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I think one thing that needs to change is the prize money distribution in tournaments. Currently the winner gets a huge amount of money (compared to the rest) and the rest basically gets nothing.
Take for example ESWC, the total prize money was 40k, the ditribution was 20k, 12k, 8k, 0. Why should someone even go there, if he knows that with 99'% percent certainty that he will not make top 3?
You need an incentive for the players to go there and participate other than, "I like the guys and want to meet them, no matter how I play." People will only try hard for so long if there is nothing to achieve for them. Honestly what is the difference between being in top 32 or top 16 if only top 8 get money or any prize?
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Another great post Torte!
You made some really good points. I just wanted to touch on a few points. I think events like WCS are extremely important for the growth of the NA scene. BUT they can't keep being tacked on to other events. WCS US finals got the finals broadcasted and a quick 2 minute interview with ViBE on the main stage. WCS Canada got better coverage being there with NASL but still nothing in comparison to some of the EU ones that were stand alone. Lets compare the NA finals to the EU finals. I was one of the lucky ones that was at the MLG/WCS events so I could follo everything but even that didn't have the coverage it deserved. EU finals had great coverage as a stand alone event.
I just hope blizzard sees this and helps put more money into WCS so NA and Canada can have stand alone events to help promote more growth. After all the up and coming scene are going to be the guys that keep this game going.
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On November 07 2012 03:41 SupLilSon wrote:
Interesting read but I think at this point it's going to be increasingly difficult to cultivate the regional scenes. The gap between foreigner and Korean is glaring and ever increasing. In SC2 entire tournaments can be played and broadcasted over the internet. It's much easier for tournament organizers to get those geographically separated Koreans into their events and still reach a world wide audience. There just isn't any reason for people to watch or care about the local scenes. CSL does a decent job promoting the local scenes as it gets gamers in touch with others from their area. But I don't feel any impetus to root for Maryland SC2 players, even if there were some at the pro level.
Yes, this is 100% correct. Not all levels will receive the same level of exposure because it doesnt affect the same people, but it will create larger areas for different levels of champions and will also help those gauge whether to keep pursuing a part-time career within the scene as well as have the local supportive community. It's all about steps and creating levels.
On November 07 2012 04:40 Kazeyonoma wrote:
interesting take, i do agree that having some region tournaments could be good, as we saw with the WCS, the problem is finding sponsors and organizers who would be willing to do something homegrown like this, and not have them just offer a slightly higher prize pool and get a few koreans involved, and get higher overall viewership.
Yes, this is because even the top guys are starved for viewership and return on their huge, huge investments.
On November 07 2012 05:08 Angel_ wrote:
I kind of agree at your point. Who would watch?
However, I don't know that attempting to go into that route is a good idea in general yet, for the same reason I don't think it would work. I do think it is a necessity for the foreign scene eventually though and eventually, if it can be put together, would be beneficial in the long-term if we don't want the foreign scene to just die off, or become the "minors", as it very would could.
I think foreigners really need to solve a lot of the issues they have that keep them from performing well. It's intertwined; with such a massive gap and so many competitors ahead of you it's nearly impossible to stay motivated. Part of that comes I think from naturally feeling like you have a leg 'down' and that Korea has so many advantages; it's mental, but another huge part of it, and most of it I think, is that foreigners genuinely don't know how to practice and aren't willing to do what they need to (though again, I think a lot of it is just not knowing WHAT to do). There are certainly a lot of other things: saturation of the foreign scene, depth of players, proper attention and coverage, sponsorship, environment, standards of living and expecatation (we're supposed to go to get a degree and stuff), but when it comes down to it I think foreigners just don't know what to do or how to do it and frankly, just aren't as willing.
TLDR: I think that having those tournaments would help, but I think we can't have those tournaments until the foreign scene helps itself better in other ways, or they just won't get watched, and that will demotivate them and the foreign scene even more.
srry for many edits.
also also, I genuinely thought this was going to be a proper tirade on "armchair quarterback-ing" in the community and the complete lack of understanding of what a professional scene is and needs and how ridiculous people are ^_^
Bolded: yes, I agree. Some may not know how to practice but there isn't necessarily a true and tried way and even those who don't practice seem to succeed even more. It's different for different people, but a good environment, self-motivation and reasons to push through as well as a return in reward sentimentally or even materialistically are all good ways to keep players going despite unsure of their methodologies (which can be tested and thoroughly examined as we grow larger and have more dedicated people).
Underlined: I started this about a month or two ago, so this was before all the drama and such ^^
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On November 07 2012 05:45 StarStruck wrote:
That's the thing, they aren't supposed to.
