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On April 04 2013 06:55 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +Limits power struggles between organizations and the need to “one-up” one another through amount of prize-pool (to thus attract popular progamers) and other tactics. That's neutral. It has drawbacks in itself because competition is healthy for business and even though Blizzard increased their prize pool by just over double who's to say organizers and sponsors won't feel that need to put more into it. Show nested quote +Easy system to rank players regionally and worldwide to know who really is the best not through number of achievements, but through consistent performance and ranked points. The system isn't that easy. Have to wait and see how they split the points and I don't like the idea of points being awarded for Team Leagues. I think those results should be separate because it makes the system more complicated than need be. The WCS should stand on it's own and the points for premiere tournaments should be minimal. Show nested quote +Allows the possibility of new champions rising and recycles those who longer are ahead of the curve. That was never an issue to begin with. As we've seen with the short SC2 history. Champions change all the frigging time. Eras are relatively short but some names make themselves relevant like MC. That's where you have to consider how many more tournaments he plays in though at the same time. Sort of helps when you are the ambassador for SK in SC2. Show nested quote +The drawbacks to this system are evident, but were also inevitable as the scene expanded beyond its capability and reached. What people called “oversaturation” was merely a race to be relevant and a staple to the E-Sport. MLG, ESL and OGN/GSL are clearly the winners here and while Blizzard’s point-system can also be attributed to non-WCS events, it also means the following:
- NASL (NA), DreamHack (EU) and Proleague (KeSPA) [KR] will likely be part of the scoop of points attributed to WCS rankings and seeds, it also means they are considered second-class events due to their less impactful effect on a WCS season. This doesn't address the saturation problem. Yes premiere tournaments reward you with points but the WCS is still another tournament. Instead of one season. We now have three. I would not consider the tournaments you described as 2nd class tournaments. They stand alone on themselves just like Iron Squid and look at how well they did. I'm sure tournaments like the Iron Squid will find a good time slot for the players who make it to the final.
I agree with team-leagues shouldn't be awarding points, but I also agree with Blizzard's move with the point-system to ensure that the current surviving tournaments do not die out by their new seasonal WCS.
Putting more money into it doesn't really change much because they are no longer competing with one another for viewership because they should be having all their separate time (and also their own players if this region-lock kicks in). That said, they probably won't put in more and that's also a potential downside.
Champions change, but favourites stay the same, even though some have low achievements (or none at all). Some players who aren't known beat top-players all the time. I want these WCS regions to be their stage (hopefully). They may not win, but the point-system, should be able to retain some competent competitors.
That's what I mean.
I don't understand how that doesn't address the saturation problem? You didn't explain.
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So excited to watch wcs, its awesome how much blizz is putting into esports, i think this is going to be an awesome move by them
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So there are 5 spots given to the finals of this season just based off this one GSL correct? But how will they decide the 5th because there is top 4 and then top 8, no top 5 
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United States750 Posts
One thing I'm sad you glossed over was the pseudo-region lock and the inevitable "Korean domination" that a region lock is supposed to prohibit. It's like you confronted the other "issues" but then noted this one and completely avoided it. Considering this is the biggest problem facing ESPORTS (NA scene in particular losing more and more options for competent players because there's nothing for them to play for), I was disappointed.
I say that, but all I really want is Sundance, NASL, and IPL to come out and admit that they not only lied to NA players, but screwed us. This is just me shitting the bed, as I'm wont to do when the different regional scenes are brought up. Because on paper WCS is awesome. I won't deny that at all. But I'm getting more and more tired of these companies saying they'll throw us a bone (because they swear they know its worth it) only to "forget" they ever said they'd even go to the goddamn store.
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On April 04 2013 07:44 Mauldo wrote:
One thing I'm sad you glossed over was the pseudo-region lock and the inevitable "Korean domination" that a region lock is supposed to prohibit. It's like you confronted the other "issues" but then noted this one and completely avoided it. Considering this is the biggest problem facing ESPORTS (NA scene in particular losing more and more options for competent players because there's nothing for them to play for), I was disappointed.
I say that, but all I really want is Sundance, NASL, and IPL to come out and admit that they not only lied to NA players, but screwed us. This is just me shitting the bed, as I'm wont to do when the different regional scenes are brought up. Because on paper WCS is awesome. I won't deny that at all. But I'm getting more and more tired of these companies saying they'll throw us a bone (because they swear they know its worth it) only to "forget" they ever said they'd even go to the goddamn store.
