Almost every large tournament event worth noting takes place in a LAN environment, be it Dreamhack, GSL, MLG or countless others. More and more however, with the inability to have LAN functionality in SC2, this is simply turning into an internet based tournament in the same room as each other.
Arguably exactly the same quality of games could typically take place with the players still residing in their respective countries, avoiding ten's of thousands of dollars in additional costs (across the entire player base) such as flights and accommodation.
I'm just curious as to why in this age of internet based play we're still looking to pay thousands of dollars to attend many of the large tournaments out there? I can understand production value is higher if you can get all the players into the one location, seeing the booths etc, but I think you could easily have the same atmosphere with a live crowd and live commentators streaming the games with the players themselves at home.
I'm just curious if people think that the benefits (additional production value) outweigh the costs (arguably less accessible tournaments and much higher outlay for players to attend different locations around the world) in these days of internet based play?
Do you think we'll ever get to the point where major tournaments take place entirely online?
Would you be happy to view a tournament such as this, or do you think that the offline element is required to add to the atmosphere?
Isn't this self-explainable? Why do people go to sporting events rather than watching them on TV? Why do people go to barcrafts? It's more social and more fun to be part of a live crowd.
On February 02 2012 08:19 Chill wrote: Isn't this self-explainable? Why do people go to sporting events rather than watching them on TV? Why do people go to barcrafts? It's more social and more fun to be part of a live crowd.
Crowds and atmosphere mostly. No online tournament can produce screaming fans cheering for their favorite player, on the spot interviews, crowd shots, emotional player reactions after wins/losses, prize ceremonies, etc. There's also the fact that scheduling an online tournament with players from all over the world would be a nightmare, not to mention technical problems like cross-region lag / internet going down / etc. There's also the cheating aspect too.
What Chill said basically. + The fact you get a chance to interact with the players Would never get the chance to meet so many players from different parts of the world if it wasn't for the LAN.
And it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more exciting to be in a big crowd in a final than to watch the final alone in front of your computer.
On February 02 2012 08:17 Phaded wrote: Number one reason : Cheating
Yah, I go to live events not for the roaring crowds, the feel of the atmosphere of the event or to potentially meet my favorite player. I go mainly because I'm afraid of the possibility of players cheating in online events. Makes sense right.
Being able to see and have a live in person interview with the players is more meaningful for people, and having players play from home will always have some issues (look at NASL, or in any tournament where someone for Europe or Korea has to play on the NA server or vice versa).
TSL3 played out mostly online and went quite well, proving that it's possible, but even they knew that a live finals was important for the legitimacy of the tournament and for the more exciting atmosphere. Also; MLG runs in a weekend and has I don't even know how many games played during it. You couldn't have nearly the same amount of series/games played over a comparable time span online because to many people would have other engagements/technical issues/personal issues/time zone issues which are minimized by being at a live venue.
On February 02 2012 08:17 Phaded wrote: Number one reason : Cheating
Yah, I go to live events not for the roaring crowds, the feel of the atmosphere of the event or to potentially meet my favorite player. I go mainly because I'm afraid of the possibility of players cheating in online events. Makes sense right.
Part of his post is questioning it from an organizer and player's point of few. No need to be sarcastic.
Cheating is one of the reasons certainly. Maybe not the only one, but in the history of esports of any kind it has been one of the biggest.
Another factor (even if it doesn't work with SC2) is latency. Lan tournaments helped us bridge that gap, which seemed fairly big at the start of BW. I used to play pretty competively (at that time) in clan wars in 2000 and it was a big problem when you wanted to play outside of your true "local" area (meaning games between german and austrian clans could already be problematic if one of the two players did not have a top of the line internet connection).
Aside from that the fact is that tournaments are a buisness. You need to "sell" a product. General consensus is that you get a better feeling, if you have a cheering crowd live. Consider the difference between a GSL and an AOL final. Both are done by the same company, but they feel completly different.
Personally i'd love it for the players if we had better paying online tournaments. It would certainly improve their lives and make things easier for them, but for myself as a spectator i prefer the higher value productions offline events can bring.
(Note I am not saying online tournaments cannot be done well, TSL3 and quite a few other tournaments were done perfectly well, but we must admit that almost every single one of them had problems at one point or another).
I think a lot of the points raised are quite valid, but I'd play devils advocate on a few issues
Crowds & Atmosphere - I'd say that being in a live crowd would be a great experience. I'd also say that for the vast majority of the people experiencing a tournament it would be viewed via a stream regardless, negating a lot of that 'atmosphere' benefit. For an example, I'd say the vast majority of us have not watched a GSL series live, with it taking place in Korea. Assuming they could provide an equivalent level of service (i.e. lack of lag, player availability etc) I'd argue that the fact that it is or isn't live wouldn't make a huge difference to many people (again others may disagree).
This also doesn't preclude the ability for people to host huge barcrafts / have casters live and stream that for those who enjoy the offline atmosphere much more.
Cheating - I'd say this is a fair point. I'd say however that it appears that lots of online tournaments do take place (although not the major ones) and cheating doesn't seem to be a huge issue at this stage, however I acknowledge this may change in the future with either different hacks developing or the prize stakes increasing.
Lag / Scheduling - Probably the biggest point raised so far that I agree with, it would admittedly be hard to schedule players and deal with cross server lag when playing for different locations around the world.
I suppose coming from a corner of the world (Australia) where it's extremely expensive to fly and participate in any major tournaments (not for myself, for other top Australian players) I was curious as to what some of the barriers were in taking advantage of the online nature of our sport rather than the traditional LAN or even 'normal' sporting environment. Clearly it's not quite feasible yet, hopefully one day it may be however.
