to an even harder qualification for the less known ones. And only if the lesser known beat some of the big names they are going to get recognized. And that's exactly his point. I don't understand you. If you don't even have the chance to beat one, how could you get recognition ? Region locked qualifiers and no more invite should be the norm.
And how would region locked qualifiers differ from "invites"?
If a qualifier grants you a spot later in the tournament, it is nothing more than another form of invite. The concept of competition is based on invites- they only differ in nature of selection. A BoX can be a rule of selection to decide which player advances and which doesn't. Group play selects the players for the next round. So given a certain spot in any round that is to be obtained via region locked qualifier is the same as saying "there are guaranteed X invites for region Y, selection will be through rule Z".
I can't say if there will ever be "one right" rule of selection. But one rule of selection isn't necessarily more or less arbitrary than the other. Secondly, there is no implication it would solve the core issue. Even in a world where every tournament would use region-locked qualifiers exclusively, the worst imaginable case would be that one or more "region-representatives" would be constantly demolished. It would grant those representatives their 5min of fame on the world stage. And those would still be the Huks and Naniwas of today. Because they'd win every fucking qualifier of their region.
My point is, neither model does change anything much, since it has little to do with it. It doesn't solve the problem, but only shifts it one layer further down.
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On January 26 2012 03:36 johnnywup wrote:
20 hours a day? is there a source O_O
yeah, that is too little for Flash, this is slander to Flash' reputation unless you provide a source
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On January 26 2012 07:04 rotegirte wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 05:58 Erasme wrote:On January 25 2012 19:37 ZeitgeisT wrote:Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. I disagree, when you are going to invite 2 out of 32 players and the rest has to qualifiy, guess who's participating in the qualifiers. This leads to an even harder qualification for the less known ones. And only if the lesser known beat some of the big names they are going to get recognized. And that's exactly his point. I don't understand you. If you don't even have the chance to beat one, how could you get recognition ? Region locked qualifiers and no more invite should be the norm. And how would region locked qualifiers differ from "invites"? If a qualifier grants you a spot later in the tournament, it is nothing more than another form of invite. The concept of competition is based on invites- they only differ in nature of selection. A BoX can be a rule of selection to decide which player advances and which doesn't. Group play selects the players for the next round. So given a certain spot in any round that is to be obtained via region locked qualifier is the same as saying "there are guaranteed X invites for region Y, selection will be through rule Z". I can't say if there will ever be "one right" rule of selection. But one rule of selection isn't necessarily more or less arbitrary than the other. Secondly, there is no implication it would solve the core issue. Even in a world where every tournament would use region-locked qualifiers exclusively, the worst imaginable case would be that one or more "region-representatives" would be constantly demolished. It would grant those representatives their 5min of fame on the world stage. And those would still be the Huks and Naniwas of today. Because they'd win every fucking qualifier of their region. My point is, neither model does change anything much, since it has little to do with it. It doesn't solve the problem, but only shifts it one layer further down.
I think you are missing the point, that as it is now, the best way to get success (ie become a pro by getting sponsors) is to already have success. Because even if you are good, if you aren't already well known you wont get into any tournaments and thus get no recognition. I don't see how your argument works against that.
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I think esports needs to take a cue from some other individual sports and implement a global ranking (and bring it to the forefront of player consideration).
A really good model is Tennis and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Playing and placing in Several major tournaments contribute to a players ranking points, and a ladder is kept for all players. There are still mega celebrities like Federer that draw the crowds, but when you watch a tournament, you always keep your eyes on the guys with single digits next to their name, whether or not you've heard of them before.
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On January 25 2012 23:32 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 23:10 BrosephBrostar wrote:On January 25 2012 23:03 IdrA wrote:On January 25 2012 22:39 -ForeverAlone- wrote:On January 25 2012 22:28 IdrA wrote:
people seem to think foreign teams actively avoid picking up new players or something. if you're worth it teams are going to be scrambling to get you. very very few people invest enough effort to be good or to create a fanbase. those that have have joined teams or been hired by companies.
