I love it. People complain about anything. Here we have the best players in the world from all over the world in a format that will provide great matches, balance of invitations from regions, and it is just days after the game is released and people are upset because no open bracket?
If they did the open bracket and didn't do invites people would complain that the competition isn't any good and where are the Koreans, because how many people are going to travel a long way to compete through an open bracket for a game they might have only practiced sparingly?
I feel like being an e-Sports organizer is the most frustrating thing ever, no matter what you do you can't win.
I enjoy a wide variety of events. Some invite events are great, some open brackets are great, variety is the spice of life. You are getting 32 well known players competing for a boatload of money 2 weeks after the release of an expansion... how about some perspective? Perhaps they should run no tournament and wait 6 months after the release of the expansion, is that better?
On February 01 2013 02:21 MLG_Adam wrote: We wanted to have huge open online qualifiers for each region but due to HOTS beta stability we had to run only invitational activity.
Is that necessarily so bad though? I always felt that the most interesting part of MLG was the idea that someone (possibly a no-name player) could make a legendary run through the open bracket and take it all through the championships. It doesn't matter if he's not a Korean (or not a he!). That made us love Naniwa when it happened, and these things just don't happen anymore, because of how stacked the brackets tend to be anyway.
Not really happy with this decision, but I'm sure these games are going to be good anyway.
On February 01 2013 02:28 Pokebunny wrote: Kind of sad that HwangSin placed higher than every independent/foreign team Korean invited to the showmatches at last MLG and gets no invite. Pretty clear that this is obviously based on who is the most famous rather than any actual qualifications. Not that those players are undeserving, but...
That would be because the way the invite criteria work wasn't event RESULTS, it was event PARTICIPATION. This means that players that might not be placing as HIGHLY as other players get invited simply because the team they play for can afford to send them to more events.
So he went to an arena and three of the four championship events...
It doesn't matter.
He missed every single European Major that
MC vs Alive Hero vs Polt Taeja vs Violet
All 6 of these attended.
To be fair I don't even see why aLive/MC/HerO/TaeJa are even in this category considering they've lived in Korea this whole time to begin with.
I believe that category is for players on korean teams that aren't in ESF or KESPA.
We wanted to have huge open online qualifiers for each region but due to HOTS beta stability we had to run only invitational activity.
I could live with that explanation if you actually had no online matches at all, but as you actually do online matches including players outside the USA (for which latency will be terrible) and there is a lot of time until march 15th, it's really a strange thing you came up with. Latency is really bad outside US but stability seems good enough.
And if you don't want people to be upset, why don't you flat out say that there will be an open bracket again in the events thereafter instead of saying you will announce more later.
On February 01 2013 02:21 MLG_Adam wrote: We wanted to have huge open online qualifiers for each region but due to HOTS beta stability we had to run only invitational activity.
Is that necessarily so bad though? I always felt that the most interesting part of MLG was the idea that someone (possibly a no-name player) could make a legendary run through the open bracket and take it all through the championships. It doesn't matter if he's not a Korean (or not a he!). That made us love Naniwa when it happened, and these things just don't happen anymore, because of how stacked the brackets tend to be anyway.
Not really happy with this decision, but I'm sure these games are going to be good anyway.
I think by stability they mean server stability and it going down all the time for patches etc. For example there could easily be multiple patches in the middle of the tourney changing the gameplay dramatically.
On February 01 2013 02:28 Pokebunny wrote: Kind of sad that HwangSin placed higher than every independent/foreign team Korean invited to the showmatches at last MLG and gets no invite. Pretty clear that this is obviously based on who is the most famous rather than any actual qualifications. Not that those players are undeserving, but...
That would be because the way the invite criteria work wasn't event RESULTS, it was event PARTICIPATION. This means that players that might not be placing as HIGHLY as other players get invited simply because the team they play for can afford to send them to more events.
So he went to an arena and three of the four championship events...
It doesn't matter.
He missed every single European Major that
MC vs Alive Hero vs Polt Taeja vs Violet
All 6 of these attended.
To be fair I don't even see why aLive/MC/HerO/TaeJa are even in this category considering they've lived in Korea this whole time to begin with.
I believe that category is for players on korean teams that aren't in ESF or KESPA.
