Posted on the SC2 website in China and revealed on reddit, it seems that WCS AM Season 2 will not be run by MLG but instead will be a combination of NASL and Blizzard staff.
NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.
After coordinating on WCS America Season 1 and careful consideration, we have decided to transition away from operation of WCS America and refocus efforts on producing our own eSports competitions. It was a pleasure working with Blizzard on the inaugural season, however given the structure of the relationship and the impact on the organization, players and community, we feel that it will better serve the eSports ecosystem to run tournaments independently.
Our next major event will be the Spring Championship in Anaheim on June 28-30 which will feature StarCraft II as a WCS Tier 1 competition with $25,000 in prize money and a 128-player open bracket, offering an opportunity for local American StarCraft II talent to test their skills against proven, world-class pro gamers.
We will continue to produce the WCS America Season 1 competition through the end of Challenger League and Up/Down matches, which will conclude on June 21. The complete broadcast schedule is available here.
We thank the community for participating in and watching Season 1, look forward to showcasing StarCraft II at the MLG Spring Championship, and wish the players participating in WCS Season 2 the best of luck.
The North American Star League (NASL) is pleased to announce a new partnership with Blizzard Entertainment to operate WCS America.
As a result of this partnership, StarCraft eSports fans will enjoy both the unique personality and world-class production quality that has become synonymous with NASL. Likewise, the NASL crew will enjoy producing daily broadcasts featuring the highest level StarCraft II play in North America, beginning with the WCS America Season 2 Premier League round of 16 and continuing through 2014.
The entire team at NASL is quite thrilled for this opportunity, and looks forward to once again broadcast exciting daily StarCraft II competition. While the team gets ready to ramp up for the Season 2 offline events, Blizzard will operate the WCS America Season 2 Challenger League and Premier League round of 32. Of course, as the NASL casters are quite eager to cast StarCraft II, they will pop in each week to help cast some of the Challenger League and Premier League matches, as well.
WCS America Season 2 will broadcast weekly from Monday through Thursday, beginning in July. NASL will produce the offline Premier League Ro16 August 5th through 8th, with the Regional Finals on Saturday & Sunday, August 10th & 11th. To get the latest updates on how to attend these events, follow @NASLTV on Twitter or like NASLTV on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/NASLTV.
i have such a big smile on my face right now. this is absolutely amazing. apparently Blizzard has actually realized/heard from the community just how bad MLG really is and that NASL is just so, so much better
really looking forward to this, also good news on the former IGN staff!
I always thought it made more sense for MLG to stay MLG like Dreamhack stayed Dreamhack. They are both big organizations with a strong brand name, why would they want to give up that for the WCS? NASL is a much newer organization that have the skill required to run this kind of thing. I feel it's a win win for everyone (the negative pr and speculations this might lead to aside)
Wait MLG isn't getting WCS again any time soon. I know there coverage is kinda bad but it sucks that MLG has not been able to make it work at least on a on off schedule with WCS, like with GOM and OGN.
I cannot describe how pumped I am for NASL to run this. They have a dog in the studio. That's how much fun they have! No one has more fun than NASL when it comes to SC2.
I kinda wonder if MLG was just handling the first season because NASL couldn't do the open qualifiers or wasn't set up for it yet. I don't think MLG bombed, but if this was the plan from the beginning, we should have known then.
On June 19 2013 01:49 Cinim wrote: What about Dreamhack? (
I don't understand why people want Dreamhack to run the WCS, their brand is strong regardless and we need tournaments outside of the WCS imo. ESL has done a good job, no reason to change what works.
Great News! Hopefully it'll also allows MLG to come back to their great standards in terms of one-shot events, which is another great way to enjoy SC II.
On June 19 2013 01:53 Dexington wrote: I love how this announcement comes out the day after MLG's horrible broadcast when they had MOVIE TRAILERS playing in the background over the stream
did you expect them to say "well, Blizzard thinks we kinda suck so they decided to take WCS away from us and give it to NASL"?
Also, MLG does not have a studio and is in NYC, which cost a mint. It is to hard for them to do SC2 something weekly and give it the love and care it deserves. If they backed out of this on their own without a lot of pressure from Blizzard, I give them a ton of credit to focusing on what they do best. I feel the same way about Dreamhack, who I think would have run into similar problems if they were given WCS EU. You can't beat an in-house production studio.
Holy shit! So fucking excited for this! I thought that this was going to be a possibility after all the hinting from NASL crew that they weren't done with SC2 yet and how the timing seems to coincide with WCS AM season 2.
Oh man! This is such great news! So happy for the NASL crew!
did you expect them to say "well, Blizzard thinks we kinda suck so they decided to take WCS away from us and give it to NASL"?
You don't know that's what happened. MLG is a strong brand in itself, it never made much sense for them to suddenly let Blizzard dictate their content. All the negative pr and poor response to WCS AM wouldn't exactly incentive them to continue doing it. I'd rather have MLG and Dreamhack outside of the WCS doing what they do. Wheter it was Blizzards, MLG's or both that took the decision is kind of pointless.
On June 19 2013 01:53 FakePseudo wrote: Great News! Hopefully it'll also allows MLG to come back to their great standards in terms of one-shot events, which is another great way to enjoy SC II.
Agreed. MLG weekend tournies are awesome. Definitely more their niche.
Great news! This is probably the best combination that allows MLG, NASL, and Blizz to coexist in NA. MLG should stick to what they do best (weekend tournaments) while NASL has the upper edge on season long tournaments.
did you expect them to say "well, Blizzard thinks we kinda suck so they decided to take WCS away from us and give it to NASL"?
You don't know that's what happened. MLG is a strong brand in itself, it never made much sense for them to suddenly let Blizzard dictate their content. All the negative pr and poor response to WCS AM wouldn't exactly incentive them to continue doing it. I'd rather have MLG and Dreamhack outside of the WCS doing what they do. Wheter it was Blizzards, MLG's or both that took the decision is kind of pointless.
you're right, i don't know what happened. that's pretty much my point, just because they say it was their choice doesn't mean it was, and neither does it mean it wasn't.
either way, it probably was a good decision for all parties in the long run. certainly for the viewers.
On June 19 2013 01:47 Schelim wrote: i have such a big smile on my face right now. this is absolutely amazing. apparently Blizzard has actually realized/heard from the community just how bad MLG really is and that NASL is just so, so much better
really looking forward to this, also good news on the former IGN staff!
you are very naive if you think this decision was made recently and has anything to do with the community. This was probably in the works weeks ago and why NASL have kept very quiet about their future with SC2.
NASL definately the better fit for WCS, I was surprised that they didn't get season 1 as they have the experience of running a full time league like WCS and produce great live finals. Hopefully this will bring us the level of production we deserve for WCS AM and a live finals with crowd shots!
I hope NASL can match with ESL's quality, or else this hype might be shortlived. Things didn't go well for them during NASL season1, but later seasons followed with rapid improvement. All the pessimism aside, I'm excited for the future to come!
"NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.".
....Wait.... what!? So who's going to be casting the online part of the tounament..????
NASL has really built itself as the north american defacto league and already ran around 2-3 events a year, which lines up with the WCS season structure. It's infrastructure was just starting to reach a pinnacle in production value and now can turn it towards WCS America. They even had a more standard broadcast schedule throughout the week that made it more lineup more with what WCS America wanted and I feel it should've been the first pick to begin with.
MLG, especially since they carry other games, was an understandable pick but made less sense. Now they can focus again on their live events, part of which the open bracket made it exciting to go visit, and they can seek out their own sponsors again. It just made more sense to do it this way because MLG also houses LoL, CoD, FGC and other games at their live events, and forcing all of those other leagues to lineup with blizzard's WCS seasons seemed dauntingly difficult.
Good luck to MLG and I look forward to your amazing events again, and grats again to NASL for getting the chance they deserve!
NASL are so pro in production value as we seen in Pulse show and last NASL tournament. So happy to see NASL crew again ! This is so awesome, MLG will continue to do Lan as they know how to do and will stop to fail at organisating WCS AM.
Congratz NASL Crew, I will definitly follow this !
On June 19 2013 01:57 ramask2 wrote: "NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.".
....Wait.... what!? So who's going to be casting the online part of the tounament..????
Likely Bitterdam and whoever else they hire. Don't read into press releases to much. Just wait for all the information to come out.
On June 19 2013 01:57 ramask2 wrote: "NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.".
....Wait.... what!? So who's going to be casting the online part of the tounament..????
Likely Bitterdam and whoever else they hire. Don't read into press releases to much. Just wait for all the information to come out.
Don't they still have Kevin Knocke and other IPL guys?
On June 19 2013 01:57 ramask2 wrote: "NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.".
....Wait.... what!? So who's going to be casting the online part of the tounament..????
Likely Bitterdam and whoever else they hire. Don't read into press releases to much. Just wait for all the information to come out.
Bitterdam and Kevin Knocke with Idra or Incontrol plz. i guess Nathanis could work too but i think he's employed at ESL?
On June 19 2013 01:57 ramask2 wrote: "NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.".
....Wait.... what!? So who's going to be casting the online part of the tounament..????
Likely Bitterdam and whoever else they hire. Don't read into press releases to much. Just wait for all the information to come out.
Don't they still have Kevin Knocke and other IPL guys?
Could be them too. The point is that NASL will release more information in the next couple of days. I wouldn't be shocked if Incontrol and Idra cast, since they are in Cali too. This is NASL, they could do anything.
I've always felt like MLG excels at running big events with a lot of budget (in case you think that this is obvious/easy - you're wrong). It takes a lot of skill to do this and they have mastered it throughout the years. They are legitimately good at what they do with their events when they go all out. However when things are on a lower budget it seems that ESL/NASL are able to solve things by being cute and funny. Entertainment such as DIMAGA coming out in Carmac's bee suit, White-Ra as a bartender, and the random NASL dog come to mind. That is probably what WCS America could benefit from right now.
There is absolutely no way Blizzard 'took' WCS away from MLG after just one season. MLG has been one of the most important partners they have in pushing SC2 and possibly their future games. If MLG wanted to keep going, they definitely could have.
I felt MLG was a lot stronger as a major weekend tournament host. They did fine with WCS, but NASL definitely has the experience edge there. I think everyone wins with this.
On June 19 2013 02:03 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I've always felt like MLG excels at running big events with a lot of budget (in case you think that this is obvious/easy - you're wrong). It takes a lot of skill to do this and they have mastered it throughout the years. They are legitimately good at what they do with their events when they go all out. However when things are on a lower budget it seems that ESL/NASL are able to solve things by being cute and funny. Entertainment such as DIMAGA coming out in Carmac's bee suit, White-Ra as a bartender, and the random NASL dog come to mind. That is probably what WCS America could benefit from right now.
Wait, your telling me that SC2 and Esports should be fun and silly? NASL is pretty good at that. I remember Mining Out. That series was so dumb it was amazing. .
Excellent news. I'm glad everyone involved recognized that you don't hire a carpenter to lay bricks and a mason to build a dresser. MLG's very good at hosting a big LAN and NASL/ZombieIPL is good at producing nightly content culminating in an offline final.
Alternatively, does this mean that MLG events are going to be back to the size we're accustomed to in the future because MLG has more time and energy to dedicate to the LANs?
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
On June 19 2013 02:03 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I've always felt like MLG excels at running big events with a lot of budget (in case you think that this is obvious/easy - you're wrong). It takes a lot of skill to do this and they have mastered it throughout the years. They are legitimately good at what they do with their events when they go all out. However when things are on a lower budget it seems that ESL/NASL are able to solve things by being cute and funny. Entertainment such as DIMAGA coming out in Carmac's bee suit, White-Ra as a bartender, and the random NASL dog come to mind. That is probably what WCS America could benefit from right now.
Never tought about it this way.. but i agree with you!!
They seemed to be out of their league when doing the daily small broadcast stuff and ESL/nasl excell in that!
I hope people really support NASL for season 2. This feels like a case of "the grass is always greener" honestly.
Please remember this isn't the first time opinions have shifted. There was a time when NASL got all the hate for their casting and technical issues and MLG could do no wrong. Then NASL went away and people realized what they'd lost, and suddenly they elevated the memory of NASL past anything that it actually achieved as a league.
I do agree that NASL is a better fit for the WCS. Maybe it will be a good enough fit that the community can actually enjoy WCS AM, which would be great for a change.
Say what! I just woke up, am I still dreaming? This is great news! MLG is way better at running huge offline events, and NASL is one of the best at running online tournaments. It just makes so much sense.
what money did they spend exactly? they hired no new staff, held it in their studio that is already paid for and blizzard at least covered prize money. if you cant make money in a tourney like that, you have no hope. compare it to ESL who are in the same situation, and they put on a lot of extra work for their WCS league, and it was great. so unless you are saying that 200-400k hours of ad revenue is enough to make or break WCS i dont see how mlg can be happy to move away from it. and if you cant make money on NA times with limited additional outlay, why are NASL to eager to move in to hosting it?
Also, this continues the tradition of Blizzard totally fucking up everything they try to do the first time around, only to do it right the second time.
So MLG just saved NASL? Pretty sick. I just really really really hate the fact that NASL will only do the lan part. No way will I watch any wcs na with ex-IPL producing, they went down for a reason. Also fuck yeah MLG can finally be the awesomeness that is it, I felt like doing wcs took to much away from their sick events anyways.
TB dropping knowledge on the subject. Its sad to hear that MLG didn't want to do it from the start, but I can see why the Blizzard marketing would want them. MLG works with CoD, which is another Activision game and I am sure there was some marketing genius that thought "they should just keep it all under one roof".