TSL is the only successful online Tournament that has the same viewer/hype as a live event. Though the TSL is very special and unique.
Though I want to ask have you ever been to a live event? if your answer is no I suggest go to an MLG/Dreamhack and you will figure out why Lan's are the best.
I don't think you will ever see a major online only tournament mostly because of cheating. For example, if your team has a player in the round of 32, he's up against a Zerg, but his PvZ if awful.. what's to stop them from having another guy on the team sub in and play for him that has good PvZ? You would have to implement some kind of weird validation system. Would the hassle be worth it vs simply having them show up to an offline location? Doubtful.
if it's not live, i'd always imagine 10 people sitting behind the player telling him about possibilities of what's coming or watch his supply from being locked.
Although there aren't any major tournaments online; there is so much high quality competitive gaming that you can get right at your computer, right at home. It's nice to mix it up a bit by going to see the players, the games, how it happens and just being a part of it. It's like any sporting event. Right now Im pretty happy with the balance of sitting at home or going to an event that eSports already offers. It's going to get even better too as eSports continue to grow and there are more big local tourneys.
Cheating - I'd say this is a fair point. I'd say however that it appears that lots of online tournaments do take place (although not the major ones) and cheating doesn't seem to be a huge issue at this stage, however I acknowledge this may change in the future with either different hacks developing or the prize stakes increasing.
The problem with cheating in Online tournaments isnt so much hacks, but rather that it will be broadcasted live, meaning you could watch what the other person is doing with it ever being able to prove it. And no one wants to watch replays being casted(if its a major tournament such as Dreamhack etc).
If you've never been to a LAN event i can see this question popping up. I went to Dreamhack Winter 2011 and the SC2 finals in the arena with 4000 people was just amazing!
Cheating - I'd say this is a fair point. I'd say however that it appears that lots of online tournaments do take place (although not the major ones) and cheating doesn't seem to be a huge issue at this stage, however I acknowledge this may change in the future with either different hacks developing or the prize stakes increasing.
The problem with cheating in Online tournaments isnt so much hacks, but rather that it will be broadcasted live, meaning you could watch what the other person is doing with it ever being able to prove it. And no one wants to watch replays being casted(if its a major tournament such as Dreamhack etc).
That is not the problem to my knowledge. You can easily add 5 minutes caster delay if you want to, which makes that kind of cheating impossible. What you cannot prevent are hacks on the PCs, Teammates standing behind the player and giving advice (which might be unhelpfull in many cases, but simply having someone else watching the minimap as well can be a huge help). Hell you need to jump through some special hoops to make sure the correct guy is even playing...
What most current tournaments do is "hope" to some extent that the honor system works. Trust me, if we had a tournament worth 100k online that hope would be a completly unacceptable risk.
I've watched this game since beta, and to this date the only live tournament I have ever been to was MLG Columbus. The best expereince I ever had, despite the games not being as good as some online ones, was the one time I went to an MLG Live
Well offline tournaments is just so much better than online. Mostly because the crowd/cheering/adrenaline and the atmosphere in general. The casting. Players interacting with the fans etc. Online tournaments is good too but i prefer offline tournaments. And nowadays we can watch the offline tournaments over the streams so.
I prefer offline tournaments casted from replays. Not as much waiting around for matches and not as many technical issues causing awkward moments. With SC2 being a global sport ,with people playing all around the world knowing the results immediately is not as important to me as watching a well produced show.
- Maphacking - Stream watching - Using friends/team mates to watch and give you tips as you play (I imagine this goes on a lot in online tournaments). - Let other people play on your account
Online tournaments are fun but LAN is all that really matters.
Girls screaming because of the sick storms, and all the hundreds of other examples of people losing their mind in real life, is the reason why live events are so much better.
The primary answer lies in viewer preference. Whether the viewer preference is rational is a wholly different matter.
We like strange things. For example, why does people care about whether the games are live or replays from yesterday? As long as we can control for leaks, does it really matter? Unfortunately, people care about that a lot. Given same conditions, a replay-based broadcast will suffer a third in viewership reduction compared to a live one.
It's also important to remember that a lot of these events (dreamhack and assembly come to mind) are pre-existing events that have simply added SC2 to their tournament list.
Although MLG is taking more of an online approach. Online qualifiers followed up with a broadcast only winter finals. We'll see how it goes :D
On February 02 2012 20:51 Mouzone wrote: When the online environment will offer a latency that is hardly noticeable we'll start to see a heavier direction towards online tournaments.
Even when two players are playing across from each other, all the signals have to go through the Bnet servers hundreds of miles away, hence the "no-lan" thing.
Another question, why are there no tournament houses? I mean a neutral house in each country with neutral PCs and observers, maybe even a small viewer area. So players don't need to travel for each tournament around the globe with all the travel costs and you still have it cheat protected and live streaming compatible.
Because there are not that many tourney´s in every country, but think or the GOM studios. Also there would also be a limited count of people who could visit the event, this is the reason why MLG has different stations every time.
Homestory cup was so amazing!! I hope there will always be many offline tournaments, it´s pretty much better than online tourneys!!
Online tournaments just don't cut it when it comes to large scale professional productions, people want to see IdrA smashing his keyboard in frustration, or MC doing a murloc victory dance. It just adds to the show.
EPT
Would never get the chance to meet so many players from different parts of the world if it wasn't for the LAN. 
