On April 03 2013 17:04 Eury wrote: From what I have heard ESF/KeSPA players picked their region last Friday already so I doubt we will have a huge influx of Koreans in the West this year. And next year hopefully everything will be done on location and not online.
Might be a problem with such big continents and such different infrastructure (referring to that of esports, team houses etc).
Hence why Blizzard said that if this year is successful they will invest way more money into it.
I'm still not sure... but hey, I'm not Blizz. Lets Hope (:
On April 03 2013 16:38 monkybone wrote: This is awesome. But if it means less tastosis it is not
It's going to be the same amount of tastosis. Originally there were 4 code s this year. Now there's only 3 code s and 1 osl. Tastosis will cast the osl, which makes up for the missing gsl. So in the end, they will still be casting 4 KR tournaments this year as originally planned.
2 GSL's and 1 OSL, and they are actually the same tournament just different names. GSL qualifiers apply towards the next WCS season (OSL) and so on. The korean scene is being gutted I fear and they are the ones that are pushing the scene forward.
Huh? One GSL season already happened, so it's still 3 GSL and 1 OSL this year for tastosis to cast for a total of 4 KR tournaments for them. I know gsl/osl are dead now in name and everything is WCS now, but that's not the point. The question was about if we would see less tastosis and the answer is we'll see the same amount.
From what I can understand about this: the idea of 3 regions is supposed to encourage less Koreans winning every single tournament and create national heroes or cultivate local talent (because a lot of people want to see some non Koreans have a shot at winning or gaining recognition I guess). So they separate out tournaments into 3 regions but anyone can apply to play in any region. So we may see foreign players face off against Koreans on the road to the regional final, which has a high chance to include Korean v Korean. The top 16 at the end of the year then has a high chance to have the majority of the seeds hailing from Korea.
So picture this, it's been an epic and long road, finals have come and gone and we're left with 16 top players for the year. The finalists from NA, EU and KR are mostly Korean.... doesn't that seem a tad odd to anyone? I mean people will usually take the path of least resistance so this has a high chance to occur. Would make for a highly skilled final indeed, but the main goal of grabbing top players from each region of the world, in order to face off in an epic end of year event is kinda side-stepped it seems to me, or at least has a very high chance to occur.
I don't know, still having trouble turning this over in my head as to how it will pan out. Are the region picks all blind and predetermined without any other parties knowing until they are unveiled at the start of each season? It would throw some randomness in so Koreans had no idea which one of them would attend the NA or EU regions I guess.
Oh well more money and support from Blizzard should be a good thing at any rate. Will be interesting to see how this goes down in practice.
I feel a bit disappointed that there is no residency clause. I don't want Koreans playing in the EU league, from Korea. That's very disappointing to me. I don't want to see Koreans in an EU tournament unless they live here. At international tournaments seeing them is great, but not at an EU level tournament.
Otherwise what's the point in calling them EU/Korea/NA? Might as well call it "Global A, Global B, Global C".
But lets keep perspective, it is great to see Blizzard supporting SC2. Are there any more details on the EU league, will this be take's teamstory cup rebranded?? EU needs a central region for sc2 scene, probably in Germany.
If EU ends up being represented by Koreans I just wont watch any of it.
There are obviously some things that need to be worked out and a lot of things that aren't clear yet (such as how often GSL/OSL will be held now and how the switch off will work, how many of the partnered organizations will choose to continue running their own non-WCS tournaments and how often they might happen, what role DH, NASL, and possbily certail IPL staff might play in this, if any, etc...). However, I'm very excited that each region will essentially be getting its own high production value GSL and I'm even more happy that Blizzard is continuing to become more and more directly involved in E-sports. I especially like the fact though that instead of stealing the show like Riot has with LCS that Blizzard is working to help build up the awesome organizations andd market the community has worked so hard to start. A much more mature, stable, and long-term focused approach, I think. This has truly been a landmark day for E-sports.