Glad NASL is back in action and I'm glad that MLG stepped back.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
the only thing i don't like about this post is the fact you're telling me MLG has found a way to make money with sc2 again, which means they'll stay in this community :/
On June 19 2013 02:03 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I've always felt like MLG excels at running big events with a lot of budget (in case you think that this is obvious/easy - you're wrong). It takes a lot of skill to do this and they have mastered it throughout the years. They are legitimately good at what they do with their events when they go all out. However when things are on a lower budget it seems that ESL/NASL are able to solve things by being cute and funny. Entertainment such as DIMAGA coming out in Carmac's bee suit, White-Ra as a bartender, and the random NASL dog come to mind. That is probably what WCS America could benefit from right now.
Wait, your telling me that SC2 and Esports should be fun and silly? NASL is pretty good at that. I remember Mining Out. That series was so dumb it was amazing. .
Nono, not at all. I'm saying that when budgets are lower things like that can really make or break the show. Esports doesn't have to be fun or silly. I like it serious and grand too!
On June 19 2013 02:14 Lorch wrote: So MLG just saved NASL? Pretty sick. I just really really really hate the fact that NASL will only do the lan part. No way will I watch any wcs na with ex-IPL producing, they went down for a reason. Also fuck yeah MLG can finally be the awesomeness that is it, I felt like doing wcs took to much away from their sick events anyways.
IPL went down because IGN wanted to refocus themselves and their content, and because they were losing money on doing these e-sports tournaments. Not because they were bad at what they did. This is really obnoxious to hate the ex-IPL people who didn't do anything wrong.
"Of course, as the NASL casters are quite eager to cast StarCraft II, they will pop in each week to help cast some of the Challenger League and Premier League matches, as well." - from NASL press announcement
So it seems NASL will handle ro16 onward, with their casters sometimes helping the ex-IPL crew with the ro32 and challenger leagues. Fair enough, let's see how it goes.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
the only thing i don't like about this post is the fact you're telling me MLG has found a way to make money with sc2 again, which means they'll stay in this community :/
MLG isn't leaving and there is no one else doing what they do in NA. Period. We don't have Dreamhack over here. I don't know why you would want fewer events and less money.
This is such awesome news. I miss the NASL casters and feel like WCS NA was just so underwhelming with MLG. This makes the whole lineup of WCS events all around great now.
On June 19 2013 02:16 Heyoka wrote: Updated with the statement from NASL here.
So NASL's covering ALL of the LAN stuff (Ro16 on). Good to hear that clarification, and thrilled to watch WCS AM again (despite the lack of rooting interest). Hopefully they make some attempt to pull in Europe.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
the only thing i don't like about this post is the fact you're telling me MLG has found a way to make money with sc2 again, which means they'll stay in this community :/
Why the freaking F would you want them to leave? Makes zero sense if you actually care about sc2 as an esport...
On June 19 2013 02:14 Lorch wrote: So MLG just saved NASL? Pretty sick. I just really really really hate the fact that NASL will only do the lan part. No way will I watch any wcs na with ex-IPL producing, they went down for a reason. Also fuck yeah MLG can finally be the awesomeness that is it, I felt like doing wcs took to much away from their sick events anyways.
IPL went down because IGN wanted to refocus themselves and their content, and because they were losing money on doing these e-sports tournaments. Not because they were bad at what they did. This is really obnoxious to hate the ex-IPL people who didn't do anything wrong.
Well you are entitled to your opinion. But creating 500 different shows and restreaming whatever they wanted 24/7 did not make good online content, and viewership numbers showed that.
On June 19 2013 02:03 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I've always felt like MLG excels at running big events with a lot of budget (in case you think that this is obvious/easy - you're wrong). It takes a lot of skill to do this and they have mastered it throughout the years. They are legitimately good at what they do with their events when they go all out. However when things are on a lower budget it seems that ESL/NASL are able to solve things by being cute and funny. Entertainment such as DIMAGA coming out in Carmac's bee suit, White-Ra as a bartender, and the random NASL dog come to mind. That is probably what WCS America could benefit from right now.
Wait, your telling me that SC2 and Esports should be fun and silly? NASL is pretty good at that. I remember Mining Out. That series was so dumb it was amazing. .
Nono, not at all. I'm saying that when budgets are lower things like that can really make or break the show. Esports doesn't have to be fun or silly. I like it serious and grand too!
I want both too. But there is an honesty about the kind of fun that NASL and ESL had that connected with people. Grand scope is great too, as long as casters don't say "Esports History".
On June 19 2013 02:14 Lorch wrote: So MLG just saved NASL? Pretty sick. I just really really really hate the fact that NASL will only do the lan part. No way will I watch any wcs na with ex-IPL producing, they went down for a reason. Also fuck yeah MLG can finally be the awesomeness that is it, I felt like doing wcs took to much away from their sick events anyways.
What? Kevin Knocke has one of the best voices in Starcraft 2 commentating
On June 19 2013 02:03 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I've always felt like MLG excels at running big events with a lot of budget (in case you think that this is obvious/easy - you're wrong). It takes a lot of skill to do this and they have mastered it throughout the years. They are legitimately good at what they do with their events when they go all out. However when things are on a lower budget it seems that ESL/NASL are able to solve things by being cute and funny. Entertainment such as DIMAGA coming out in Carmac's bee suit, White-Ra as a bartender, and the random NASL dog come to mind. That is probably what WCS America could benefit from right now.
I think you're right, and hope that NASL makes it fun again. This is what made WCS Europe so much nicer to watch than WCS America: The Fun. ToD and Kealaris had a huge amount of fun, they had pre-show interviews and other lots of really random stuff. Even the EU grand finals, in a small studio in Germany were more fun to watch than the 'grand finals'.
Idk, maybe it's because I'm European, but I can't stand this Americal formal-style of presenting something with suits and lots of lots hype about small things (along with the cringing begging for FB likes and YT subscriptions), and no actual fun displayed. ToD, bitterdam, Kealaris, Apollo (sp?) all displayed some sort of genuine fun about the game, the MLG casters did not, and were somehow trying too hard... And yay for random crap, I'd suggest they have a competition for user-made fan videos to show in breaks. (top-10 baneling hits, silly bronze-league games, whatever)
did you expect them to say "well, Blizzard thinks we kinda suck so they decided to take WCS away from us and give it to NASL"?
In sure it was mutual. Both sides would have to agree since there were contracts involved. they both realized MLG wasn't equipped to do it and run normal events.
On June 19 2013 02:14 Lorch wrote: So MLG just saved NASL? Pretty sick. I just really really really hate the fact that NASL will only do the lan part. No way will I watch any wcs na with ex-IPL producing, they went down for a reason. Also fuck yeah MLG can finally be the awesomeness that is it, I felt like doing wcs took to much away from their sick events anyways.
What? Kevin Knocke has one of the best voices in Starcraft commentating
I did not talk about their casters (for the most part what casters you like is just an opinion thing anyways, and our community has shown that who is considered good rarely has anything to do their game knowledge/voice/flow of talk etc. pp) I was talking production, huge difference their.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
the only thing i don't like about this post is the fact you're telling me MLG has found a way to make money with sc2 again, which means they'll stay in this community :/
What an asinine statement.
MLG has done SO MUCH for the SC2 community, but I bet statements like this make them wish they hadn't even bothered in the first place. Do you even realize the amount of content they have provided, and the exposure they have generated for SC2 specifically, and eSports in general? Not just in the US but around the world?
I think this move is the only chance for NASL to be present. With WCS daily shows on there seemed to be no time slot for NASL. MLG on the other hand will be more than fine with WCS running around. So in order to keep NASL and MLG present in NA this is the best move there is.
Obviously I'd also like to see some IPL content back. Damn, IPL was the best tournament trademark in NA but without IGN it's really, really gone
Nice to see a part of the sc2 scene is going to be strangled by WCS less.
Now if they can just stay the FUCK away from GOM with this crap, they can go back to producing their amazing product that has been the lifeblood of competitive sc2 since it was a thing.
On June 19 2013 02:14 Lorch wrote: So MLG just saved NASL? Pretty sick. I just really really really hate the fact that NASL will only do the lan part. No way will I watch any wcs na with ex-IPL producing, they went down for a reason. Also fuck yeah MLG can finally be the awesomeness that is it, I felt like doing wcs took to much away from their sick events anyways.
IPL went down because IGN wanted to refocus themselves and their content, and because they were losing money on doing these e-sports tournaments. Not because they were bad at what they did. This is really obnoxious to hate the ex-IPL people who didn't do anything wrong.
Well, they were hemorrhaging money. IGN would never have shut them down if they were profitable. Now, is it fair to blame the casters for that? No, and when people hear "IPL" that's probably who they're thinking of. But it wasn't like the organization as a whole was doing great and then randomly got the axe from IGN.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
the only thing i don't like about this post is the fact you're telling me MLG has found a way to make money with sc2 again, which means they'll stay in this community :/
What an asinine statement.
MLG has done SO MUCH for the SC2 community, but I bet statements like this make them wish they hadn't even bothered in the first place. Do you even realize the amount of content they have provided, and the exposure they have generated for SC2 specifically, and eSports in general? Not just in the US but around the world?
They were the first ones to pick up SC2 and they moved it to the main stage after a couple MLGs. Sundance were appearing on State of the Game when Day 9 was one of the pillars. Does anyone remember "Ikea, sponsor MLG" when they ran out of chairs on the side stage.
did you expect them to say "well, Blizzard thinks we kinda suck so they decided to take WCS away from us and give it to NASL"?
In sure it was mutual. Both sides would have to agree since there were contracts involved. they both realized MLG wasn't equipped to do it and run normal events.
I doubt anyone without insider knowledge can truly say whether it was mutual. Contracts are involved, but when hiring a production company you often include clauses that let you terminate the deal (sometimes at a cost). It would be quite a generous deal from Blizzard if they promised MLG that they could represent Blizzard in a year-long exclusive league, and no matter how badly they did they were entitled to continue operating the league on behalf of Blizzard. At the very least one would expect that Blizzard had the option to stop their deal between seasons if they gave a notice soon enough.
I think this is a good decision. NASL was always the natural choice, and MLG definitely didn't impress with their season 1 production.
did you expect them to say "well, Blizzard thinks we kinda suck so they decided to take WCS away from us and give it to NASL"?
In sure it was mutual. Both sides would have to agree since there were contracts involved. they both realized MLG wasn't equipped to do it and run normal events.
I doubt anyone without insider knowledge can truly say whether it was mutual. Contracts are involved, but when hiring a production company you often include clauses that let you terminate the deal (sometimes at a cost). It would be quite a generous deal from Blizzard if they promised MLG that they could represent Blizzard in a year-long exclusive league, and no matter how badly they did they were entitled to continue operating the league on behalf of Blizzard. At the very least one would expect that Blizzard had the option to stop their deal between seasons if they gave a notice soon enough.
I think this is a good decision. NASL was almost the natural choice, and MLG definitely didn't impress with their season 1 production.
TB pretty much clears it up with this post right here.
This is the best news that we've had in months. I've been missing the nightly NASL casts and entertainment since last November, and now they're the ones who get to do WCS America!
Yes, excellent news! For some reason, MLG didn't do a very good job at all with WCS AM (although the MLG events themselves are usually very good). Also, it's so good to see NASL casters back in action.
Great news!!! I felt so sad for NASL that they got shafted so hard with the whole WCS ordeal, while their season 4 had just been amazing. Not a fan at all of the IPL casters, but if Bitterdam and Frotorp join in it will be fun none the less. And the return of Chance!
On June 19 2013 02:07 arkedos wrote: Well this could be very good für WCS AM, but now the NASL has a really heavy load on their shoulders because the expectiations will be very high.
Yes, i have incredibly high expectations, given how high mlg has set the bar with season 1 ...
Congratz Blizzard ! NASL so much better and fun than MLG. NASL: better casters than MLG, more fun than MLG, more viewers friendly system than MLG and more ENTERTAINING. The True does exist
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
the only thing i don't like about this post is the fact you're telling me MLG has found a way to make money with sc2 again, which means they'll stay in this community :/
What an asinine statement.
MLG has done SO MUCH for the SC2 community, but I bet statements like this make them wish they hadn't even bothered in the first place. Do you even realize the amount of content they have provided, and the exposure they have generated for SC2 specifically, and eSports in general? Not just in the US but around the world?
They were the first ones to pick up SC2 and they moved it to the main stage after a couple MLGs. Sundance were appearing on State of the Game when Day 9 was one of the pillars. Does anyone remember "Ikea, sponsor MLG" when they ran out of chairs on the side stage.
How much people forget.
Meh, I've come to expect extremely short term memories from the internet.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
the only thing i don't like about this post is the fact you're telling me MLG has found a way to make money with sc2 again, which means they'll stay in this community :/
What an asinine statement.
MLG has done SO MUCH for the SC2 community, but I bet statements like this make them wish they hadn't even bothered in the first place. Do you even realize the amount of content they have provided, and the exposure they have generated for SC2 specifically, and eSports in general? Not just in the US but around the world?
They were the first ones to pick up SC2 and they moved it to the main stage after a couple MLGs. Sundance were appearing on State of the Game when Day 9 was one of the pillars. Does anyone remember "Ikea, sponsor MLG" when they ran out of chairs on the side stage.
How much people forget.
Meh, I've come to expect extremely short term memories from the internet.
Every time the community gets grumpy at Idra for saying "The community has the memory of a goldfish", all I can think is:
This is exactly how I originally envisioned things for NA and EU WCS.
NASL and ESL do the Day to Day WCS. MLG and Dreamhack do - stand alone - Grand Slams! (and support NASL and ESL on the Season Finals) Blizzard does the World Finals at Blizzcon.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot.