My view on it is that it is inevitable or the other way around would be both a semantical (loophole) thing and a huge headache to handle (is Violet Korean or USA?). It's a huge "between a rock and a hard place" sort of situation.
To detail all that would require another 1,000 words.
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Excellent write-up, i only don't agree when you say minor tournaments will suffer a setback, well i don't totally agree with it to be honest, because as we can see from the list from DH: Stockholm, lot of koreans already signed up and others are on the way to be announced (CoCa and Creator), this might be because of the overflow some teams have from not going to IPL6, but the future is not as grim as you paint it for DH.
Great articule nonetheless
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With Blizzard’s WCS, the foundation of competition is elevated and the next step for StarCraft II has begun!
Why keep this sentence for the end, that's all I needed to know :D
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1000 words and no substance, I expect better from this series.
You refer to problems but neither flesh them out or offer solutions.
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On April 04 2013 07:44 Mauldo wrote:
One thing I'm sad you glossed over was the pseudo-region lock and the inevitable "Korean domination" that a region lock is supposed to prohibit. It's like you confronted the other "issues" but then noted this one and completely avoided it. Considering this is the biggest problem facing ESPORTS (NA scene in particular losing more and more options for competent players because there's nothing for them to play for), I was disappointed.
I say that, but all I really want is Sundance, NASL, and IPL to come out and admit that they not only lied to NA players, but screwed us. This is just me shitting the bed, as I'm wont to do when the different regional scenes are brought up. Because on paper WCS is awesome. I won't deny that at all. But I'm getting more and more tired of these companies saying they'll throw us a bone (because they swear they know its worth it) only to "forget" they ever said they'd even go to the goddamn store.
As an American you should probably know better than anyone that the only duty Sundance/IPL/NASL have is to make money and given how hard that is in this business you can't really blame them for doing what's profitable (getting big Koreans names to their tournament) over taking the moral high ground by helping out the local scene.
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This was a decent write-up and I think will be a good thing overall and what we have been dreaming of. I really want to watch State of the Game now, to see what they say!
I hope its not all rainbows and unicorns though, InControl makes me think he will be swagging in there making everyone agree its the best thing ever, I may call for the first time ever and add balance to that if they all go in slavishly praising Blizzard up and down although I do give props and respect to Blizz for what they've done.
What was kinda funny is NASL was never about the North Americans, I mean they did participate but it was basically for Koreans and some Euros when all said and done. People treating Dreamhack and NASL as somehow equal regional only tournaments bothers me. Dreamhack had far more Euro flavor than NASL had NA flavor IMHO. Now Iron Squid really doesn't need to exist even more, I felt like they got buried from this, since DH is a minor tourney what does that make Squid?
It is what it is though anyway, haven't given up on SC2 eSports yet and really want to see if the groups are cool and watch some great games. :D I may not watch subsequent games if its All Korean in all leagues though and switch to DoTA or something I dunno what, SC2 seems really unfair at this moment.
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On April 04 2013 08:09 E.L.V.I.S wrote:Show nested quote +With Blizzard’s WCS, the foundation of competition is elevated and the next step for StarCraft II has begun! Why keep this sentence for the end, that's all I needed to know :D
I'm an optimist, but try to keep it real lolo
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On April 04 2013 05:06 Torte de Lini wrote:
NASL (NA), DreamHack (EU) and Proleague (KeSPA) [KR] will likely be part of the scoop of points attributed to WCS rankings and seeds, it also means they are considered second-class events due to their less impactful effect on a WCS season.
I think organizing things in this way will increase total eyeballs on sc2 events, NASL/DH/PL will benefit from this. They gain a lot less than the tournies which are in the core of the new tournament ecosystem but they certainly aren't losing anything from it.
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The World Championship Series is in itself another tournament Torte. That's what I meant when I said the problem of over-saturation still exists because we will still have all those other tournaments running on top of this. Similarly to what we had when players were playing/qualifying for MLG and now they'll have this on top of it. It's a lot. Not just from a viewing standpoint but from a gamer standpoint too.
I don't see how this addresses the current viewership at all because I see the numbers of people tuning into majors being roughly the same when they tune into the twitch stream. It's the same market we're dealing with.