Either you have the talent or you don't. There have only been a handful of NA players who have been on my radar ever.
REcco was on my radar way before that regional. The guy's been getting results for a long time before that.
Scarlett demonstrates the finesse of a player and it was IPL that really put her on my map. I might not like her method of practice, but it works for her. I don't think she's anywhere close to peaking yet at WoL under this patch.
ViBE never lost relevance for me when it came to the NA scene.
I'm sorry to say but only a few players will ever make it and only a handful of Koreans and people really don't want to see that regional crap.
They want to see the best of the best, so if you do want to become the best of the best you have to tough it out and have the skill to do it.
Here we go: Not all prospering players will rise to the top or even break the competitive curb.
As I said previously, I think the "Best of the best" is a misinterpretation of equivalency for "interesting". The best of the best are mechanically solid, strategically thorough and focused on their opponent. But they also create the most dull games or the fastest way to win assuredly. This isn't the case for all, but it is a reason why we shouldn't behold the best of the best for all tournaments, but those that are the most prestigious. Regional tournaments are not the most prestigious, but they can be the most entertaining. Not through flaws of less mechanically practiced people like fumbles in a Football game, but rather because of their uniqueness that isn't displayed through overall strategy but other aspects we never considered initially.
On November 07 2012 07:34 Fatta wrote:
I think one thing that needs to change is the prize money distribution in tournaments. Currently the winner gets a huge amount of money (compared to the rest) and the rest basically gets nothing.
Take for example ESWC, the total prize money was 40k, the ditribution was 20k, 12k, 8k, 0. Why should someone even go there, if he knows that with 99'% percent certainty that he will not make top 3?
You need an incentive for the players to go there and participate other than, "I like the guys and want to meet them, no matter how I play." People will only try hard for so long if there is nothing to achieve for them. Honestly what is the difference between being in top 32 or top 16 if only top 8 get money or any prize?
Yes, agreed. A better distribution of money would be more suited. MLG has improved since the last year with this.
On November 07 2012 07:43 TheRealNanMan wrote:
Another great post Torte!
You made some really good points. I just wanted to touch on a few points. I think events like WCS are extremely important for the growth of the NA scene. BUT they can't keep being tacked on to other events. WCS US finals got the finals broadcasted and a quick 2 minute interview with ViBE on the main stage. WCS Canada got better coverage being there with NASL but still nothing in comparison to some of the EU ones that were stand alone. Lets compare the NA finals to the EU finals. I was one of the lucky ones that was at the MLG/WCS events so I could follo everything but even that didn't have the coverage it deserved. EU finals had great coverage as a stand alone event.
I just hope blizzard sees this and helps put more money into WCS so NA and Canada can have stand alone events to help promote more growth. After all the up and coming scene are going to be the guys that keep this game going.
The reason WCS are tacked on with other major events is to both cut costs in travel and more. I think that's something we can't necessarily skip over or ask yet if any upcoming leagues or tournaments want to start-up.
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On November 07 2012 06:35 LlamaNamedOsama wrote:
Good read! I agree with pretty much all the points made in your post Torte.
On top of regional competitions, I also think that people across the board need to do more to promote individual players as personalities, especially the lesser-known players like Attero. And by across the board, I really do mean across the board - the player should put him/herself out there as a personality, as a face, as a person with history, interests, unique quirks, the team should try to promote the player in this way, and even tournament organizations should produce content that promotes characters and figures. Now, I'd even err on the side of shifting focus from the player to teams and tournaments - after all, players have to dedicate themselves to the game since skill is a huge factor in their attractiveness as players, leaving them with little time/energy to devote to marketing, and they do much as it is to interact with their followers on stream or twitter.
And this does not just mean interviews. I don't know about others, but I get really bored by interviews. There's kind of a double-bind when it comes to interviews. Either I don't really know that player in the first place, so I'm not interested in hearing from them, or I am already a fan of them, so I probably wouldn't learn anything new from the interview. I probably wouldn't watch any standalone interview except for maybe my single most favorite player (TLO), and even then, I do it for the sake of soaking in more of that awesomeness that is Dario and less for the actual content of the interview. And even if I'm interested in hearing from someone I don't know that much, the content of both questions and answers are usually really bland. It's all telling and no showing, by the very nature of the interview format. It's part of why Liquid Rising felt disappointing for so many fans, because it offered almost solely a series of interviews. That's not to say that interviews should not or cannot work - other documentaries often employ them effectively (for example, StarNation's teaser/previews). It's all about using them effectively to show a richer picture and narrative. Interviews with Naniwa about his ambitions, for example, are juxtaposed with his award ceremony.