The entire team at NASL is quite thrilled for this opportunity, and looks forward to once again broadcast exciting daily StarCraft II competition. While the team gets ready to ramp up for the Season 2 offline events, Blizzard will operate the WCS America Season 2 Challenger League and Premier League round of 32. Of course, as the NASL casters are quite eager to cast StarCraft II, they will pop in each week to help cast some of the Challenger League and Premier League matches, as well.
NASL being good at what they did won't count for anything when they aren't doing much at all during the regular season. Blizz screwing up once again. They will be getting the IGN guys presumably to run most of the show, and NASL was so ridiculously much better than IPL in terms of the overall show there's almost no point in bothering with the whole debacle once again, as Blizz look like they are giving with one hand by involving NASL, then taking away by not using NASL's main strengths.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
the only thing i don't like about this post is the fact you're telling me MLG has found a way to make money with sc2 again, which means they'll stay in this community :/
What an asinine statement.
MLG has done SO MUCH for the SC2 community, but I bet statements like this make them wish they hadn't even bothered in the first place. Do you even realize the amount of content they have provided, and the exposure they have generated for SC2 specifically, and eSports in general? Not just in the US but around the world?
They were the first ones to pick up SC2 and they moved it to the main stage after a couple MLGs. Sundance were appearing on State of the Game when Day 9 was one of the pillars. Does anyone remember "Ikea, sponsor MLG" when they ran out of chairs on the side stage.
How much people forget.
Meh, I've come to expect extremely short term memories from the internet.
Every time the community gets grumpy at Idra for saying "The community has the memory of a goldfish", all I can think is:
On June 19 2013 02:13 turdburgler wrote: what money did they spend exactly? they hired no new staff, held it in their studio that is already paid for and blizzard at least covered prize money. if you cant make money in a tourney like that, you have no hope. compare it to ESL who are in the same situation, and they put on a lot of extra work for their WCS league, and it was great. so unless you are saying that 200-400k hours of ad revenue is enough to make or break WCS i dont see how mlg can be happy to move away from it. and if you cant make money on NA times with limited additional outlay, why are NASL to eager to move in to hosting it?
Flights, hotels, the set, Axeltoss+Axslav, equipment, graphics packages (way more $$ than you think), production team, and many more hidden costs that will be forever unknown.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot.
The entire team at NASL is quite thrilled for this opportunity, and looks forward to once again broadcast exciting daily StarCraft II competition. While the team gets ready to ramp up for the Season 2 offline events, Blizzard will operate the WCS America Season 2 Challenger League and Premier League round of 32. Of course, as the NASL casters are quite eager to cast StarCraft II, they will pop in each week to help cast some of the Challenger League and Premier League matches, as well.
NASL being good at what they did won't count for anything when they aren't doing much at all during the regular season. Blizz screwing up once again. They will be getting the IGN guys presumably to run most of the show, and NASL was so ridiculously much better than IPL in terms of the overall show there's almost no point in bothering with the whole debacle once again, as Blizz look like they are giving with one hand by involving NASL, then taking away by not using NASL's main strengths.
Are you kidding me? Put away your pitchfork and wait for a whole day before you go all internet outraged. You have no idea how this is going to be run or who is doing what. Stop digging through the press release just to find something to be pissed about.
I'll hold my horses until I see NASL/ex-IPL in action, but I'm cautiously optimistic about this. Also, MLG getting to do their regular, huge Pro Circuit events is a great thing to me - I've always loved their events, despite some of the issues they've had (and also Life won 2)
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot.
The entire team at NASL is quite thrilled for this opportunity, and looks forward to once again broadcast exciting daily StarCraft II competition. While the team gets ready to ramp up for the Season 2 offline events, Blizzard will operate the WCS America Season 2 Challenger League and Premier League round of 32. Of course, as the NASL casters are quite eager to cast StarCraft II, they will pop in each week to help cast some of the Challenger League and Premier League matches, as well.
NASL being good at what they did won't count for anything when they aren't doing much at all during the regular season. Blizz screwing up once again. They will be getting the IGN guys presumably to run most of the show, and NASL was so ridiculously much better than IPL in terms of the overall show there's almost no point in bothering with the whole debacle once again, as Blizz look like they are giving with one hand by involving NASL, then taking away by not using NASL's main strengths.
My impression is this is just a transitional period as NASL gets ready. I doubt every season will be this way.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
I hope this works out to be the best solution for everyone. MLG gets to refocus its business model and NASL gets a place in WCS. (And Blizz can make use of its former IGN-team staff.)
Why didn't they just get NASL to do it completely? I suppose Blizzard wants to use their new crew for something, though that was a pretty bad investment if you ask me. Heh.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
You mean the deep rooted Korean business practices nonsense? The kind that has been going on for decades. The kind that SC2 and Blizzard cannot fix with brute force. OGN is a large broadcast company and not someone Blizzard can just push around and tell them what to do.
But your entitled to your opinion and can think it is bullshit. I am inclined to believe them, since TB has never lied to me before. The same with the GSL issues. I have no reason to think any of those people are bullshitting me.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
Based upon your equivalence of this situation and the OGN/GOM one, I'm going to assume you haven't allowed any consideration for the internal politics of the WCS setup. I have no idea what went on, but image being given a few weeks to set up the largest tournament your game has ever created and trying to bang out everything both logically and legally. Was MLG supposed to say no to the people who permit them to use a game with a large fanbase in major competition, a game that makes them money? Certainly not.
it was clear from the beginning that MLG just put minimal effort into WCS America. Honestly, I don't think NASL will save WCS America, the level of play is just so low it's boring to watch when the Korean/EU scene is much more developed.
I say we take out WCS America altogether and have that pool prize go into KR/EU.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
Based upon your equivalence of this situation and the OGN/GOM one, I'm going to assume you haven't allowed any consideration for the internal politics of the WCS setup. I have no idea what went on, but image being given a few weeks to set up the largest tournament your game has ever created and trying to bang out everything both logically and legally. Was MLG supposed to say no to the people who permit them to use a game with a large fanbase in major competition, a game that makes them money? Certainly not.
Also the same company that also owns Call of Duty, which they also run major competitions for. There is no way you say "no" to them if they come and push for you do do something.
NASL fits the content better and with MLG free to run their big LANs we once again have a situation where WCS isn't removing all other Premier SC2 American based content.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
Based upon your equivalence of this situation and the OGN/GOM one, I'm going to assume you haven't allowed any consideration for the internal politics of the WCS setup. I have no idea what went on, but image being given a few weeks to set up the largest tournament your game has ever created and trying to bang out everything both logically and legally. Was MLG supposed to say no to the people who permit them to use a game with a large fanbase in major competition, a game that makes them money? Certainly not.
Also the same company that also owns Call of Duty, which they also run major competitions for. There is no way you say "no" to them if they come and push for you do do something.
Forgot about that (are they still connected, I thought I read something about a split). You don't tell the people who make you money to piss off and expect to keep making money.
On June 19 2013 02:54 Fearest wrote: it was clear from the beginning that MLG just put minimal effort into WCS America. Honestly, I don't think NASL will save WCS America, the level of play is just so low it's boring to watch when the Korean/EU scene is much more developed.
I say we take out WCS America altogether and have that pool prize go into KR/EU.
Sweet idea. That will help grow the scene. Watch whatever you want. Plenty of people watched season one of NA.
This should have been done before. NASL (along with blizzard/ex-IPL crew) and ESL handle the WCS league. MLG and Dreamhack will provide the primer LANs. Each major foreign group doing what they do best.
NASL leagues had been lackluster but their LAN finals have yielded some great games.
On June 19 2013 02:54 Fearest wrote: it was clear from the beginning that MLG just put minimal effort into WCS America. Honestly, I don't think NASL will save WCS America, the level of play is just so low it's boring to watch when the Korean/EU scene is much more developed.
I say we take out WCS America altogether and have that pool prize go into KR/EU.
How about you just wanted KR/EU and let everyone else watch what they want? Sounds like a way better plan.
On June 19 2013 01:57 ramask2 wrote: "NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.".
....Wait.... what!? So who's going to be casting the online part of the tounament..????
Best thing to have happened. MLG is independent again and will re-inject their brand into the NA scene. Without them it's like EU not having dreamhack. And NASL while starting out shaky has continued to improve their production season after season, providing us with their own unique content as well.
On June 19 2013 01:57 ramask2 wrote: "NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.".
....Wait.... what!? So who's going to be casting the online part of the tounament..????
The rock guy and David Kim himself.
That would be quite interesting tough to have the developers cast, great way to test their knowledge.
On June 19 2013 01:57 ramask2 wrote: "NASL will be handling the LAN portion of the event, while Blizzard's own staff in San Francisco (the old IGN guys) will be handling much of the rest.".
....Wait.... what!? So who's going to be casting the online part of the tounament..????
The rock guy and David Kim himself.
i would watch just for the casting if this were to happen. I bet David Kim insight might be pretty decent but "rock guy" would just be like OMG THAT IS AWESOME!! take down the rocks ahahahahha. I would love to see this too bad is just a wish
So in the end they take the most popular NA league (NASL), The most popular EU league (ESL), The most popular KR league (GSL), force them all to merge and carry out their vision of esport?
I do not think it is overall bad, just the way they did it was so stupid. What it boils down to is that you know can earn points in most major tourneys that accumulate over the years, and at the end there is an event hosted at a blizzcon to find the best sc2 player to make following esport more noobfriendly?
They could have had that with so much less drama. So much less interferring. Holy moly, what a bunch of poopheads.
I didn't expect that. I mean, it was obvious that MLG knew they pretty much screwed up the Season 1 but I thought they'd prepare a lot of improvements for Season 2. I'm glad for NASL, I miss Bitterdam and I wish them and the IPL guys good luck, they can't disappoint now.
On June 19 2013 03:17 HaRuHi wrote: So in the end they take the most popular NA league (NASL), The most popular EU league (ESL), The most popular KR league (GSL), force them all to merge and carry out their vision of esport?
you my friend have no idea how big ESL is, SC2 is just a tiny part of it.
This should be a win/win for all parties here - MLG focussing on their championships and NASL acquiring this rather huge gig - not to forget the viewers who longed for something like that for quite some time now
I think this is best for everyone, including MLG. I would personally love to see NASL handling the daily WCS shows, but perhaps we will get there in due time.
Very happy about this I feel like MLG just didn't do wcs american very well. Don't think this is a good thing for MLG to run and way better for NASL. Really happy to see this :D
Approved ... then I can finally ignore MLG. NASL will probably provide a much better show too. Lets hope they can come up with a decent studio with spectators ...
On June 19 2013 03:34 FSKi wrote: Better than before, but the whole tournament is still horribly organized. Each region has different rules, maps, qualification requirements. They should address the real game-based issues for the integrity of the competition rather than doing a press release about the spectator side of things.
I think it makes sense as NASL traditionally are a lot more experienced with day-to-day operations of Starcraft 2 broadcasting, while MLG always excelled at putting on great weekend tournament shows.
Hopefully, MLG will not be too sour about how things transpired and will re-focus with new energy on what made them big and successful in the past. If anything, they probably took a good look at DreamHack and saw that there is a market in running big independent weekend tournaments outside the new WCS system, yet be somewhat associated by awarding WCS points. I like this development and wish much success to everyone involved.
On June 19 2013 03:34 FSKi wrote: Better than before, but the whole tournament is still horribly organized. Each region has different rules, maps, qualification requirements. They should address the real game-based issues for the integrity of the competition rather than doing a press release about the spectator side of things.
Axeltoss and Axslav are great casters, but NASL has much better online production and a more diverse lineup of casters, often bringing in guests, which makes them more fun to watch imo. I can't wait to see the NASL studio back in action next season!
Okay, so we thought NASL should've gotten it to begin with. Now that you guys have it, show us that you can make it more awesome than your recent NASL seasons.
On June 19 2013 03:54 Rainling wrote: Axeltoss and Axslav are great casters, but NASL has much better online production and a more diverse lineup of casters, often bringing in guests, which makes them more fun to watch imo. I can't wait to see the NASL studio back in action next season!
I think it makes sense as NASL traditionally are a lot more experienced with day-to-day operations of Starcraft 2 broadcasting, while MLG always excelled at putting on great weekend tournament shows.
Hopefully, MLG will not be too sour about how things transpired and will re-focus with new energy on what made them big and successful in the past. If anything, they probably took a good look at DreamHack and saw that there is a market in running big independent weekend tournaments outside the new WCS system, yet be somewhat associated by awarding WCS points. I like this development and wish much success to everyone involved.
NASL isn't doing the online production part, Blizzard are.
On June 19 2013 03:54 Rainling wrote: Axeltoss and Axslav are great casters, but NASL has much better online production and a more diverse lineup of casters, often bringing in guests, which makes them more fun to watch imo. I can't wait to see the NASL studio back in action next season!
I think it makes sense as NASL traditionally are a lot more experienced with day-to-day operations of Starcraft 2 broadcasting, while MLG always excelled at putting on great weekend tournament shows.
Hopefully, MLG will not be too sour about how things transpired and will re-focus with new energy on what made them big and successful in the past. If anything, they probably took a good look at DreamHack and saw that there is a market in running big independent weekend tournaments outside the new WCS system, yet be somewhat associated by awarding WCS points. I like this development and wish much success to everyone involved.
NASL isn't doing the online production part, Blizzard are.
Well Blizzard hired the production crew from IPL and built a studio. It doesn't mean they aren't working with NASL's casters and so fourth. Their studios are really close together.
On June 19 2013 03:54 Rainling wrote: Axeltoss and Axslav are great casters, but NASL has much better online production and a more diverse lineup of casters, often bringing in guests, which makes them more fun to watch imo. I can't wait to see the NASL studio back in action next season!
I think it makes sense as NASL traditionally are a lot more experienced with day-to-day operations of Starcraft 2 broadcasting, while MLG always excelled at putting on great weekend tournament shows.