On February 01 2013 02:39 MateShade wrote: I'm not watching an invite only tournament. I don't understand this mlg, makes 0 sense why can't they just have one last normal WoL one
Actually, it does make sense. HOTS is out by the time this tournament comes around. People will have switched over to HOTS. IPL6 is doing WoL, and people aren't exactly happy with that.
The fans asked for foreigner affirmative action and we got it. The regional system guarantees that more foreigners qualify for the winter championship. If you mixed everyone together, it's not inconceivable to have 25 Koreans and 3 foreigners come out.
On February 01 2013 02:33 MLG_Adam wrote: Again. We want aspiration, we want open qualification, we want success stories, how can you say anything different based on our track record?
This event is 3 days after a major content release. Qualification is taking place on BETA servers. We wanted to have open online qualification for this event but it was not a logistical reality.
We are not done announcing 2013 plans. Have faith.
Then why not make open online qualifiers, you've got invite only qualifiers, or "Showdown", basically how is that any different from holding a mass open online qualifier bracket?? They can be done on the same day as your planned "Showdown" times to qualify? Or even better yet why not have asked the viewers, your patrons in a poll what they would like to see?
We wanted to have huge open online qualifiers for each region but due to HOTS beta stability we had to run only invitational activity.
I could live with that explanation if you actually had no online matches at all, but as you actually do online matches including players outside the USA (for which latency will be terrible) and a lot of time until march 15th, it's really a strange thing you came up with.
And if you don't want people to be upset, why don't you flat out say that there will be an open bracket again in the events thereafter instead of saying you will announce more later.
We are working very closely with Blizzard to ensure that the specific days that qualifying matches are happening that servers are stable and ready. That was not possible with a large open bracket across multiple regions spanning a long period of time.
I dont mind the people that they invited, its just that some people like Hwangsin who did really well last MLG, DID NOT EVEN GET ONE stage match. And now he doesnt even get an invite, that is so fucking biased. Either way- I will probably still attend the event -.-
On February 01 2013 02:28 Pokebunny wrote: Kind of sad that HwangSin placed higher than every independent/foreign team Korean invited to the showmatches at last MLG and gets no invite. Pretty clear that this is obviously based on who is the most famous rather than any actual qualifications. Not that those players are undeserving, but...
That would be because the way the invite criteria work wasn't event RESULTS, it was event PARTICIPATION. This means that players that might not be placing as HIGHLY as other players get invited simply because the team they play for can afford to send them to more events.
So he went to an arena and three of the four championship events...
It doesn't matter.
He missed every single European Major that
MC vs Alive Hero vs Polt Taeja vs Violet
All 6 of these attended.
To be fair I don't even see why aLive/MC/HerO/TaeJa are even in this category considering they've lived in Korea this whole time to begin with.
And who should they have invited instead? Hwangsin and Jookto? 2 of the players on that list are in Code S, 2 are in Code A, the other two have more accomplishments in SC2 in the last few months alone, than Hwangsin and Jookto have had in their entire careers. If I as a viewer am going to pay to watch a tournament, who do you think I want to see in the category of Koreans on foreigner teams?
Invite only kind of removes a lot of excitement. I'm glad that some sort of qualification process for future tournaments is being hinted at in the thread, so I'm looking forward to future events for that.
It is true that having a huge qualifier on a just released game is asking for trouble.
On February 01 2013 02:21 MLG_Adam wrote: We wanted to have huge open online qualifiers for each region but due to HOTS beta stability we had to run only invitational activity.
Is that necessarily so bad though? I always felt that the most interesting part of MLG was the idea that someone (possibly a no-name player) could make a legendary run through the open bracket and take it all through the championships. It doesn't matter if he's not a Korean (or not a he!). That made us love Naniwa when it happened, and these things just don't happen anymore, because of how stacked the brackets tend to be anyway.
Not really happy with this decision, but I'm sure these games are going to be good anyway.
I think by stability they mean server stability and it going down all the time for patches etc. For example there could easily be multiple patches in the middle of the tourney changing the gameplay dramatically.
Ah, I see. I don't understand why that reason would affect the single MLG weekend for an open bracket then. Blizzard is pretty mindful with not patching during tournament weekends, and even if Blizzard did screw up and patch on March 15-17, the pro-gamers who were invited would still be screwed.
EPT