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8751 Posts
On April 04 2013 07:52 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2013 07:44 Mauldo wrote:
One thing I'm sad you glossed over was the pseudo-region lock and the inevitable "Korean domination" that a region lock is supposed to prohibit. It's like you confronted the other "issues" but then noted this one and completely avoided it. Considering this is the biggest problem facing ESPORTS (NA scene in particular losing more and more options for competent players because there's nothing for them to play for), I was disappointed.
I say that, but all I really want is Sundance, NASL, and IPL to come out and admit that they not only lied to NA players, but screwed us. This is just me shitting the bed, as I'm wont to do when the different regional scenes are brought up. Because on paper WCS is awesome. I won't deny that at all. But I'm getting more and more tired of these companies saying they'll throw us a bone (because they swear they know its worth it) only to "forget" they ever said they'd even go to the goddamn store. My view on it is that it is inevitable or the other way around would be both a semantical (loophole) thing and a huge headache to handle (is Violet Korean or USA?). It's a huge "between a rock and a hard place" sort of situation. To detail all that would require another 1,000 words.
Citizenship is the traditional and easiest way to determine a player's region.
Blizzard hasn't explained a great deal as to why they've decided to do regions differently with this WCS. Assuming players are very mobile, then doing regions by player choice encourages a more even distribution of skilled players across the world. WCS wouldn't really be NA, EU and KR, but rather one big competition that is arbitrarily split into thirds and then combined at the end of the year. Ideally this would make NA and EU players better because the chance for them to practice and regularly compete with higher skilled (Korean) players goes way up. But Blizzard has stated that they don't think cross-regional play will be common and so this must not be their intention. The only major thing I can think of is that they don't want to punish players who have moved between continents. There have been players from each region living in each of the other major regions due to sponsorships, local competitions and personal reasons. Having to give up on WCS would be a huge sacrifice and make everyone extremely immobile, although the typical NA/EU player moving to KR essentially is giving up on WCS anyway.
It really just seems kind of an odd situation, where Blizzard wants some people to be able to take advantage of the choice (like EG's EU players living in NA) but sort of admit that it could be a problem if too many people take advantage. It's like they don't want to punish people for moving but neither do they want to encourage people to move. They don't want to limit opportunities like an NA team recruiting a European but they don't want a whole Korean team moving to NA.
I'm hoping that as more details and Q&A's and interviews come out, this issue becomes clearer.
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On April 04 2013 10:10 StarStruck wrote:
The World Championship Series is in itself another tournament Torte. That's what I meant when I said the problem of over-saturation still exists because we will still have all those other tournaments running on top of this. Similarly to what we had when players were playing/qualifying for MLG and now they'll have this on top of it. It's a lot. Not just from a viewing standpoint but from a gamer standpoint too.
I don't see how this addresses the current viewership at all because I see the numbers of people tuning into majors being roughly the same when they tune into the twitch stream. It's the same market we're dealing with.
Tournaments cannot be run during WCS. Oversaturation was extremely prevalent when we had scheduling conflicts between events. OGN and GSL are now alternating and ESL, DH are no longer conflicting nor is MLG with NASL (and IPL just closed down).
ASUS ROG and Assembly are also of a much lesser relevance as well as ESET Masters UK (though some would disagree).
That WCS does is segment their regionals into a seasonal to annual scheduling that cannot be overlapped. Events such as TeSPA's TSL, CSL and Iron Squid are no longer saturated, but more in line with being in-between "specials" so to speak, probably more geared towards different audiences (CSL and University participants) as well as on an invited level rather than going through qualifiers like the major tournaments will.
This is all conjecture, but this is vastly different than the check-mix of overabundant tournaments and no stream-line event to tie up the important ones.
With these regional WCS, we'll be seeing diverse players qualify and participate in a diverse tournaments. Which means the oversaturation of the same players in different settings will less occurring than previously.
You add that all up + the emphasis of WCS being the crowning of these events and its own tournament should definitely ease up the amount of events + also be separated as chapters of several weeks.
I think viewership will stay the same, different participants may spice it up, but I'm expecting WCS Finals to be a lot more popular than last year: hoping at least (could be just all Koreans in the end).
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On April 04 2013 10:54 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2013 07:52 Torte de Lini wrote:On April 04 2013 07:44 Mauldo wrote:
One thing I'm sad you glossed over was the pseudo-region lock and the inevitable "Korean domination" that a region lock is supposed to prohibit. It's like you confronted the other "issues" but then noted this one and completely avoided it. Considering this is the biggest problem facing ESPORTS (NA scene in particular losing more and more options for competent players because there's nothing for them to play for), I was disappointed.