Hopefully, MLG will not be too sour about how things transpired and will re-focus with new energy on what made them big and successful in the past. If anything, they probably took a good look at DreamHack and saw that there is a market in running big independent weekend tournaments outside the new WCS system, yet be somewhat associated by awarding WCS points. I like this development and wish much success to everyone involved.
NASL isn't doing the online production part, Blizzard are.
Only for season 2. NASL is doing all of season three, and the NASL casters will stop by to cast the offline stuff still.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
Based upon your equivalence of this situation and the OGN/GOM one, I'm going to assume you haven't allowed any consideration for the internal politics of the WCS setup. I have no idea what went on, but image being given a few weeks to set up the largest tournament your game has ever created and trying to bang out everything both logically and legally. Was MLG supposed to say no to the people who permit them to use a game with a large fanbase in major competition, a game that makes them money? Certainly not.
MLG cant exist without SC2? There are way more games then SC2, and what would you think the community would do if MLG would announce they are not allowed to run SC2 championships anymore because Blizzard wants them to run WCS with a loss? Well Blizzard would be fucked, i can tell you that right now. So and if that was true, why are they allowed to bail now then? Right, that makes not much sense.
And MLG makes money of SC2? What? First thing i said when i heard about WCS, well im curious cause thats a lot of man power and resources your going to spent. Anyone could see that, so your telling me its better to let your partners push you around, on as project you know your going to loose money on and you know your going to deliver a shit product (for what ever reason) which will give you a shitload of bad reactions and hate in the community and you will have to pull out at some moment or invest a shitload more to make yourself look good again with the hope it works out.....
Congratulations, they did almost exactly that. Its just next level stupidity. Of course you say no to your partners if they are trying to run your business and force you to loose money, then you say fuck you and move on to something else. Thats what any normal company would do, cause your loosing the control over your own damn company and your bending over and put your brand at risk.
Again, next level stupidity and unless someones comes with real statements and no excuses (im so tired of excuses in esports) im going to think this cause i cant make anything else of it.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
It's great reading community feedback from people that have no idea what they're talking about
Ok, so it is ONLY the offline LAN portion that the NASL will produce? Why not the whole thing? Seems less of a big deal than the hubbub on Reddit suggests.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
It's great reading community feedback from people that have no idea what they're talking about
I was going to say that, but decided to be more polite about it. But, yeah, he is really just talking out of his ass and just claiming stuff is bullshit for no apparent reason.
But enough about him. Back to the joy and the return of the Pulse. Oh yeah, its coming back.
On June 19 2013 04:27 dizzy101 wrote: Ok, so it is ONLY the offline LAN portion that the NASL will produce? Why not the whole thing? Seems less of a big deal than the hubbub on Reddit suggests.
Blizzard have the IPL guys as well and I believe there will be a lot of overlapping.
edit: Overlapping is the wrong word, what I mean to say is that they can end up doing both.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
It's great reading community feedback from people that have no idea what they're talking about
I was going to say that, but decided to be more polite about it. But, yeah, he is really just talking out of his ass and just claiming stuff is bullshit for no apparent reason.
But enough about him. Back to the joy and the return of the Pulse. Oh yeah, its coming back.
Looks like Blizzard doesnt want another NA catastrophe when it comes to qualifiers... As for NASL. Hope they will do their job well. As for MLG. Lucky bastards. They dont have to waste money on there overpaid crew on daily basis and just use them once in a while during weekends. Also the price lock by Blizzard makes it easier for them to break even with their Pro Circuit events.
Genuinely happy about this. I think NASL can run it a bit better than MLG, as I think they've certainly grown as an organization through the seasons. Good for them.
This is the PR version of Blizzard did not want more bad rep because of MLG, no matter what TB says. Just telling other people they have no clue is not really an argument in itself. This smells so strong like a PR stunt.
But anyways, I hope everyone focusses on what they can do best now.
Well, it’s a bit late but better than letting NASL die. It would be ideal if MLG did the weekend finals and NASL the regular seasonal games. Now we need region lock and erasing that dumb non-compete.
Glad to see them included, I was worried about NASL, seemed like they were in danger just as they really started to get good. Though I guess MLG will just go back to doing their standard competitions now?
Great news! I was worried after WCS exclusive air times kinda restricted NASL broadcasts and kinda shut down their sc2 league...but now I'm glad things are looking up for NASL! :D
Whatever the "actual" reasons are that this happened (there are so many that we can speculate) let's just be happy it's happened. If the WCS feedback thread is any indication of the communities view on MLG then they totally bombed/failed relative to the other productions.
Let's just be happy they're gone and another company gets a chance to do SC2 the justice it deserves.
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
before you explode in a rant at least understand the context. He was just happy that Blizzard gave the rights the NASL for WCS America.
Does this mean we'll have REAL MLG tournaments (not the "crappy" little ones like the Spring Championship) in the future? :o I really hope so, I like the MLG tournaments which take place on one weekend, but the Open Tournament seems a little weird and irrelevant to me.
On June 19 2013 04:53 BlueFlames wrote: My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
Most of your points are correct, but I really don't think the sc2-scene was in a good spot before WCS. Honestly it's a system that still has it's flaws which have been highlighted to death already, but the system itself was sorely needed. I'm mainly a GSL viewer, but having a similar format has really warmed me up to non-stephano EU players.
Damn I would like to see Axslav keep casting - I can't get enough of his casting. Was I the only one who really liked MLG's presentation of WCS AM? Sure, I still don't care for Axeltoss's casting (sorry axeltoss), but they did a ton of things right IMO. That being said, I like the NASL guys too, so I'm sure as a viewer I'll still enjoy the content. Now if only twitch weren't so consistently inconsistent.
On June 19 2013 04:53 BlueFlames wrote: My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
Most of your points are correct, but I really don't think the sc2-scene was in a good spot before WCS. Honestly it's a system that still has it's flaws which have been highlighted to death already, but the system itself was sorely needed. I'm mainly a GSL viewer, but having a similar format has really warmed me up to non-stephano EU players.
Agreed, for the most part I didn't care too much for tournaments outside of GSL, now with WCS I have a tournament which I regard as the top for each region as there isn't any reason for a player from a certain region not to try and qualify.
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
Are you sure you don't have that the other way around? Starleague was a complete bust and they weren't planning on doing another season EVER. Proleague was hardly the success for foreigners as anticipated. With the abysmal casting, EG-TL bombing out, insane amounts of downtime, and the terrible time slots; PL had/has a cult following at best and isn't going to get any bigger. GSL on the other hand has a brand, has a massive foreigner following, has the best name(s) in casting, a team league just as watched as PL, and a tournament system that virtually EVERY major tournament is copying or at least taking from. Now we have to put up with an OGN/KeSPA run tournament that turns the standard WCS format on its head. And we go an entire season without GOM. Sure, they will do off scene casting to an empty studio, but that's about it. WCS is hindering GOM more than anything if you ask me. Just like they hindered MLG.
The US scene was on life-support already before WCS came along. Ya can't blame Blizz for its current state.
It's crazy how the mindset in the SC2 community has changed since a couple of years ago. Now everybody wants the developer to put in tons of work to keep the scene alive. But it can't work that way. You need a casual player base, amateur tournaments, etc. The problem with the US scene in 2013 is simply that too few people play the game. It was different in 2010.
Look at Valve. All they do is throw one big tourney a year (International). But you bet that there's TONS of other Dota 2 tournaments going on.
starting to go the war3 route. first, NA players can kinda compete and so they have players and fans. as time goes on, they increasingly cannot compete anymore, many just gg out (or ragequit), the fans stop watching starcraft. the scene turns from the main scenes being KR, EU and NA to the main scenes being KR, EU and China.
What? NASL was total shit imo. Like their offline finals had 20 spectators, because noone bothered to go there to witness all the issues they had online whole season long, season after season. I mean, nobody watched WCS AM anyway, so I guess this wont hurt.
On June 19 2013 05:39 HornyHerring wrote: What? NASL was total shit imo. Like their offline finals had 20 spectators, because noone bothered to go there to witness all the issues they had online whole season long, season after season. I mean, nobody watched WCS AM anyway, so I guess this wont hurt.
Seasons 1 and 2 were bad, 3 and 4 were very good. 3 was the best with the Canada final, Canadians generally like SC2 more than Americans.
I hope they don't have a big focus on bullshit extra content. I just really want to watch the games and interviews with players.
On June 19 2013 05:40 jalstar wrote: Seasons 1 and 2 were bad, 3 and 4 were very good. 3 was the best with the Canada final, Canadians generally like SC2 more than Americans.
On June 19 2013 05:46 Ercster wrote: I hope they don't have a big focus on bullshit extra content. I just really want to watch the games and interviews with players.
On June 19 2013 05:40 jalstar wrote: Seasons 1 and 2 were bad, 3 and 4 were very good. 3 was the best with the Canada final, Canadians generally like SC2 more than Americans.
Evidence?
Personal opinions don't require evidence? Also, mining out was super fun and really dumb. I loved NASL's goofy stuff and they should bring that back.
On June 19 2013 05:46 Ercster wrote: I hope they don't have a big focus on bullshit extra content. I just really want to watch the games and interviews with players.
On June 19 2013 05:40 jalstar wrote: Seasons 1 and 2 were bad, 3 and 4 were very good. 3 was the best with the Canada final, Canadians generally like SC2 more than Americans.
Evidence?
You do know that "bull shit extra content" was so that we didn't have 15 minutes of the New York Skyline + Traffic Cams while they were setting up for the next match, right?
blizzard "were gonna have to let you go" mlg "PLEASE DONT!!!" blizzard "you sucked big time, now either say you are leaving wcs or we are gonna have a problem"
It'be interesting and in America's interest to have give a few PL seeds to smaller region locked cups (like this Copa America thing or Shoutcraft), and it seems better idea than just entirely region locking the league.
Yeah, just like GOM gave charity seeds to foreigners. It creates hype and views, everything WCS AM lacks.
Perfect. Feel like this is the way to hhave done it to begin with. NASL for the daily content, MLG for the weekend LANS. Its each strength and it makes much more sense. So excited for season 2!!!
I'm happy this will dispel rumors of NASL's demise, and the return of one of my favorite leagues. Knowing NASL and their online content, they will do well with the WCS management and really bring a top-tier performance. Their specialty has been online, and since a good portion of WCS NA is online, they won't face as many issues as MLG encountered. And after the finals of NASL Season 3 and 4, I think they will do good with the offline portion.
On June 19 2013 06:17 PhoenixVoid wrote: I'm happy this will dispel rumors of NASL's demise, and the return of one of my favorite leagues. Knowing NASL and their online content, they will do well with the WCS management and really bring a top-tier performance. Their specialty has been online, and since a good portion of WCS NA is online, they won't face as many issues as MLG encountered. And after the finals of NASL Season 3 and 4, I think they will do good with the offline portion.
Season 4's attendance was horrific. Season 3 had solid attendance.
Happy with the decision.The na scene mlg/nasl chaos was the last piece of the puzzle keeping the growth of sc2.Now na will have a solid proscene with nasl doing what they know best:leagues and mlg doing exciting pro tournaments.Finally the dust has settled and the sc2 na scene can enter a new era of prosperity and viewership just like the eu and kr scenes
Wow, I like it! MLG Tournaments always were great events, but WCS seasons as a series lasting for several weeks does fit the "NASL Experience" so far much better. Also great to see BitterDam back on a much more regular basis!! :-D
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
Are you sure you don't have that the other way around? Starleague was a complete bust and they weren't planning on doing another season EVER. Proleague was hardly the success for foreigners as anticipated. With the abysmal casting, EG-TL bombing out, insane amounts of downtime, and the terrible time slots; PL had/has a cult following at best and isn't going to get any bigger. GSL on the other hand has a brand, has a massive foreigner following, has the best name(s) in casting, a team league just as watched as PL, and a tournament system that virtually EVERY major tournament is copying or at least taking from. Now we have to put up with an OGN/KeSPA run tournament that turns the standard WCS format on its head. And we go an entire season without GOM. Sure, they will do off scene casting to an empty studio, but that's about it. WCS is hindering GOM more than anything if you ask me. Just like they hindered MLG.
From my sources, BlueFlame is right. GOM had no way of breaking into the Korean Television scene where the majority of sponsors in korea look to for advertisement. A few months back, FXOBoSs wrote a blog about this. Without major korean sponsors, the future of eSF and Gom would be bleak.
On June 19 2013 05:46 Ercster wrote: I hope they don't have a big focus on bullshit extra content. I just really want to watch the games and interviews with players.
On June 19 2013 05:40 jalstar wrote: Seasons 1 and 2 were bad, 3 and 4 were very good. 3 was the best with the Canada final, Canadians generally like SC2 more than Americans.
Evidence?
You do know that "bull shit extra content" was so that we didn't have 15 minutes of the New York Skyline + Traffic Cams while they were setting up for the next match, right?
I meant things like the fitness shit. They could easily have just interviewed the players and/or casters and break those down into 4-5 1-2 minutes segments.
nice to see NASL and IPL now Blizzard back in action. Though I was interested in how MLG would improve. Hope the first season didn't hurt their pockets to badly. But basically NASL has a free win now, they just have to not use Bo1
GOOD: the nasl is best BAD: ... rly ? the ipl makes the season and nasl only finals ? they have best duo i RLY hope they will go to the studio bcause rotterdam, mr bitter are soooo much better then the ipl guys. nothing !!! against them but, they more lik the guys i wanna see in vids, not daily
I'm glad it turns out this way. I thought MLG was the better choice but they really didn't put much effort into WCS (even if they had reasons for that).
And if the process was anything like TotalBiscuit described it, I am disappointed in Blizzard. They really wanted to throw NASL under the bus, did they?