So what can teams or organizations do to promote players as personalities? We need to know each player as a story. This follows along with some of the typical stuff that we usually hype, such as the reigning champion (MVP), the fearsome legend (Flash), the underdog (usually the foreigner remaining). But don't just have the casters tell us these things while waiting for the game to start - show us these things! I think a particularly effective way of doing this is some sort of video-vignette. Think of the Olympics, and how they manage to communicate the story of US Olympians who, to be honest, most of us have not heard of outside of the Olympic context, or sometimes, have not heard of at all prior to that very Olympics. They combine elements of brief statements from the person, brief facts about the person, and importantly, brief images and videos of the person or the person in action in their competitive venue.
Also, showing players sitting in front of a computer clicking a lot is not that interesting (another criticism of Liquid Rising, because much of the video footage that was not a person sitting in front of the camera answering interview questions was instead players sitting in front of a computer clicking a lot). SC2 is a level of abstraction different from sports - the basic physicality of it is not that amazing. Sure, you can show us the keyboard and how fast their fingers move (like the famous Nada apm clip for the National Geographic documentary), but don't just show them staring at the screen. For one, APM is so much more visually powerful when you see those clicks translated into actions, into a dizzyingly fast blur of screen to screen action and movement. And players each have unique playstyles that can be documented through specific clips that are exemplify their unique styles.
If this person is a college student (Suppy), show a clip of them in class as a regular kid like a lot of us, then juxtapose that with him on a huge stage with hundreds of fans! If it's someone with a particular playstyle, like Ret, show us some brief clips zooming in on the worker count with him at like 90 or 100 drones. If it's TLO, show us clips of his games with nydus worms and drop playing occurring all over the place. If it's Vibe or someone with insanely high apm, even for a pro, show us a brief FPV clip! If it's grandpa Whitera, show us a clip of some tournament he competed in BW years ago. If it's Naniwa, show those reactions after his wins in the GSL, in contrast to his reaction after getting knocked out early in Dreamhack to show the huge range of his passion in winning and losing, and his dedication towards becoming the very best.
This is occasionally done, and in a number of forms. TeamLiquidPro, for instance, has really detailed player biographies, which are cool, and GSL occasionally does mini-docs that cover specific players, like MMA or MKP. But there needs to be more. When and where can it be done? For one, showmatches. Showmatches in particular have never captured my attention, because I really just feel that there's nothing huge "at stake." Yet when I think of boxing or MMA (the sport, not the player), I think of big matches over titles, with underdogs and champions, with a whole lot of hype dedicated to each and every showmatch. If organizations (for example, IPL's Fightclub) added in such a thing to their showmatches, I feel like they would vastly increase the value of that very event. Other organizations, like NASL, could use player spotlight vignettes to enhance season/league based content. While I do believe I've seen an NASL day or two where they mentioned a particular video, the spotlight amounted to the casters simply talking about the player and offering some brief facts, instead of really digging in and offering a cool story to attract interest towards the player.
Of course, such efforts take time and money. But I think that these are investments worth making.
[Edit] This got longer than I thought it would be...
TLDR: organizations need to showcase/highlight player stories more, and need to show personality instead of merely telling. In the status quo, organizations try to tell player stories via pre and post-game chats or interviews, which are boring - instead, they show show via brief video clips and vignettes that tell a player's story much like the athlete vignettes seem in the Olympics.
[Edit2]: Also just now found this great blog post that Suppy made, which has some overlap with the stuff that I talked about. He also has some other really great ideas for specific scenarios like MLG/IPL - the huge bracket tournaments that can't stream everything - have an open bracket reporter, and if possible showcase highlights/awesome moments of open bracket games (directly from replays) that were not streamed!
Here we go: Yes, personality and story-telling are important and help distinguish players from one another, including Koreans. Interviews help this, but power rankings and hype articles like TL are important. I wrote about this later on and should be released sometime!
I 100% agree with the entire thing. I don't have much to write because you're saying a lot to what I've already written in another article haha! MAybe you should consider writing something, this is good!
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How important or influential to the scene is it for a foreigner to win WCS? What effect do you thnk that would have on the scene?
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On November 07 2012 08:54 jcroisdale wrote:
How important or influential to the scene is it for a foreigner to win WCS? What effect do you thnk that would have on the scene?
I would say it wouldn't affect much at all because the core problem isn't that one or two professionals break out as one of the best players in the world, we already title that to two or three people.
It's the need for an entire different scale of comparison and perception of foreigners within their own geographical scene. NaNiwa beating Flash or Stephano winning through many Koreans is impressive, but just creates a distinguish towards that person, not enough to cater to a scene that can prosper on its own.