you dont join a team and then get good, you get good and then join a team. That's the problem the OP wants to highlight. The infrastructure to get good in NA is not as good in Korea, and this creates a selection bias. There aren't too many 15+ year olds in NA that can just turn their life into full time gaming, unless they already have a lot of money or a very supportive family. The concept of B-teams here doesn't really exist. I mean if we look at the top level pros on the scene today that support themselves only with SC2, a lot of them are there because they had the first mover advantage (HuK) or had the chance to develop before (you). This is made worse by the fact that a lot of tournaments are mostly invite-based. how do you think i got that chance to develop? i ignored school and didnt have a social life for 2 years in order to win a tournament and move to korea at 18 to sit in a house and play starcraft1 with 0 return for another 3 years huk played sc2 all day on a shitty computer during the beta when there was no money in it and did everything he could to get to korea and then spent a year+ practicing in a korean house. most a team pros dont make salaries in korea. none of the b teamers do, the bottom of the barrel doesnt get to live in the house, they just get the priviledge of playing with the team if theyre good enough for people to want to practice with them. you have to sacrifice pretty much everything while you're on your way up. koreans are better because hundreds of them are willing to do it, a handful of nonkoreans are. I think the point is that you both took advantage of the Korean system to get where you are now. Maybe I don't understand the situation well enough but it doesn't seem like western teams are offering the kind of opportunity you got with estro and cj. Does EG have unsalaried practice partners that you play with who could possibly work their way up to full members? i gave up a ton to get to korea. its much much easier to get to korea and take advantage of that system now. but except for a very few, everyone who comes leaves again after a couple months. people just dont put in the effort. they dont deserve to be succesful.
That's the obvious conclusion, but then you have to ask what's the point of the non-Korean system? Do these teams exist only to support a handful of players who already proved themselves in the Korean system? Why not just sponsor a Korean team directly then like FXO did?
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First off, the game has barely been out for 2 years and we're already calling it a shrinking scene? I can't agree with that at all. Second, the two friends I know who are high masters are both associated with big name teams. Plenty of teams are introducing academies or B-team efforts. Complexity, vVv, and Fnatic are all some that come to mind. You can definitely get noticed as a good player on NA.
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Why are you making the assumption that people on the ladder are playing for the goal of getting recognized/go pro?
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After reading all the comments and the OP, I'd love to respond to many people individually but I don't have the patience haha. Thus, I'll try to generalize.
There seems to be two main points that is being stressed throughout this thread and that is:
(1) Tournaments should drop the heavy focus on "Invitationals" and emphasize qualifiers. The reasoning is, if the players are so good that you want to invite them, they'll make it through the qualifiers regardless. These qualifiers would allow for some no names to have the chance to fight for these spots while surprising some people by taking out some pro named players. I'd say this would also stir more discussion because there would be questions as to how good the player is, kinda like the fame Cruncher got for taking out Idra.
(2) Qualifiers should be region locked and then just have a qualifier for each main region. Now the question arises, if we have 60 spots, split equally between NA/EU/KR, then when everyone competes, maybe 8 of the 20 from NA and 6 of the 20 from EU would be lower quality game-play than the top 20 Korean players. If this is the case, obviously we can't expect tournament organizers to just accept that their content is going to be of lesser quality. I'd say the best way to deal with this hypothetical scenario would be to alter the ratio to maybe 15/15/40 until you see foreigners reach a skill level similar to the Koreans. A 15/15/40 split may not even be an increase in NA competitors because they might've only planned to invite 15 NA gamers anyway. Except at least with the qualifier, no names can knock out semi-pro gamers like EGAxslav and get their chance at a legitimate tournament. Who knows, maybe the no name starts practicing for 10 hours a day for the next 2 weeks until the tournament and he ends up placing in the top 10, shocking everyone.
I agree with Doomsville, tournaments need qualifiers to give no names a place to get noticed.
Some high level players like Idra and MorroW were making points how it is easy to get noticed, but they're just looking at the highest level of play. Yes, I agree, if I was as good as Idra, there are places I'd get noticed. I'd play in the online tournaments and would beat TSL_Revival, Violet, or FXOLucky half the time and take these $100 cups. Some relatively high tier team would notice me and I'd get the opportunity to shine.
But what about players who have the same skill level as a player like VileSpanishiwa? He's a great player for sure, but I'd say there are about 30 other NA players just as good as him that get little to no recognition at all. He has luck to thank for the majority of his fans. If there were more cups or qualifiers, which were also region-locked, Spanishiwa, and other players with similar skill level, could show off his skill against the high level players. I think people would be surprised. They'd see that there are probably about 10-15 "no name" NA players that take games or quite often even bo3 series against some of their favorite NA players.
Now our industry is only so big so we cant support all these no namers. I'm not asking anyone to try and support worse players simply because their NA gamers. What I am asking is, give the no namers a chance and some will surprise you. Now if a new "no namer" became popular, he's probably pulling viewership and fans away from other gamers, so now maybe VileSpanishiwa only gets 1800 viewers watching his stream rather than 2000 because 200 are watching this other guy now. Good. We shouldn't have the #35 ranked NA player (don't actually know his rank) be so popular while the #30, or #40 aren't even sponsored. More qualifiers and less invites would lessen the attachment to worse players in my opinion.