On June 19 2013 07:31 CoR wrote: GOOD: the nasl is best BAD: ... rly ? the ipl makes the season and nasl only finals ? they have best duo i RLY hope they will go to the studio bcause rotterdam, mr bitter are soooo much better then the ipl guys. nothing !!! against them but, they more lik the guys i wanna see in vids, not daily
it is only for the transition and season 2 Season 3 and after, NASL will do everything
On June 19 2013 08:01 havok55 wrote: When is this change taking place? Aren't they already playing season 2? I still see MLG on stream.
In America and Europe the group stage aka the up and down match analog represents the end of the season rather than the start of a new season like in Korea. These are still Season 1 matches.
They take over at the end of the Challenger group stage. (so after this week)
Oh thank you so much blizzard for listening, the Mlg broadcast was lacklustre, without any passion for the game and with really bad casting. I think we can all expect big things from Nasl and they won't let us down.
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
- First, what NA scene existed before WCS? The NA scene before WCS was IPL, MLG, and NASL hosting tournaments where any Americans were indiscriminately slaughtered by Koreans. There was no vibrant NA scene for WCS to "ruin" it was just a Korean playground.
-This second statement ended up not having a big impact at all. Most people would agree ESL did a great job with WCS EU, and WCS Korea was just another GSL for GOM. It might have hurt MLG, but it seems like they were never the right company to begin with.
- IEM just had there World Championship at the start of Hots. Their tournament season had already ended, of course they weren't going to have any IEM events right away. That's like asking Dreamhack to do a February tournament. The IEM tournament season ending was not some byproduct of Blizzard and WCS.
- So you are telling me that a dead GOM and a Kespa/OGN with 100 percent control is a good thing?
I think this is pretty good as long as the big MLG events can still happen and manage to attract top players, as they were the only time we saw Kespa players outside Korea.
I'm sure NASL will doa great job day to day and being able to do the live events in their own backyard should help them + Blizzzard and a lot of community figures are around to help easier.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
I just want to respond to that last portion: I love Axeltoss solo casting, but the dual cast with Axslav is absolutely terrible (I find, some people enjoy it but me and others don't). Bad time for EU you say? The GSL and WCS KR were/are around 1-5 am in the Americas, and during the working day for Europe. They get plenty of viewers. This whole timeslot business only matters to a casual audience that is just looking for something entertaining at the time, but maybe that's WCS America's problem, the skill (especially of Challenger League) is so low it doesn't have the dedicated fanbase willing to watch it no matter the time.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that maybe for people like you casters don't matter too much, but dare I say for the majority of StarCraft viewers they matter a whole damn lot. Just look at heavily moderated WCS America Twitch chat or Proleague Twitch chat for evidence of that. Plenty of people risk being banned to say they don't like the casters and new ones should be hired.
EDIT: And just to add to my last statement, google Tastosis. Or even look at the videos produced of Wolf's hair comments. The GomTV casters are very popular.
I remember Mr. Bitter saying on SotG a couple episodes ago, when asked "Is NASL stopping SC2 content?", he just said, "No, NASL will have...a LOT...of SC2 content coming up. That's all I'll say." He then turned off his camera and left for a meeting hahaha
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
some good points here. the over all prize money is going to go down substantially because Blizzard has snuffed out any kind of grass roots tourney scene possibilities with rules and more rules.
looks like Idra and Stephano are quitting at just the right time.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
I just want to respond to that last portion: I love Axeltoss solo casting, but the dual cast with Axslav is absolutely terrible (I find, some people enjoy it but me and others don't). Bad time for EU you say? The GSL and WCS KR were/are around 1-5 am in the Americas, and during the working day for Europe. They get plenty of viewers. This whole timeslot business only matters to a casual audience that is just looking for something entertaining at the time, but maybe that's WCS America's problem, the skill (especially of Challenger League) is so low it doesn't have the dedicated fanbase willing to watch it no matter the time.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that maybe for people like you casters don't matter too much, but dare I say for the majority of StarCraft viewers they matter a whole damn lot. Just look at heavily moderated WCS America Twitch chat or Proleague Twitch chat for evidence of that. Plenty of people risk being banned to say they don't like the casters and new ones should be hired.
EDIT: And just to add to my last statement, google Tastosis. Or even look at the videos produced of Wolf's hair comments. The GomTV casters are very popular.
Actually, no you're pretty incorrect in your timeslot response. Gom's casts come on usually right around breakfast time in the UK and other Western countries of Europe, which is why TB, Rotterdam, and Apollo are always giving shit to American casters when they're in Europe for their convenient Gomfast. That would be pretty nice, wouldn't it? Pretty much perfect time to watch some SC2. The VAST majority of Gom's casting audience on the English stream is European when it's live. That has been said by Artosis and Tasteless before, and I'm sure if you watch GSL as much as many people here, you can remember that.
Moreover, Gom's viewership numbers on the livestream aren't that good in the English streaming department except for later in the tournament. They're good, thanks to the Europeans, but not great. They don't have to be. The VODs are fiended over, and the Korean stream gets enough viewers that they don't have to struggle for more viewership.
In America, Americans are the only ones watching the stream, really. It's a horrible timeslot for Europeans, and the Koreans mostly don't understand it nor do they care. Americans and Europeans both don't watch a cast if it's at 3:00 A.M. in the morning...people have lives. The fact of it is, most people who watch SC2 ARE casual observers compared to the vast majority of TL.net-izens. They don't want to stay up that late to watch the American WCS, they'd rather watch theirs.
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
some good points here. the over all prize money is going to go down substantially because Blizzard has snuffed out any kind of grass roots tourney scene possibilities with rules and more rules.
looks like Idra and Stephano are quitting at just the right time.
What good points? I responded to them all on the last page. Suggesting that somehow not having GOM and that the lack of IEMs has anything to do with WCS is silly not to mention the fact that NA never had a real scene to begin with and that this lack of prep time didn't seem to stop EU from being really good.
Finally. MLG can go back to run big weekend shows and NASL can deliver another amazing daily tournament. So far everyone wins. I doubt there will be more viewers though, the timeslot is terrible for everyone in Europe with some kind of life.
On June 19 2013 02:10 TotalBiscuit wrote: Crossposting this from Reddit
So here's my personal opinion on this based on what I know of the situation of the last few months.
This is a good thing for an awful lot of reasons, but I think what most people aren't going to grasp is how good it is for MLG. The preconception is that WCS is a bag of money on a plate to any organization that gets it and holy shit is that completely inaccurate. WCS is a massive resource drain on any organization that hosts it. Blizzard do not in fact give you all the money you could ever need to run the event and MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue? What? The amount of money MLG had to spend with no possibility of return to run WCS was outrageous. More to the point, if you think MLG actually fought to get WCS you're WAAAAAYYY off. It was very much the other way around. Blizzard strategy involved having MLG do the event, Blizzard pushed for it. MLG was reluctant to take the event as they wanted to focus on what they're good at, their regular live Pro Circuit tournaments. They were pressured by Blizzard to take on WCS. NASL was shut out in the process.
As much hate as MLG gets, they didn't actually make that many mistakes outside of the dreadful qualifiers, they were simply put in a tough spot and had the misfortune of not being ESL. ESL has far more experience running this kind of regular online content and they happen to have a bit more of a laid-back image which lets them pull stuff like Carmac in a bee-suit, White-ra as a bartender, a live final in an abandoned sauna etc. Not only that but foreigners were actually able to compete to a reasonable degree there and the storylines came from that, as opposed to the stomping that occurred in the RO32 in WCS America. MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way and for some reason were blamed for it. Some people might think Blizzard kicked MLG out. I'm sure that's a nice narrative for the hivemind but nope, try the other way around.
You wanna know why MLG announced Anaheim so late, why the format is the way it is and why the prizepool isn't as large? WCS. WCS was the damn albatross around the neck of MLG. They weren't given an opportunity, they were given a burden. WCS wreaked havoc on the American scene, derailing NASL and negatively impacting MLGs actual events which have been the cornerstone of the US competitive scene since Starcraft 2 launched. Now it seems like some of those wrongs will finally be righted.
NASL is in a better position to produce the kind of format that WCS demands. They have more experience, 2 casting teams, the production crew and the facilities to do that daily content. It's what NASL are. NASL live finals are hardly the best things in the world, more often than not lack-luster, it's not their speciality. Their speciality is that daily show and the supporting content that is created around it. I honestly doubt we'll see a big leap in viewers. As much as its the popular opinion to suggest that less popular casters drag the viewer count down significantly it's really not the case at all. The lack of EU audience is what kills WCS America and it always will if it continues at that timeslot. Anyway, I'm glad MLG can get back to doing what they do best and what they've always wanted to do. I've been behind that curtain and I saw how hard they worked on WCS America but it was abundantly clear that its not their biggest strength. There's nothing quite like an MLG crowd and hopefully WCS will not affect future MLG live events in the way it's affected Anaheim.
I just want to respond to that last portion: I love Axeltoss solo casting, but the dual cast with Axslav is absolutely terrible (I find, some people enjoy it but me and others don't). Bad time for EU you say? The GSL and WCS KR were/are around 1-5 am in the Americas, and during the working day for Europe. They get plenty of viewers. This whole timeslot business only matters to a casual audience that is just looking for something entertaining at the time, but maybe that's WCS America's problem, the skill (especially of Challenger League) is so low it doesn't have the dedicated fanbase willing to watch it no matter the time.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that maybe for people like you casters don't matter too much, but dare I say for the majority of StarCraft viewers they matter a whole damn lot. Just look at heavily moderated WCS America Twitch chat or Proleague Twitch chat for evidence of that. Plenty of people risk being banned to say they don't like the casters and new ones should be hired.
EDIT: And just to add to my last statement, google Tastosis. Or even look at the videos produced of Wolf's hair comments. The GomTV casters are very popular.
Take Gorribal's word for it everybody, he knows better than TB whether timeslots and casters have a significant impact on SC2 tournament viewership.
On June 19 2013 09:22 Nuclease wrote: YEEESSSSSSSS
So much better.
I remember Mr. Bitter saying on SotG a couple episodes ago, when asked "Is NASL stopping SC2 content?", he just said, "No, NASL will have...a LOT...of SC2 content coming up. That's all I'll say." He then turned off his camera and left for a meeting hahaha
<3
I don't think he said "a LOT" and I don't think he even hinted in that direction. The word had always been that something good/"exciting" was coming down the pipes regarding SC2/NASL content, though, but I don't think any of us knew whether it was going to be some small'ish one-off tournaments or showmatches or some thing more.
On June 19 2013 01:51 Artisane wrote: Hell Yeah! My wife actually jumped up and down when I told her this.
You guys are NASL have NO idea how much she hated watching the MLG WCS stream.
Can I trade my wife for yours? :D My wife would only jump up and down if I told her I stopped following Sc2 tournaments and streams :D
I don't mean to sound judgmental, but maybe that's why she wants you to stop following SC2 tournaments and streams? Don't even joke about wanting to swap her with anyone else - she's your wife! (I'm half teasing you and half serious )
Thank god, I couldn't stand watching WCS America.... the MLG casters were unbearable and it did prompt me to simply not bother watching the tournament because watching on mute just isn't acceptable for me.
Given that the arguments for giving it to MLG were to build up to big finals events, to then do a lightweight NASL format in an office building was a big old fail. NASL and IPL had this type of content locked down before all this came about, so this can only be a good thing. Rotti must be a very happy puppy right now.
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
some good points here. the over all prize money is going to go down substantially because Blizzard has snuffed out any kind of grass roots tourney scene possibilities with rules and more rules.
looks like Idra and Stephano are quitting at just the right time.
I totally forgot about that point. Not that giving Gom a monopoly for the first 2 years was a good thing to begin with, but it was better than what we have now.
ooohh yeah thats the announcment i've been waiting for!
kinda was expecting this, or at least hoping for this i think they will do a much better job than mlg did and it definitly will be better for mlg to focus on their championship events!
I like how TB writes that it was more like Blizzard putting a gun to MLGs head and said: "Make this tournament! And you HAVE to include koreans!". That does not make *any* sense, especially if NASL would actually want to run the WCS. Or are they just keen to burn some money? Blizzard provided most (if not all) of the money, flew the players over, had to negotiate with atleast four different companies and they want more people *buying* the game (viewership and exposure in growing markets, they don't care about sonsors). In addition MLG did only have to host ONE online qualifier and the offline event was played in their office rooms which they pay for anyway.
Now, SC2 is not big in the korean market, the EU/US events get the highest amount of viewers, even if no korean participates. I think, from a tournament organisators point, it would make more sense to push for some koreans in "your" region, to advertise with a big name. It would make more sense to force mostly online no region lock play (And whoever thinks we will get any offline daily event is just delusional. WCS will STAY online in the west). They could have said no, we will just produce Tier 1 like events, but maybe their egos got too big and they thought that as somekind premium esport brand in the US, it had to be them. In the end, they screwed up big time, not because blizzard, no, because of their own incompetence. Look at the WCS finals or the current Season 2 in korea. Completely utter shit events. Blizzards fault? I would say no, its two rival broadcasting companies trying to fuck each other over as much as possible. They even changed the format in the middle of WCS, for one region only (and it will most likely switch back again in season 3).
I guess WCS will ultimately fail if they don't concentrate on improving the coordination with the broadcasters or take matters in their own hands. Afterall, IF you see some SC2 and all you see is koreans roflstomping each other because the only local heroes are eliminated alltogether, casted in some office with no excitement (or in an empty studio with a goddam DJ in your back.. WTF Gom?), you would not think "Hey, that looks great, lets buy this!". You would say "Nah, lets switch channel" and quit watching.
The only reason MLG backed out was because they couldn't figure out how to make money off it. Hopefully NASL will somehow do better, but given the constraints that Blizzard imposes on WCS, who knows ...