With more successful foreigners, with or without a supportive levels of challenging tournaments, we should see some change of opinions and prejudices.
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I am really against these invite type of special events where people are invited based on name recognition. The period where I felt I was breaking out and most motivated, where i thought i was top2 top3 foreign zerg before stephano and nerchio broke out, I'd always be frustrated by the announcement of yet another special invite event...
Had to wait a half year between every dreamhack to truly get a chance to make a name for yourself. With truly, I mean getting invited by default to these lone star clash, red bull, asus rog invite, dreamhack invite, gsl world vs korea, type of events; and building up enough clout to be sent overseas. I flubbed out at dreamhack after having a real strong dominating spring 2011. Since then, enrolled in univ and slowly fading out, with the occasional comeback binges.
edit: if there was a millenium house, or korean partnership back then i would have jumped at the opportunity. but basically only TL, perhaps EG, with those connections then.
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Agree with you about regional tournaments being important. Without the swedish esport championship i don't think SortOf and Starnan, probably the current 2nd and 3rd best players in Swe after naniwa, would have bothered pursuing SC2. You got to give the players something to strive for. Breaking out and making a name for yourself internationally is really really difficult. With regional and national events, you motivate both the pros and the just-below-pro-level players.
There just needs to be more of it. Once a year events aren't enough.
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I remember going to MLG Providence and Columbus and being THAT guy. The guy whose favorite players were from or living in NA. I remember when Illusion made his splash on the scene at Providence and everyone was like who's that kid. And at Columbus, it was still mostly, who is that kid? It's a shame that there's not more regional pride.
I was actually talking about this recently with someone at a MLG viewing party. I think if the teams at least put a city to their name, it might help a lot. I mean its not like eSports hasn't done it before. 3D NY and LA Complexity come to mind from CS. And I remember tuning into the League of Legends World Finals, a scene I know little about, to see teams like the Taipei Assassins and Moscow 5. Even if the players on the team weren't from the city, I think if the team endeared themselves to a city that it would help a lot. Just like in the NBA, most players on the team might not be from the city but they are loved by that area.
Imagine if we had like Dallas Dignitas (I just liked the alliteration) and say Violet got signed as the hometown hero. And all of Dallas Dignitas showed up to MLG Dallas to defend their home turf. I think people would have a much easier time relating to a team. I know I personally follow players around so I'm just as guilty as anyone else when it comes to not supporting a team just because they're mostly based in NA.
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Northern Ireland23767 Posts
On November 07 2012 09:48 LaLuSh wrote:
I am really against these invite type of special events where people are invited based on name recognition. The period where I felt I was breaking out and most motivated, where i thought i was top2 top3 foreign zerg before stephano and nerchio broke out, I'd always be frustrated by the announcement of yet another special invite event...
Had to wait a half year between every dreamhack to truly get a chance to make a name for yourself. With truly, I mean getting invited by default to these lone star clash, red bull, asus rog invite, dreamhack invite, gsl world vs korea, type of events; and building up enough clout to be sent overseas. I flubbed out at dreamhack after having a real strong dominating spring 2011. Since then, enrolled in univ and slowly fading out, with the occasional comeback binges.
edit: if there was a millenium house, or korean partnership back then i would have jumped at the opportunity. but basically only TL, perhaps EG, with those connections then.
I think you nail a lot of issues on the head here. At the time where the SC2 scene was developing you saw many of the same names over and over again at tournaments. This wasn't all bad for breaking E-sports to people, maintaining stories and the like, but it did have an extra effect insofar as people lower from this group often struggled like hell to get to tournaments. Look at MLG back in the day, you had players stubbornly sticking to pool play for months and months, winning a single series or two every MLG. White-Ra came and played over 25 sets and lost to Select after coming out of Open Bracket and got nothing. I recall Deathangel, while in the wrong claiming as a justification for the Veralynn controvesy that he couldn't even get showmatches despite making the final of the Code A prelims twice.
Nowadays I'm not sure how you can rectify it, after the fact. A lot of potential pros have really struggled to make anything playing this game, and have to support themselves through coaching, or other revenue streams, to the detriment of their play. This in turn makes it harder to qualify for good tournaments to make their name, especially given that the Koreans are generally present. It is getting better to a degree, to take one example, SoTG since the relaunch seems a lot less centred on a handful of personalities and is giving other pros a chance at exposure.