I say that, but all I really want is Sundance, NASL, and IPL to come out and admit that they not only lied to NA players, but screwed us. This is just me shitting the bed, as I'm wont to do when the different regional scenes are brought up. Because on paper WCS is awesome. I won't deny that at all. But I'm getting more and more tired of these companies saying they'll throw us a bone (because they swear they know its worth it) only to "forget" they ever said they'd even go to the goddamn store. My view on it is that it is inevitable or the other way around would be both a semantical (loophole) thing and a huge headache to handle (is Violet Korean or USA?). It's a huge "between a rock and a hard place" sort of situation. To detail all that would require another 1,000 words. Citizenship is the traditional and easiest way to determine a player's region. Blizzard hasn't explained a great deal as to why they've decided to do regions differently with this WCS. Assuming players are very mobile, then doing regions by player choice encourages a more even distribution of skilled players across the world. WCS wouldn't really be NA, EU and KR, but rather one big competition that is arbitrarily split into thirds and then combined at the end of the year. Ideally this would make NA and EU players better because the chance for them to practice and regularly compete with higher skilled (Korean) players goes way up. But Blizzard has stated that they don't think cross-regional play will be common and so this must not be their intention. The only major thing I can think of is that they don't want to punish players who have moved between continents. There have been players from each region living in each of the other major regions due to sponsorships, local competitions and personal reasons. Having to give up on WCS would be a huge sacrifice and make everyone extremely immobile, although the typical NA/EU player moving to KR essentially is giving up on WCS anyway. It really just seems kind of an odd situation, where Blizzard wants some people to be able to take advantage of the choice (like EG's EU players living in NA) but sort of admit that it could be a problem if too many people take advantage. It's like they don't want to punish people for moving but neither do they want to encourage people to move. They don't want to limit opportunities like an NA team recruiting a European but they don't want a whole Korean team moving to NA. I'm hoping that as more details and Q&A's and interviews come out, this issue becomes clearer.
I'm definitely hoping the Q&A will reveal a lot, but I have my doubts (especially if they're selective on some things). The answer I'm definitely going to be expecting is that this year they are trying and will make new policies each season (it's several weeks per season, thus new seasons can be changed to adjust for any initial issues).
I think this is definitely a prototype first season and then make adjustments accordingly. If you pick one region for WCS, you're there for a year. That's a huge consequence for an initial choice.
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On April 04 2013 10:58 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2013 10:10 StarStruck wrote:
The World Championship Series is in itself another tournament Torte. That's what I meant when I said the problem of over-saturation still exists because we will still have all those other tournaments running on top of this. Similarly to what we had when players were playing/qualifying for MLG and now they'll have this on top of it. It's a lot. Not just from a viewing standpoint but from a gamer standpoint too.
I don't see how this addresses the current viewership at all because I see the numbers of people tuning into majors being roughly the same when they tune into the twitch stream. It's the same market we're dealing with. Tournaments cannot be run during WCS. Oversaturation was extremely prevalent when we had scheduling conflicts between events. OGN and GSL are now alternating and ESL, DH are no longer conflicting nor is MLG with NASL (and IPL just closed down). ASUS ROG and Assembly are also of a much lesser relevance as well as ESET Masters UK (though some would disagree). That WCS does is segment their regionals into a seasonal to annual scheduling that cannot be overlapped. Events such as TeSPA's TSL, CSL and Iron Squid are no longer saturated, but more in line with being in-between "specials" so to speak, probably more geared towards different audiences (CSL and University participants) as well as on an invited level rather than going through qualifiers like the major tournaments will. This is all conjecture, but this is vastly different than the check-mix of overabundant tournaments and no stream-line event to tie up the important ones. With these regional WCS, we'll be seeing diverse players qualify and participate in a diverse tournaments. Which means the oversaturation of the same players in different settings will less occurring than previously. You add that all up + the emphasis of WCS being the crowning of these events and its own tournament should definitely ease up the amount of events + also be separated as chapters of several weeks. I think viewership will stay the same, different participants may spice it up, but I'm expecting WCS Finals to be a lot more popular than last year: hoping at least (could be just all Koreans in the end).
They will be filling in the gaps though and they're basing it off the other premiere tournaments at the same time. It's still the same audience.