Not to talk shit about MLG, but I think NASL is a much better fit for WCS. MLG is great at hosting big weekend events, but the production for WCS was really lackluster. I'm quite confident that the NASL & ex-IPL guys & girls will do much better.
On June 19 2013 19:08 Gr33d wrote: I like how TB writes that it was more like Blizzard putting a gun to MLGs head and said: "Make this tournament! And you HAVE to include koreans!". That does not make *any* sense, especially if NASL would actually want to run the WCS. Or are they just keen to burn some money? Blizzard provided most (if not all) of the money, flew the players over, had to negotiate with atleast four different companies and they want more people *buying* the game (viewership and exposure in growing markets, they don't care about sonsors). In addition MLG did only have to host ONE online qualifier and the offline event was played in their office rooms which they pay for anyway.
Now, SC2 is not big in the korean market, the EU/US events get the highest amount of viewers, even if no korean participates. I think, from a tournament organisators point, it would make more sense to push for some koreans in "your" region, to advertise with a big name. It would make more sense to force mostly online no region lock play (And whoever thinks we will get any offline daily event is just delusional. WCS will STAY online in the west). They could have said no, we will just produce Tier 1 like events, but maybe their egos got too big and they thought that as somekind premium esport brand in the US, it had to be them. In the end, they screwed up big time, not because blizzard, no, because of their own incompetence. Look at the WCS finals or the current Season 2 in korea. Completely utter shit events. Blizzards fault? I would say no, its two rival broadcasting companies trying to fuck each other over as much as possible. They even changed the format in the middle of WCS, for one region only (and it will most likely switch back again in season 3).
I guess WCS will ultimately fail if they don't concentrate on improving the coordination with the broadcasters or take matters in their own hands. Afterall, IF you see some SC2 and all you see is koreans roflstomping each other because the only local heroes are eliminated alltogether, casted in some office with no excitement (or in an empty studio with a goddam DJ in your back.. WTF Gom?), you would not think "Hey, that looks great, lets buy this!". You would say "Nah, lets switch channel" and quit watching.
I certainly trust your word more than TB's here. Especially when you're arguing from conjecture ("Blizzard provided most if not all of the money and it didn't cost MLG much trust m e bro they just threw a stream up on the screen after all lolol"), and an insider would have access to actual information. Coupled with some exaggerated negativity...yeah you pretty much couldn't have written a more worthless post bud.
On June 19 2013 20:05 Doodsmack wrote: I certainly trust your word more than TB's here. Especially when you're arguing from conjecture ("Blizzard provided most if not all of the money and it didn't cost MLG much trust m e bro they just threw a stream up on the screen after all lolol"), and an insider would have access to actual information. Coupled with some exaggerated negativity...yeah you pretty much couldn't have written a more worthless post bud.
Try posting something worthwhile then (Judging from your "argument" of just rewriting something in your lololbro language you can't I guess). Unless TB was included in the negotioations he is as much an insider as you or I am. He posts from his caster / team owner perspective AND as organisator for a (kinda) competing tournament. But feel free to correct me: - The MLG did host the offline (the most expensive) part in their office. They have this for some years already IIRC and unless they planned to suddenly move away from NY just before WCS happened, they would pay the rent anyway. - Do you *realy* think Blizzard could just say to MLG "Hey, you have to do this and also pay 40000 in prizes". Besides the fact that its a free market and MLG could just say no, what would be Blizzards way to pressure? No Blizzard games? Would hurt themself AND other companies make WCS Tier 1 + 2 events just fine. - If its such a bad thing and MLG was so desperate they had to accept to broadcast WCS, why would NASL *want* to broadcast? Maybe because there *is* profit in it, be it either money or brand exposure. The fact alone that a different company pursues the right to play a part in WCS pretty much proves this part false.
Chances are great MLG did stop because they did such a bad job (yes, parts that were not in their control were responsible too) that it did hurt their brand. Its a company that wants to make profit, they didn't expect that it turned out this way and stopped.
PS: I also think its funny to show them as kind of organisation that wants to foster american talent and it was not in their interest that koreans participated. They INVITED and gave MLG seeds to various koreans even before WCS and in addition kept a system that allowed players to be seeded even if they did produce only very bad results. (I like him as personality, so no offense there if I use him as example: Incontrol)
Did not even notice the US WCS Finals. Did they really happen? Well I like the decision because I think that MLG is the most garbage offline tournament (and sadly the only) you guys in NA have. Ofc their online tournaments are not better. And that is just the view as a stream spectator.
ps@Greed, does MLG make money at all? Or is it not just the venture capital that still keeps them alive
any event is better without MLG...never liked their organisation...it is all based around money. I really miss the most important part in their portfolio...it is called "passion".
I know everyone needs money..but come on..at least put some heart blood in your work. (dont know if you can say that...it is a german saying)
On June 19 2013 02:03 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I've always felt like MLG excels at running big events with a lot of budget (in case you think that this is obvious/easy - you're wrong). It takes a lot of skill to do this and they have mastered it throughout the years. They are legitimately good at what they do with their events when they go all out. However when things are on a lower budget it seems that ESL/NASL are able to solve things by being cute and funny. Entertainment such as DIMAGA coming out in Carmac's bee suit, White-Ra as a bartender, and the random NASL dog come to mind. That is probably what WCS America could benefit from right now.
There is nothing random about having a dog around set. Also I wouldn't really say MLG is great when you look at their expenses and they still have a long way to go when its comes to being storytellers and putting a good scope on things. The amount of hype they bring is limited and a good start would be how they dish out the trophy and end it.
Edit: And to TB post, I didn't watch most of season 1, not because of the time slot but because it was at best incredibly boring. Admittedly there are worlds between +0 GMT and +2 GMT, but I can just say that it was a choice by me to not watch it, not bad time/difficulty. Maybe people have been too rough on MLG, but at the same time you shouldn't make it sound like S1 was well ran by MLG.
Try posting something worthwhile then (Judging from your "argument" of just rewriting something in your lololbro language you can't I guess). Unless TB was included in the negotioations he is as much an insider as you or I am.
Or y'know, a bunch of people who were in a position to know, told me everything
God it's incredible how many people just live in complete ignorance and yet will argue with people who are in a position to know better.
I didn't watch most of season 1, not because of the time slot but because it was at best incredibly boring. Admittedly there are worlds between +0 GMT and +2 GMT, but I can just say that it was a choice by me to not watch it, not bad time/difficulty. Maybe people have been too rough on MLG, but at the same time you shouldn't make it sound like S1 was well ran by MLG.
Why was it boring? This is a pretty terrible piece of criticism. Can't have been the games, the quality of games was significantly higher, unless you're suggesting that those Europeans are better than the Koreans playing in WCS NA (they aren't).
Maybe finally we'll be able to watch the WCS on a stream that doesn't lag every single damn day. Seriously, I don't know what it is about the MLG headquarters but they have such shotty Internet it seems because they're always having network and Internet issues. Such a pain.
On June 19 2013 22:13 Butterednuts wrote: Maybe finally we'll be able to watch the WCS on a stream that doesn't lag every single damn day. Seriously, I don't know what it is about the MLG headquarters but they have such shotty Internet it seems because they're always having network and Internet issues. Such a pain.
Utter bullshit. They use Twitch the same as everyone else and their internet connection is just fine.
That is great, NASL will be able to do daily stuff a lot better than MLG. Honestly though, is it enough to bring me back to watching WCS. I don't know not excited for WCS NA at all.
I didn't watch most of season 1, not because of the time slot but because it was at best incredibly boring. Admittedly there are worlds between +0 GMT and +2 GMT, but I can just say that it was a choice by me to not watch it, not bad time/difficulty. Maybe people have been too rough on MLG, but at the same time you shouldn't make it sound like S1 was well ran by MLG.
Why was it boring? This is a pretty terrible piece of criticism. Can't have been the games, the quality of games was significantly higher, unless you're suggesting that those Europeans are better than the Koreans playing in WCS NA (they aren't).
Off the top of my head, long waiting times between matches, bad casting and bad production. Also I highly disagree that the quality of the NA games was higher, though that is kind of irrelevant since that is out of MLG's control. Ontop of it, they had terrible qualifiers with quite a lot of mess as I'm sure you'd know about the best(worst of it was the trying to pass off replay casting as live).
I didn't watch most of season 1, not because of the time slot but because it was at best incredibly boring. Admittedly there are worlds between +0 GMT and +2 GMT, but I can just say that it was a choice by me to not watch it, not bad time/difficulty. Maybe people have been too rough on MLG, but at the same time you shouldn't make it sound like S1 was well ran by MLG.
Why was it boring? This is a pretty terrible piece of criticism. Can't have been the games, the quality of games was significantly higher, unless you're suggesting that those Europeans are better than the Koreans playing in WCS NA (they aren't).
Off the top of my head, long waiting times between matches, bad casting and bad production. Also I highly disagree that the quality of the NA games was higher, though that is kind of irrelevant since that is out of MLG's control. Ontop of it, they had terrible qualifiers with quite a lot of mess as I'm sure you'd know about the best(worst of it was the trying to pass off replay casting as live).
There weren't long waits between matches, the downtime was in my recollection lower than the other WCS events. Bad casting is very subjective, bad production is just flat out not true.
The quality of the games was definitely higher and they were not casting the qualifiers from replays who the heck told you that?
I didn't watch most of season 1, not because of the time slot but because it was at best incredibly boring. Admittedly there are worlds between +0 GMT and +2 GMT, but I can just say that it was a choice by me to not watch it, not bad time/difficulty. Maybe people have been too rough on MLG, but at the same time you shouldn't make it sound like S1 was well ran by MLG.
Why was it boring? This is a pretty terrible piece of criticism. Can't have been the games, the quality of games was significantly higher, unless you're suggesting that those Europeans are better than the Koreans playing in WCS NA (they aren't).
Off the top of my head, long waiting times between matches, bad casting and bad production. Also I highly disagree that the quality of the NA games was higher, though that is kind of irrelevant since that is out of MLG's control. Ontop of it, they had terrible qualifiers with quite a lot of mess as I'm sure you'd know about the best(worst of it was the trying to pass off replay casting as live).
There weren't long waits between matches, the downtime was in my recollection lower than the other WCS events. Bad casting is very subjective, bad production is just flat out not true.
The quality of the games was definitely higher and they were not casting the qualifiers from replays who the heck told you that?
In an odd way, I actually really like the EU scene. A lot of "fun" games that might not be the best executed but great entertainment value. Aside from Alicia taking Hero to the brink I didn't actually like NA as much as EU
I didn't watch most of season 1, not because of the time slot but because it was at best incredibly boring. Admittedly there are worlds between +0 GMT and +2 GMT, but I can just say that it was a choice by me to not watch it, not bad time/difficulty. Maybe people have been too rough on MLG, but at the same time you shouldn't make it sound like S1 was well ran by MLG.
Why was it boring? This is a pretty terrible piece of criticism. Can't have been the games, the quality of games was significantly higher, unless you're suggesting that those Europeans are better than the Koreans playing in WCS NA (they aren't).
Off the top of my head, long waiting times between matches, bad casting and bad production. Also I highly disagree that the quality of the NA games was higher, though that is kind of irrelevant since that is out of MLG's control. Ontop of it, they had terrible qualifiers with quite a lot of mess as I'm sure you'd know about the best(worst of it was the trying to pass off replay casting as live).
There weren't long waits between matches, the downtime was in my recollection lower than the other WCS events. Bad casting is very subjective, bad production is just flat out not true.
The quality of the games was definitely higher and they were not casting the qualifiers from replays who the heck told you that?
It was much harder for WCS NA to produce storylines similar to WCS EU or KR, because it lacks the appeal of both, but MLG never even really tried. ESL produced daily filler content for their finals, had stuff happening between games and actually tried to make things fun and hyped up. MLG did none of that, they did the absolute bare minimum, stuck with it and prayed for viewer numbers to magically improve to a point where they would make money off it.
Few guys in an office building locked away from the world, 2 PC's with an extra screen to each side and a disco light, I thought that type of tournament died back with the MLG arena concept.
I didn't watch most of season 1, not because of the time slot but because it was at best incredibly boring. Admittedly there are worlds between +0 GMT and +2 GMT, but I can just say that it was a choice by me to not watch it, not bad time/difficulty. Maybe people have been too rough on MLG, but at the same time you shouldn't make it sound like S1 was well ran by MLG.
Why was it boring? This is a pretty terrible piece of criticism. Can't have been the games, the quality of games was significantly higher, unless you're suggesting that those Europeans are better than the Koreans playing in WCS NA (they aren't).
Off the top of my head, long waiting times between matches, bad casting and bad production. Also I highly disagree that the quality of the NA games was higher, though that is kind of irrelevant since that is out of MLG's control. Ontop of it, they had terrible qualifiers with quite a lot of mess as I'm sure you'd know about the best(worst of it was the trying to pass off replay casting as live).
There weren't long waits between matches, the downtime was in my recollection lower than the other WCS events. Bad casting is very subjective, bad production is just flat out not true.
The quality of the games was definitely higher and they were not casting the qualifiers from replays who the heck told you that?
If ESL had longer waiting times, it sure didn't feel like it. Maybe their production was then able to make up for it, but waiting between series(not sure if you took matches as within Bo3, if so I apologize for being unclear) felt pretty damn long in comparison. I've never been to NY, but I'm pretty sure I can navigate pretty well by now. The difference in casting is between a tier 1 caster and tier 2 at best. Sure casting in general is subjective, but I feel it's still very hard to say the casting wasn't poor in comparison. Bad production, not really sure what to say about that, except that the whole product was imo pretty lackluster.