On April 03 2013 16:38 monkybone wrote: This is awesome. But if it means less tastosis it is not
It's going to be the same amount of tastosis. Originally there were 4 code s this year. Now there's only 3 code s and 1 osl. Tastosis will cast the osl, which makes up for the missing gsl. So in the end, they will still be casting 4 KR tournaments this year as originally planned.
2 GSL's and 1 OSL, and they are actually the same tournament just different names. GSL qualifiers apply towards the next WCS season (OSL) and so on. The korean scene is being gutted I fear and they are the ones that are pushing the scene forward.
Huh? One GSL season already happened, so it's still 3 GSL and 1 OSL this year for tastosis to cast for a total of 4 KR tournaments for them. I know gsl/osl are dead now in name and everything is WCS now, but that's not the point. The question was about if we would see less tastosis and the answer is we'll see the same amount.
This year they could hold 15 GSL events if they wanted to. They can only hold 3GSLWCS events. As far as tastosis is concerned they're going to likely be casting even more seeing as foreign WCS events are going to be hot shit.
On April 03 2013 17:03 mongmong wrote: So Dreamhack and NASL are going to be treated as low-level leagues from now on???????? I mean Dreamhack in Swede is what Ogn Starleague is like in Korea isnt it??
We from Europe don't care for this Blizzard "evolution" (LOL). Dreamhack and HSC are still going to be most loved and watched europe based sc2 competitions.
I think a lot of people's fears / worries can be disregarded with proper prize distribution. What made code S so special in the past was that it was THE best paying (and prestigious tournament). If the WCS regional tournaments follow a trend where WCS KR pays more than EU/NA then we'll still see the best Koreans competing in "code S".
Further, if Blizzcon (end of year finals) is based on point rankings we'll also probably see players who have placed well at seasonal finals (or done very well at regional events).
I really don't see this becoming a big issue. (Of course, that could change.)
Do people even read whats written for them? Seperate IEM's, MLG's, GSL's whatevers are still gonna happen. They might award poins if you play in them. These events are not region locked, you probably even get poins for playing in Dreamhack too.
And get your headaround the fact that Blizzard isn't doing this alone. "Blizzard has announced their 2013 World Championship Series, in partnership with KeSPA, OnGameNet, GomTV, ESL, and MLG."
They are all in to this. Goddamn people are retarded.
In my opinion the only thing that Blizzard messed up in this system is not just calling the different regions the same as the divisions within them: Premier, Challenger, Qualifier. The NA region is essentially the third league, and is home to in general the lower tier players, whereas the European region houses stronger foreigners and some almost-Korean-level talent. Then of course there is Korea, which houses the best of the best.
To me this system just appears to be set up as a multiple tier system, not actually a "World" Championship Series with countries sending out representatives, but more of an International Championship Series. Eventually if one gets good enough they will attempt to break into the Korean region because of its level of competition. It's just natural for players to want to beat the best, and if they want to play against inferior competition time and again to make easier money, who am I to stop them?
I know there's more money being pumped into this, but I'm genuinely curious as to who the intended "winners" of this are. The biggest international tournament in SC was WCG. Even Koreans valued that a lot. Imagine how much more awesome WCG would have been if Koreans were winning every national. It defeats the purpose of regions.
It's making a circus out of something that doesn't have to be a circus. I think you can find ways to say that players like moonglade, who don't have a geographical region that's covered by WCS, can pick where they want to play, without opening up the real possibility of Koreans owning every region. If that were to happen, do you think Blizzard would make changes? Yeah, they would. It's just such a lazy/cop out thing they're doing now. Trying to wait for the inevitable to force them to exercise common sense. Man up. MC offered common sense. If you increase the prize pool this much and even the best players in the world are disappointed, that is a real amazing accomplishment. Now that's impressive.
I am really looking forward to this. I think it will mean that we will have fewer burn-outs among to the foreigners since they don't have to go to Korea to meet the best opponents, and I think the Koreans that go to Europe/America will increase the skill level there.
I think it will be mostly tier2 Koreans going to Europe/America and that players like Snute, Scarlett, Huk, Thorzain, Stephano and so on are on pretty equal footing with these. Especially for up-and-coming players like Snute, I think this is a great opportunity.