I'm not trying to offend any player I'm mentioning I just need a relevant example. If all the vilespanishiwa and QxGDestiny fans started watching these qualifiers to support their favorite player and ended up watching them consistently lose to players you don't even know, it would make it more difficult to support them. Now I'm happy for their success but Destiny, with his record and results, should not be pulling in 5000 viewers when he streams. He has a personality though and that does go far, but more qualifiers to showcase a bigger variety of talent would further emphasize skill over "name." If Destiny or Spanishiwa just get invited, then even if they do lose they were still able to get aired on this big tournament and they might've not been able to make it through the qualifier if there was one.
EGmachine is one of my favorite zerg players. He was the first sc2 pro player I ever watched. I saw his run through MLG Dallas 2010 to the semifinals and I instantly fell in love with competitive SC2. Now although I love EGmachine, he isn't exactly the best player. If there were more qualifiers, we could see EGmachine get knocked out by a "no name". He's one of the lower tier professional NA players that would have to step up his play.
Everyone needs to also understand that the main NA event that showcases our talent is MLG and for the past 8 months more Koreans have been in the open bracket than the MLG Pool Play.
Where am I going with this? Many no name players had a more difficult run through MLG than many pool play players because they had to play against MVPNoblesse( Code A/S Terran) rather than EGIncontroL and LiquidTyler. This more difficult bracket made it even harder for no names to shine.
Yes, I agree NA doesn't have any hidden Idra's or Nerchio's, but I do think there are a lot of hidden EGMachine's and VileSpanishiwa's that nobody ever hears about.
I'm glad thread was posted and I really enjoyed reading all the comments. Went off track sometimes but for the most part, it's a great discussion.
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The point about inviting less players won't be an idea any tournament organizer would follow. These tournaments are all a business. They dish out prizes and some prize money for more publicity for the sponsors. How do they gain more publicity? By getting viewers. Break 10,000 spectators! Break 25,000! Break 50,000! Break 100,000!!! More sponsors will be attracted to give some money in for ads and promotions and such. The gaming industry thrives off this in terms of live events.
But the most important question to ask is who do people want to watch?
Do people want to watch a pool of 50 unknown players and then 14 known famous popular players? No.
People, and this goes for me as well, want to watch the Koreans, the NA players, the best EU players....simply put people want to watch the best that the game has to offer. I think everyone would rather watch a bunch of games between the best players than see lower level players fill up the qualifiers and take away invite spots for these lower level players. I'd rather watch Idra, Morrow, Kas, Dimaga over some lower level players who haven't really showcased much talent. Over the past year, the people who have fallen off the radar deserved to fall off the radar. Some new names have come up the ranks and the best are still here. Players like Axslav, drewbie, cruncher, dde, TT1, LZgamer, have all had their moments early in the game but have really fallen off the radar. Players like elfi, stephano, titan, and even HuK and Thorzain have all climbed up the ladder of fame practicing however they did to reach the top and be noticed by the SC2 community. Players like Huk (once he got to the top), Idra, Naniwa, Morrow, and Kas have always been in the public's eye and have consistently performed at a high level to stay there. It's the same pattern in Korea. Fruitdealer is off the radar. DRG is at the top after climbing a crazy ladder. And MVP has always been there.
You are right about the structure of Code B then Code A presents a clear cut way to get your name out there but so do all these other foreign tournaments. There are qualifying spots, albeit only a few, but they exist. If you're good enough to qualify and play then you are good enough. If not, go and practice. Why do you think Koreans practice so damn much and then go on to practice some more, because if you aren't that good and if you aren't practicing that much then you aren't going through to Code B, let's not even talk about Code A qualifiers and how hard they are. In Korea the way up the chain is against all the other people going up the chain with you but also against the current of current pros being dropped by even better more daunting players.In the end, players are as good as they are. It doesn't really matter who they play in the qualifiers. There's a reason why the opponent was there and sometimes you get easier opponents and sometimes you get harder opponents.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
On January 26 2012 09:09 SirRobin wrote:
But what about players who have the same skill level as a player like VileSpanishiwa? He's a great player for sure, but I'd say there are about 30 other NA players just as good as him that get little to no recognition at all. He has luck to thank for the majority of his fans. If there were more cups or qualifiers, which were also region-locked, Spanishiwa, and other players with similar skill level, could show off his skill against the high level players. I think people would be surprised. They'd see that there are probably about 10-15 "no name" NA players that take games or quite often even bo3 series against some of their favorite NA players.