On the replays, by the end they forbade everyone to say their results and tried for atleast 2 series to not mention at all that they had switched to replay casting. You could I'm sure argue that was a mistake by them(not mentioning it), but that's a bad excuse imo especially when they go out of their way to kill the information flow on Liquipedia and through players.
Edit: Sorry forgot to mention the skill level. Again I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. There were certainly some players in NA that were better(mainly thinking of Hero), but imo the EU scene had higher skill level on average, so the average game of both WCS's I'd still say was higher on the EU side.
Try posting something worthwhile then (Judging from your "argument" of just rewriting something in your lololbro language you can't I guess). Unless TB was included in the negotioations he is as much an insider as you or I am.
Or y'know, a bunch of people who were in a position to know, told me everything
God it's incredible how many people just live in complete ignorance and yet will argue with people who are in a position to know better.
Its weird that people assume that TB couldn't have this information or that it wouldn't be correct because "He wasn't there". Most of the information people receive in life is second hand(like all of history). Because for some reason he couldn't just find out by talking to people at MLG and Blizzard.
The posts where people are discounting the information on how MLG was chosen to run WCS are my favorite part of the thread. The posts are so irrational to the point that they are amusing. Claims that its all "bullshit", "excuses" and "MLG is just greedy" have just become funny.
[...] MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default [...] MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way
a wonderful example of cognitive dissonance.
On one hand MLG need the European audience to make it viable... but on the other hand TB still hang-on to the myth that people prefer to watch under-qualified 'True American', rather than a world-class competition. The later _may_ be arguable for the fly-over american audience... but that fall completely flat if you say that a big and vital market share is the European audience.
[...] MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default [...] MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way
a wonderful example of cognitive dissonance.
On one hand MLG need the European audience to make it viable... but on the other hand TB still hang-on to the myth that people prefer to watch under-qualified 'True American', rather than a world-class competition. The later _may_ be arguable for the fly-over american audience... but that fall completely flat if you say that a big and vital market share is the European audience.
Man, I love it when people two separate statements out of context and then used them to make their own point. It makes for such a great argument and gives the topic the attention it deserves. Much like those 30 second political ads they run at election time when they take half a sentence out of a 20 minute press conference and use that to make their point. Its the best part about arguing on the internet.
How TB can say that WCS NA was not boring ? He must watch WCS EU finals with audience, interview, hosts, media guy (even him :p ), lot of fun story/moments between game...... WCS NA was boring: no audience, 40 min of security cam where you can watch Nestea sleeping... And i don't think that Revival or alive are better than Stephano, Lucifron, Dimaga or TLO.
80% of the viewers were disappointed, it's logic and intelligent to solve the problem, i hope NASL will be successfull.
On June 19 2013 22:13 TotalBiscuit wrote: Or y'know, a bunch of people who were in a position to know, told me everything
God it's incredible how many people just live in complete ignorance and yet will argue with people who are in a position to know better.
Yes, I bet those strange people told you how MLG actually did not want WCS. Maybe they did not want it after what it has become, but in general, if a company does not want to do business, they won't. Thats like saying if Blizzard wants a WCS Shoutcraft, they would force you to do it AND not pay for it. Sure, they could say "If you don't do this, no more SC2 for you" (unrealistic, they want as much exposure as possible), but then explain why NASL seems to be happy that they got WCS, why tweets from the DH guy indicated that they would have liked to take a bigger part in it or why there are several other tournaments that are WCS approvded. MLG could have said from the start that they don't want to do the daily broadcasts but they did not, also the "quality" of the show is pretty much the same compared to those arena tournaments they did before WCS. They did not switch from huge crowded halls to small daily broadcasts with a lot of selfmade problems from one day to the next and there was a reason they did it in the first place (cut costs).
Do I agree with you that its a burden to organize both, big events and the daily shows? Yes. I'm also glad that the NASL crew did pick it up and that we see the "old" MLG events again. But the problems WCS NA had could have been avoided, starting from proper qualifiers to production value during the offline event.
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
Wooo this is amazing news! MLG did an okay job, though very rushed! NASL production quality has always been top tier and with the old IGN crew mixed in too this should be absolutely great! Might actually get me to watch some WCS...
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
Do you want a tinfoil hat? Ya, I'm sure Blizzard guy called the Activision CEO and said "Hey, I have problems with this tournament organisator here.. they don't want to do WCS and pay for it". "So, what do I have to do with it?" "Don't let them have CoD!" "But.. who else should make those tournaments? We are pretty happy with what we get here, we put hundred of millions into marketing afterall" "Umm...well maybe some small venue could host it, we have like 200 seats during finals, that would fit into a smaller location.. Hello? Hello? Hey Bobby, are you still there?"
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
Do you want a tinfoil hat? Ya, I'm sure Blizzard guy called the Activision CEO and said "Hey, I have problems with this tournament organisator here.. they don't want to do WCS and pay for it". "So, what do I have to do with it?" "Don't let them have CoD!" "But.. who else should make those tournaments? We are pretty happy with what we get here, we put hundred of millions into marketing afterall" "Umm...well maybe some small venue could host it, we have like 200 seats during finals, that would fit into a smaller location.. Hello? Hello? Hey Bobby, are you still there?"
Yeah, I am sure you folks are experts on the subject and have way more information than people like TB, who deals with Blizzard all the time.
However, as someone who works for very large companies, including banks, that is exactly how they function. They don't say it flat out, but they heavily imply with phrases like "Well I thought we had a good business relationship and your firm could handle this," and "Well, with our past relationship, I didn't really think this would be a problem." Anyone can stand their ground and say no, but that may affect deals you have in the future.
Also, is it that hard to believe that marketing idiot said Blizzard/activision said "Why would we work with these NASL guys? MLG is already handling our CoD stuff, they should just handle this too. Everything is all set up with them." Once again, as someone who does work for very large companies, that is how terrible decisions are made.
On June 19 2013 04:04 Empirimancer wrote: Oh thank Blizzard!
Are you shitting me ... people thank Blizzard?
If Blizzards game-developers were as bad as their E-sports division they would be out of business by now. Blizzards decision surrounding the SC2 scene were horrible and bad for almost anyone involved. The only reason WCS was not a disaster is because of ESL/OGN/Gom. If the incompetent people at Blizzard keep fucking up the SC2 scene like they did the past couple of weeks, there will be a lot of people that could lose their jobs.
Lets sum up the greate things WCS gave the SC2-community. - Messing up the entire NA-scene. Not only did they fuck over the players, but they seemed to not care about NASL almost having to leave the SC2 scene for good. Lets not mention hindering MLG at producing at what they are good at. Tournaments that gave NA-players a chance and brought the spotlight of the whole SC-2 scene on NA. At this point i miss a good weekend tournament by MLG. I want Dreamhack weekends and i want MLG weekends again.
- Deciding on a WCS-format a few weeks before the product had to be ready, screwing over every organisation producing it, especially ESL who were the first to start the league i think. ESL did a good job, but i dont think the working conditions for them were really that good. - No IEM events in a long time. A tournament that also gives regions and countries a chance that arent that big yet and that triy to actively promote regional players.
- Messing with the free market in korea by enforcing two corporations to work together. If not for Blizzard Gom would probably be dead and OGN and KESPA would be running the show. Blizzards constant messing in this matter boggles my mind.
My thoughts are a bit unorganised at the momement, but i think everyone knows that the sc2-scene was at a reasonably good spot before WSC. Blizzard came in and fucked up big time. So please for the love of god thank the companies that were interested in supporting e-sports and the starcraft community all the years blizzard ignored it and thank the companies that keep trying to support e-sports and the sc2-scene, despite Blizzard forcefully trying to "help" them.
Are you sure you don't have that the other way around? Starleague was a complete bust and they weren't planning on doing another season EVER. Proleague was hardly the success for foreigners as anticipated. With the abysmal casting, EG-TL bombing out, insane amounts of downtime, and the terrible time slots; PL had/has a cult following at best and isn't going to get any bigger. GSL on the other hand has a brand, has a massive foreigner following, has the best name(s) in casting, a team league just as watched as PL, and a tournament system that virtually EVERY major tournament is copying or at least taking from. Now we have to put up with an OGN/KeSPA run tournament that turns the standard WCS format on its head. And we go an entire season without GOM. Sure, they will do off scene casting to an empty studio, but that's about it. WCS is hindering GOM more than anything if you ask me. Just like they hindered MLG.
They were delaying the OSL because they were having issues finding a sponsor for that one tournament, but unless you have a source I don't think they were going to cancel it forever.
Also GSTL is not watched more than Proleague. Proleague is by far way more popular in Korea than GSTL. Before OGN/Kespa joined a lot of the ESF teams were struggling with money because GSL is not shown on TV therefore it's hard to get sponsors.
It seems like GSL/GOM is more popular to you but in reality OGN/Kespa is much more popular in Korea.
On June 19 2013 02:36 DavoS wrote: See guys, keep your pitchforks sharpened and we can make the world a better place
I don't think it had much to do with pitch forks at all. MLG opted out of WCS and didn't want to do it in the first place.
Then why do it? Whats the difference of bailing out before the start or after just one freaking season. It all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. This is exactly like the weak ass GSL production and excuses we got last week. All i hear are excuses why something was or wasn't possible.
And dont tell me, like TB is suggesting, that MLG was forced to run it because then as MLG make a statement with not running it and let the community grab the pitchforks towards Blizzard. But hey if thats true then MLG likes to bend over i guess and i was rating them to high even after all the fuck ups they make on a regular basis.
This hole thing is a joke, and even worse then OGN/GOM nonsense.
It's great reading community feedback from people that have no idea what they're talking about
I was going to say that, but decided to be more polite about it. But, yeah, he is really just talking out of his ass and just claiming stuff is bullshit for no apparent reason.
But enough about him. Back to the joy and the return of the Pulse. Oh yeah, its coming back.
Pulse wont be returning, at least not for now. Cause they have hands full with World of Tanks and WCS running with the not that large team of theirs.
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
its not worth their trouble. so they didn't pressure MLG so MLG is not doing WCS any longer.
ATVI could care less abuot SC2. its Blizzard's lowest revenue draw.
Next Up For ATVI
$30 SKylanders figurines that cost less then $0.30 to make. less than 3 years ago the most expensive one was $8.
If people would carefully read how the "transition" is structured... its clear MLG is running as far away from this WCS mess as fast as possible.
Get set for more excuses about WCS-AM "being in a transition phase" as the WCS-AM comedy of errors continues.
Arguing for the sake of arguing.. human nature at it's best!
Who the fuck cares? why, when or who..
Everybody hated MLG broadcast and was sad for NASL.. so there it is NASL takes over so it will not end and MLG gets back to their events..
Everybody is happy now? no.. let's argue against a guy that actually knows people and stuff..
It's like me arguing with Mourinho about football.. or MJ about NBA..
HE IS A CASTER, TEAM OWNER, BROADCASTER, works with the people that put shit together.. don't you guys think he knows more then what the "eSport's press" (LOL) shows you...
On June 20 2013 00:42 shell wrote: Arguing for the sake of arguing.. human nature at it's best!
Who the fuck cares? why, when or who..
Everybody hated MLG broadcast and was sad for NASL.. so there it is NASL takes over so it will not end and MLG gets back to their events..
Everybody is happy now? no.. let's argue against a guy that actually knows people and stuff..
It's like me arguing with Mourinho about football.. or MJ about NBA..
HE IS A CASTER, TEAM OWNER, BROADCASTER, works with the people that put shit together.. don't you guys think he knows more then what the "eSport's press" (LOL) shows you...
I would say that "Esports press" is doing really bad job (or very good if you want to put it that way, cause it gets a lot of speculation) in providing some real facts behind the formal replies that have no clear information whatsoever. It is funny how there is NDA and all sorts of 'reveal timings' and mysticism shroud in Esports scene that usually end up nothing of real importance.
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
You make Sundance look like a puss by saying that. And if Blizzard was able to force MLG into an agreement based on "we're the publisher" arguments, then perhaps he is one. Which is kind of my point. Business is a two way street, you don't let another business force your hand like that if the outcome is as detrimental as what TB is writing.
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
You make Sundance look like a puss by saying that. And if Blizzard was able to force MLG into an agreement based on "we're the publisher" arguments, then perhaps he is one. Which is kind of my point. Business is a two way street, you don't let another business force your hand like that if the outcome is as detrimental as what TB is writing.
lolol
Sorry but this is just a plain ignorant view of the world.
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
You make Sundance look like a puss by saying that. And if Blizzard was able to force MLG into an agreement based on "we're the publisher" arguments, then perhaps he is one. Which is kind of my point. Business is a two way street, you don't let another business force your hand like that if the outcome is as detrimental as what TB is writing.
No he's not a puss he just doesn't really have any power when it comes to decisions like this. If MLG had a GIGANTIC following that would only follow MLG and not the new broadcasters then yes he would be in a position to negotiate since if blizzard moved SC2 WCS to a different broadcaster they might lose devout MLG viewers. But the reality is MLG doesn't have devout followers that would only watch MLG and nothing else so Sundance really has nothing the bring to the table other than his company is "capable" of doing it. Blizzard believes their own in house team and NASL could do a better job (I'm inclined to agree) so they moved WCS. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't really any negotiations at all it and was just blizzard saying "We're moving WCS broadcasting to our inhouse team and NASL". Because like I said, sundance doesn't bring anything to the table aside from the ability to broadcast it.
Hopefully NASL get it right from the first season. Things need to be near perfect from now on. It's being a bit boring to hear 3 years in a row "we will be improving guys" and the community circlejerking about how much they improved. WCS NA was horrible, with The Finals as prove.
Sounds good to me. MLG did a pretty shit job with things for the first event. Let us see how NASL handles things. I can only hope they run a super tight ship and show the world they probably should have been given more consideration in the first place?