Meanwhile, the Koreans have the optimal playing environments, but yet many teams have financial problems because they haven't done the additional content that (in my view) is holding back the pure playing potential in the foreign scene. It's a pretty tough balance between being a viable business like EG, and producing and maintaining the best player rosters.
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I'm at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I believe we need more integration and less separation. As it stands now, Koreans just practice amongst themselves, and when a Foreigner event comes along, they swoop in and steal our lunch money leaving us wondering what the hell happened. We need something that forces integration. Something like a mandatory foreign exchange program (totally implausible, I know, but let's roll with it god damnit) Get together all the foreign and korean teams with team houses and do a mandatory pair up with Korean teams. Be it lotto, selection based on past performances, whatever. We just gotta get them paired.
Once everyone is paired, the teams select three players from their respective sides. Three is random number, it can be more, but it shouldn't be less.
3 K's to Foreigner Land
3 F's to Korea Land
Why is this beneficial to both sides?
K sends players that could use exposure in Foreigner Land market, gaining fans to bring back to Korea
K's get to participate in tournaments that they would otherwise be unable to attend due to the cost of flying overseas
K players at the top level in Korea would still be able to participate in tournaments due to qualifiers paying for everything
K players are well practiced & very skilled, this would act as a motivator to F's
K's in Foreigner Land can participate in Online Team Leagues vs F's without annoying cross-server lag
K's make friends and learn English more easily, creating a much more unified scene
F sends players that could use the practice and learning experience of playing at the K level daily
F learns by playing with the best of the best
F is coached by the best of the best
F is able to participate in GSTL and other K leagues, showing how they compare to K and their growth while there
F is able to compete against other K's in Online Team Leagues without annoying cross-server lag
F gains Korean fans, creating more interest in Foreigner Land events
F makes K friends and helps to unify the scene
F brings back his experience and helps to enforce K methods upon fellow F's
How does this differ from team partnerships?
1)Team partnerships generally just allow Koreans already in Korea to join an already existing team house, with a single foreigner being shipped away to Korea Land to fend for himself and steal a GSL seed, only to be knocked out due to lack of preparation & practice
2)No Koreans from pro teams ever stay with a foreigner team that they are partnered with for extended periods and help enforce a practice regiment and/or help motivate the team.
Increasing the overall availability of Foreigner-Korean play could have one of two effects.
1) It increases the skill level of foreigners due to easier access in a unified scene with shared information
2) Koreans completely phase out Foreigners due to their total lack of natural ability and Korea takes over the e-World
If it's the latter, we should just give up anyway and stop kidding ourselves. Segregation wont save us if we can't stand up to them on our own turf. I know this scenario would never happen... Just my thoughts on the best method to close the skill gap.
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Torte, your witing still amazes me everytime. This just motivated me a bit more to produce the plan were coming up with. Hopefully not too late.
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very very good, keep em coming!
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Very good writeup. Agree 100% and am hoping for more.
On Blizzard's end I think they could be much more BOLD with regional support for HOTS...thinking about the future is depressing me...
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Attero was even kind of successful for how good he was to be honest.. there are way more especially European players who get almost 0 recognition while being really good.
@Lalush
While I like Sortof and Starnan myself you can't be serious... Sase and Thorzain are better than them, Sortof is probably really close though. They are both underrated and Starnan didn't even get featured on TL's streamer list after his amazing Dreamhack performance.
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guess i dont count as american terran
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Good write-up Torte! Pretty much captures everything that is true about foreigner SC2 and why everyone is slowly fading out / getting demotivated, and even all the casual gamers quitting. I think its fixable, just a rough patch in a great game / great community, hopefully 
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On November 07 2012 15:08 Kaitokid wrote:
Attero was even kind of successful for how good he was to be honest.. there are way more especially European players who get almost 0 recognition while being really good.
@Lalush
While I like Sortof and Starnan myself you can't be serious... Sase and Thorzain are better than them, Sortof is probably really close though. They are both underrated and Starnan didn't even get featured on TL's streamer list after his amazing
Dreamhack performance.
kind of how I feel, Attero was alot more successful, especially in the aspect of people atleast knowing he existed. Ive been so far down and out lately, Still cant even find stable practice partners for this game lol...Its been forever since I was at the top of my game and winning smaller online cups, atleast I still take local lans easily. But I get no where fast that way =/ I still honestly dont know where I find the motivation to keep practicing around 8 hours a day and staying focused through all the bs I go through..
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Jesus, this is a much larger response than my last piece.
I will definitely have to look over all of this tomorrow!
On November 07 2012 15:18 QuanticIllusion wrote:
guess i dont count as american terran
I don't understand this, this sounds to be something beyond the scope of the general scenario written.
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EPT