Now our industry is only so big so we cant support all these no namers. I'm not asking anyone to try and support worse players simply because their NA gamers. What I am asking is, give the no namers a chance and some will surprise you. Now if a new "no namer" became popular, he's probably pulling viewership and fans away from other gamers, so now maybe VileSpanishiwa only gets 1800 viewers watching his stream rather than 2000 because 200 are watching this other guy now. Good. We shouldn't have the #35 ranked NA player (don't actually know his rank) be so popular while the #30, or #40 aren't even sponsored. More qualifiers and less invites would lessen the attachment to worse players in my opinion.
MLG has an open bracket
NASL has qualifiers
lots of online cups
IEM has regional qualifiers (illusion and gatored able to get recognition here)
IPL3 had qualifiers too and ontop of that, had an open bracket
HSC had NA qualifiers, KawaiiRice and Attero? They didn't even make it out of group play and they did the best in the qualifiers (except violet).
those "big" NA names you listed like Machine are barely invited to tournaments, mostly through qualifiers like everyone else. NA scene is not very deep in talent at all, they have opportunities like the rest.
what tournaments in NA are exclusively invite only?
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http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=302498
What do you guys think about this lineup?
It's getting more like celebrity contest with a tiny bit of good players but players who are invited are famous for being famous.
On the other hand if we treat eSport as a buissness, then it's all about viewers - that's where tourneys earn money, viewers generate sponsors. There's probably no way to change it, but it really sadens me that it's going more towards celebrities than good players. I'm wondering, maybe more of TL attack stuff should be done to make REALLY good players more known?
I'm pretty sure most of EU GM players would easily advance off of a group in such cup, probably even placed top3 with lucky bracket. I understand that people might want to watch idra over some mid GM player, on the other hand the skill gap between top50 GM and idra's caliber players is surprisingly small.
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One of the major points the original poster wanted to bring up is that we need new blood to keep SC2 alive as a sport.
Idra is right that players need to work hard to get the skills to get into tournaments and build up a fan base.
That being said, the cost of entry is very high as things stand and it only will get more difficult. If you look at other sports, people train in football from an early age, being involved in local teams at their school and finally at their university. Its after years of work that people end up being offered a contract.
The point I want to bring up is that SC2 has these small weekly tournaments, but it doesn't have environments where budding pros could be trained to climb the echelons. The Collegiate Starleague already exists, but I don't think its necessarily meeting this end, not in a way it can be compared to the CFL, for example, and there certainly is no system feeding into the CSL (not that I'm implying that the CSL should feed tournaments but that there be a structure in which people could train). I wonder how such a system could be developed. Just as college sports is celebrated, semi-pro Starcraft should be as well, not entirely unlike the AHL Day9 created.
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On January 26 2012 04:59 DoomsVille wrote:
You guys are getting too caught up on the graph/statistics. Let's focus on the concept.
It's hard for foreigners to make a name for themselves because of invites and a lack of opportunity to showcase their talents. Focus on that and the issues around that.
There are plenty of opportunities to make oneself known. Most players who get to mid grandmasters on NA feel they're being cheated because no one knows who they are, and whine about how exclusive the scene is, instead of just practicing their ass off for a few years until they are good enough to win tournaments and get invited.
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You can't marginalise the best players - they are who people want to see.
The fact that Korea seems to have the best players can not be denied.
Develop players though interim tourneys, non- 95% invitational ones, develop a culture of e-sports and a motivation for players to keep going beyond the, " I've made it to GM, now back to real life", and you may have a solution. However, can anybody give evidence of a non-Korean who has made a career out of e-sports? I mean someone who has raised a family or spent the past 15 years playing stacraft (successfully, don't say the Graken coz he hasn't won shit recently). My point is that it is not a part of our culture. In the UK I get more love for saying that I want to be on X factor than being a pro-gamer and there is where the motivation really hits me.
There are bigger fish to fry.
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maybe our best foreigners just arent good yet.........bronze league to gsl anyone?
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Will the process for qualifying for the World Championships be completely void of invitations? Will everyone have to go through the same process?
Ilja RotelliEverybody goes through the same process. Basically, we're trying to move away from the notion of invitationals that we used in 2011, and move into a transparent infrastructure that allows people from the outside to look in and say "Okay, if I want to go to World Championships, there's a path in front of me that allows me to qualify." It won't be Blizzard just picking people who are good for marketing purposes; it's really a sport.
looks like Blizzard agrees with us.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=306396
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6BXU2.png)