On April 04 2013 11:01 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2013 10:54 NonY wrote:On April 04 2013 07:52 Torte de Lini wrote:On April 04 2013 07:44 Mauldo wrote:
One thing I'm sad you glossed over was the pseudo-region lock and the inevitable "Korean domination" that a region lock is supposed to prohibit. It's like you confronted the other "issues" but then noted this one and completely avoided it. Considering this is the biggest problem facing ESPORTS (NA scene in particular losing more and more options for competent players because there's nothing for them to play for), I was disappointed.
I say that, but all I really want is Sundance, NASL, and IPL to come out and admit that they not only lied to NA players, but screwed us. This is just me shitting the bed, as I'm wont to do when the different regional scenes are brought up. Because on paper WCS is awesome. I won't deny that at all. But I'm getting more and more tired of these companies saying they'll throw us a bone (because they swear they know its worth it) only to "forget" they ever said they'd even go to the goddamn store. My view on it is that it is inevitable or the other way around would be both a semantical (loophole) thing and a huge headache to handle (is Violet Korean or USA?). It's a huge "between a rock and a hard place" sort of situation. To detail all that would require another 1,000 words. Citizenship is the traditional and easiest way to determine a player's region. Blizzard hasn't explained a great deal as to why they've decided to do regions differently with this WCS. Assuming players are very mobile, then doing regions by player choice encourages a more even distribution of skilled players across the world. WCS wouldn't really be NA, EU and KR, but rather one big competition that is arbitrarily split into thirds and then combined at the end of the year. Ideally this would make NA and EU players better because the chance for them to practice and regularly compete with higher skilled (Korean) players goes way up. But Blizzard has stated that they don't think cross-regional play will be common and so this must not be their intention. The only major thing I can think of is that they don't want to punish players who have moved between continents. There have been players from each region living in each of the other major regions due to sponsorships, local competitions and personal reasons. Having to give up on WCS would be a huge sacrifice and make everyone extremely immobile, although the typical NA/EU player moving to KR essentially is giving up on WCS anyway. It really just seems kind of an odd situation, where Blizzard wants some people to be able to take advantage of the choice (like EG's EU players living in NA) but sort of admit that it could be a problem if too many people take advantage. It's like they don't want to punish people for moving but neither do they want to encourage people to move. They don't want to limit opportunities like an NA team recruiting a European but they don't want a whole Korean team moving to NA. I'm hoping that as more details and Q&A's and interviews come out, this issue becomes clearer. I'm definitely hoping the Q&A will reveal a lot, but I have my doubts (especially if they're selective on some things). The answer I'm definitely going to be expecting is that this year they are trying and will make new policies each season (it's several weeks per season, thus new seasons can be changed to adjust for any initial issues). I think this is definitely a prototype first season and then make adjustments accordingly. If you pick one region for WCS, you're there for a year. That's a huge consequence for an initial choice.
Especially for players on a sixth month contract derp.
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Still reaching far with my opinion, but I definitely see contracts being relegated towards seasons rather than annual or per month. So in that regard, probably see a lot of change-ups around November to Feb or something in the future.
Wouldn't that be interesting :D
Gaps will be filled, yes.
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On April 04 2013 10:54 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2013 07:52 Torte de Lini wrote:On April 04 2013 07:44 Mauldo wrote:
One thing I'm sad you glossed over was the pseudo-region lock and the inevitable "Korean domination" that a region lock is supposed to prohibit. It's like you confronted the other "issues" but then noted this one and completely avoided it. Considering this is the biggest problem facing ESPORTS (NA scene in particular losing more and more options for competent players because there's nothing for them to play for), I was disappointed.
I say that, but all I really want is Sundance, NASL, and IPL to come out and admit that they not only lied to NA players, but screwed us. This is just me shitting the bed, as I'm wont to do when the different regional scenes are brought up. Because on paper WCS is awesome. I won't deny that at all. But I'm getting more and more tired of these companies saying they'll throw us a bone (because they swear they know its worth it) only to "forget" they ever said they'd even go to the goddamn store. My view on it is that it is inevitable or the other way around would be both a semantical (loophole) thing and a huge headache to handle (is Violet Korean or USA?). It's a huge "between a rock and a hard place" sort of situation. To detail all that would require another 1,000 words. Citizenship is the traditional and easiest way to determine a player's region.
Citizenship would mean kicking all foreigners out of Korea.
Remember, anything you apply to Koreans outside of Korea, should be applied to foreigners in Korea. Unless Koreans should be treated differently to everyone else. This is really the key point.
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I think the Koreans lose out more than the foreigners in Korea.
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EPT