P.S. I admit to having NASL bias since the events they ran in Ontario CAlifornia were right by my house =)
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
You make Sundance look like a puss by saying that. And if Blizzard was able to force MLG into an agreement based on "we're the publisher" arguments, then perhaps he is one. Which is kind of my point. Business is a two way street, you don't let another business force your hand like that if the outcome is as detrimental as what TB is writing.
lolol
Sorry but this is just a plain ignorant view of the world.
There are days I envy Nazgul and TB with their ability to just call peoples arguments dumb, ignorant or stupid, drop the mic and walk off stage left.
[...] MLG was put in a ridiculously difficult position to recoup costs because they had to host at an EU-unfriendly time. So you lock out your biggest audience by default [...] MLG got saddled with the consequences of Blizzards decision not to region-lock in the worst possible way
a wonderful example of cognitive dissonance.
On one hand MLG need the European audience to make it viable... but on the other hand TB still hang-on to the myth that people prefer to watch under-qualified 'True American', rather than a world-class competition. The later _may_ be arguable for the fly-over american audience... but that fall completely flat if you say that a big and vital market share is the European audience.
Man, I love it when people two separate statements out of context and then used them to make their own point. It makes for such a great argument and gives the topic the attention it deserves. Much like those 30 second political ads they run at election time when they take half a sentence out of a 20 minute press conference and use that to make their point. Its the best part about arguing on the internet.
These are indeed 2 separate statements. These are not 'out of context' there are from the same post by TB in 2 successive paragraphs detailling the arguments why WCS-AM was not a good things for MLG, and why it was unavoidable for MLG to fail at them -- I paraphrase.
The 'out of context' excuse is indeed the typical politician cope-out: oops I've been caught red-handed saying something stupid... lets's claim I did not say that... oh! they have a tape... le't's claim it has been edited.. oh! they have the full unedited tape... let's claim that "47%/Cling to G&R" was taken out of context... done! Any quote is technically out-of-context... that is the nature of a quote to be extracted from the whole... but the point here is that the semantic content remain and TB still argue, no matter how you want to slice it, that 1/ EU is a vital market for a WCS AM Broadcaster and 2/ Region Lock is Indispensable... 2 contradictory statements, unless you are deluded enough to believe that Friday Night High-Shool American Football will find as a Widespread audience in Odessa,UKR as it does in Odessa,TX
I found TB's comments to be rather depressing, mainly because he has no reason to lie. I'd like to believe there's some anti-Blizzard bias skewed in there, but it doesn't really matter, 'cause going forward this change is better for all parties. I just wonder how long MLG will do SC2--hopefully well into LotV.
Does this mean future MLG events will be able to have a larger prize pool? Also, does MLG still offer to fly out invited players? How will this affect their relationship with KESPA?
If MLG is still constrained by Blizzard for having a lower prize pool? I doubt we will see the amount Koreans that attended last years events if this is the case. On a bright note this can be very good for the American scene if there are only 8 Koreans, opposed to 18.
If only they'll implement some sort of region lock for 2014 they'll be on to something. I haven't seen a non-korean in a WCS NA match in weeks, maybe its just because I only tune in randomly. Its not the exciting koreans either, its the B team who I'm only vaguely familiar with.
If I want to watch top level koreans own face, can't I watch GSL, OSL and proleague? I wish I had a strong NA scene too with guys like Kane and Catz. That shoutcraft tournament was awesome
We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
If I'm not mistaken aren't they saying NASL will only handle the "LAN" portion and old IPL will do the rest? So basically IPL runs WCS NA and NASL is running the daily content that they excelled at. Feel free to tell me If i'm completely wrong here.
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
JimmyJRaynor strikes with inside info on the inter workings of Activision. Apparently they barely know that SC2 exists, even though they alway talk about it at their earnings calls to share holders. Are they lying to their shareholders? Who knows? Do they even know what an RTS is?
SC2 isn't leaving MLG and I don't know why you would have that impression.
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
Oh, look, this guy is back. I guess once a conspiracy nut, always a conspiracy nut.
Riot told MLG to fuck this up so that Blizzard will remove their contract with them. Because Riot is scared of the more casual game Blizzard Allstars that could kill, if stand alone, so easy their game. Because Blizzard is king when it comes to steal game ideas and put them into a new game that is just so much better than all others. And all they have to do is make it a bit easier what they are doing with removing last hitting for example.
So MLG sayed NP, we need money and we are not sure if we can get more venture capital, we are still making zero money because we don't know how to run a business of its own. And with this money they can ran this console stuff that never made money for them but they kind of keep it because I just have no Idea why. No Console game ever can compete with pure numbers in players with a decent PC Game. (Dont want to talk about money right, no great console game made ever as much money as a good pc game)
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
Oh, look, this guy is back. I guess once a conspiracy nut, always a conspiracy nut.
I am just waiting for the "Follow the money" post or some reference to the "Blog that shall not be named."
Or "Idra's release was an inside job. Think about it!"
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
On June 20 2013 06:00 tadL wrote: Lets speculate even more:
Riot told MLG to fuck this up so that Blizzard will remove their contract with them. Because Riot is scared of the more casual game Blizzard Allstars that could kill, if stand alone, so easy their game. Because Blizzard is king when it comes to steal game ideas and put them into a new game that is just so much better than all others. And all they have to do is make it a bit easier what they are doing with removing last hitting for example.
So MLG sayed NP, we need money and we are not sure if we can get more venture capital, we are still making zero money because we don't know how to run a business of its own. And with this money they can ran this console stuff that never made money for them but they kind of keep it because I just have no Idea why. No Console game ever can compete with pure numbers in players with a decent PC Game. (Dont want to talk about money right, no great console game made ever as much money as a good pc game)
i really enjoyed this post simply because of the idea that Blizzard would be copying Riot with Allstars when the original Dota was a custom map for a Blizzard game. i realize Blizzard didn't develop Dota, and much less did they develop LoL. but this whole cycle is actually crazy to think about.
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
thanks for the retraction.
as far the "conspiracy" stuff goes. conspiracy requires discussion of criminal activity.
ATVI pays more attention to the franchises that make the most money. No crime in that. Therefore, no conspiracy.
Back on topic, Blizzard should "partner" with companies if they really want to be part of WCS and not use "pressure tactics"... it just creates a big negative vibe about the whole thing.
It does not look like NASL is being "pressured" .. it looks like they want to be part of it. This is a step in the right direction.
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
thanks for the retraction.
as far the "conspiracy" stuff goes. conspiracy requires discussion of criminal activity.
ATVI pays more attention to the franchises that make the most money. No crime in that. Therefore, no conspiracy.
Back on topic, Blizzard should "partner" with companies if they really want to be part of WCS and not use "pressure tactics"... it just creates a big negative vibe about the whole thing.
It does not look like NASL is being "pressured" .. it looks like they want to be part of it. This is a step in the right direction.
I am not retracting anything. There is no reason to believe that SC2 will not be at every MLG event for the foreseeable future.
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
thanks for the retraction.
as far the "conspiracy" stuff goes. conspiracy requires discussion of criminal activity.
ATVI pays more attention to the franchises that make the most money. No crime in that. Therefore, no conspiracy.
Back on topic, Blizzard should "partner" with companies if they really want to be part of WCS and not use "pressure tactics"... it just creates a big negative vibe about the whole thing.
It does not look like NASL is being "pressured" .. it looks like they want to be part of it. This is a step in the right direction.
I am not retracting anything. There is no reason to believe that SC2 will not be at every MLG event for the foreseeable future.
lol, all you did was restate the question i asked. good job and gl to NASL with the offline finals for S2!
I hope NASL can return to Toronto where they had their highest revenue offline event.
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
thanks for the retraction.
as far the "conspiracy" stuff goes. conspiracy requires discussion of criminal activity.
ATVI pays more attention to the franchises that make the most money. No crime in that. Therefore, no conspiracy.
Back on topic, Blizzard should "partner" with companies if they really want to be part of WCS and not use "pressure tactics"... it just creates a big negative vibe about the whole thing.
It does not look like NASL is being "pressured" .. it looks like they want to be part of it. This is a step in the right direction.
I am not retracting anything. There is no reason to believe that SC2 will not be at every MLG event for the foreseeable future.
lol, all you did was restate the question i asked. good job and gl to NASL with the offline finals for S2!
I hope NASL can return to Toronto where they had their highest revenue offline event.
Conspiracy nut at its finest. You never make statements, just ask questions.
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
Do you want a tinfoil hat? Ya, I'm sure Blizzard guy called the Activision CEO and said "Hey, I have problems with this tournament organisator here.. they don't want to do WCS and pay for it". "So, what do I have to do with it?" "Don't let them have CoD!" "But.. who else should make those tournaments? We are pretty happy with what we get here, we put hundred of millions into marketing afterall" "Umm...well maybe some small venue could host it, we have like 200 seats during finals, that would fit into a smaller location.. Hello? Hello? Hey Bobby, are you still there?"
Yeah, I am sure you folks are experts on the subject and have way more information than people like TB, who deals with Blizzard all the time.
However, as someone who works for very large companies, including banks, that is exactly how they function. They don't say it flat out, but they heavily imply with phrases like "Well I thought we had a good business relationship and your firm could handle this," and "Well, with our past relationship, I didn't really think this would be a problem." Anyone can stand their ground and say no, but that may affect deals you have in the future.
Also, is it that hard to believe that marketing idiot said Blizzard/activision said "Why would we work with these NASL guys? MLG is already handling our CoD stuff, they should just handle this too. Everything is all set up with them." Once again, as someone who does work for very large companies, that is how terrible decisions are made.
The only thing that any logical person here need remember to realize that Blizzard can certainly put a lot of pressure on companies to do what they want is that Blizzard was able to bully KeSPA in both BW and SC2 into submitting for copyrights and giving part of their profits to Blizzard (among other things). If KeSPA, the biggest eSports organization in the world, can be bullied by Blizzard (even though they only ran one Blizzard-affiliated game), what hope could MLG have?
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
Do you want a tinfoil hat? Ya, I'm sure Blizzard guy called the Activision CEO and said "Hey, I have problems with this tournament organisator here.. they don't want to do WCS and pay for it". "So, what do I have to do with it?" "Don't let them have CoD!" "But.. who else should make those tournaments? We are pretty happy with what we get here, we put hundred of millions into marketing afterall" "Umm...well maybe some small venue could host it, we have like 200 seats during finals, that would fit into a smaller location.. Hello? Hello? Hey Bobby, are you still there?"
Yeah, I am sure you folks are experts on the subject and have way more information than people like TB, who deals with Blizzard all the time.
However, as someone who works for very large companies, including banks, that is exactly how they function. They don't say it flat out, but they heavily imply with phrases like "Well I thought we had a good business relationship and your firm could handle this," and "Well, with our past relationship, I didn't really think this would be a problem." Anyone can stand their ground and say no, but that may affect deals you have in the future.
Also, is it that hard to believe that marketing idiot said Blizzard/activision said "Why would we work with these NASL guys? MLG is already handling our CoD stuff, they should just handle this too. Everything is all set up with them." Once again, as someone who does work for very large companies, that is how terrible decisions are made.
The only thing that any logical person here need remember to realize that Blizzard can certainly put a lot of pressure on companies to do what they want is that Blizzard was able to bully KeSPA in both BW and SC2 into submitting for copyrights and giving part of their profits to Blizzard (among other things). If KeSPA, the biggest eSports organization in the world, can be bullied by Blizzard (even though they only ran one Blizzard-affiliated game), what hope could MLG have?
You could be the most logical man on all of Team Liquid. I had not even thought of using that as an example.
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
thanks for the retraction.
as far the "conspiracy" stuff goes. conspiracy requires discussion of criminal activity.
ATVI pays more attention to the franchises that make the most money. No crime in that. Therefore, no conspiracy.
Back on topic, Blizzard should "partner" with companies if they really want to be part of WCS and not use "pressure tactics"... it just creates a big negative vibe about the whole thing.
It does not look like NASL is being "pressured" .. it looks like they want to be part of it. This is a step in the right direction.
I am not retracting anything. There is no reason to believe that SC2 will not be at every MLG event for the foreseeable future.
lol, all you did was restate the question i asked. good job and gl to NASL with the offline finals for S2!
I hope NASL can return to Toronto where they had their highest revenue offline event.
I can't decide if I want to laugh at your stupidity or cry at your plight.
MLG is still streaming SC2, they have SC2 at their upcoming Spring Championship, which has a 22,000 dollar prize pool. They have further stated that they want to keep making SC2 events even if they are moving away from WCS.
If you won't listen to reason, you should be banned. So, please, listen to reason.
On June 20 2013 00:03 vesicular wrote: MLG being "forced" to take on WCS is laughable at best. TB runs a business, he of all people should know this.
So you think Activision/Blizzard, owners of SC2 and Call of Duty couldn't put enough pressure on MLG to run WCS NA even though they didn't want to? Do you really think the largest game publisher in the US, who also happens to publish the highest selling multiplayer game in the US, couldn't do that?
Do you want a tinfoil hat? Ya, I'm sure Blizzard guy called the Activision CEO and said "Hey, I have problems with this tournament organisator here.. they don't want to do WCS and pay for it". "So, what do I have to do with it?" "Don't let them have CoD!" "But.. who else should make those tournaments? We are pretty happy with what we get here, we put hundred of millions into marketing afterall" "Umm...well maybe some small venue could host it, we have like 200 seats during finals, that would fit into a smaller location.. Hello? Hello? Hey Bobby, are you still there?"
Yeah, I am sure you folks are experts on the subject and have way more information than people like TB, who deals with Blizzard all the time.
However, as someone who works for very large companies, including banks, that is exactly how they function. They don't say it flat out, but they heavily imply with phrases like "Well I thought we had a good business relationship and your firm could handle this," and "Well, with our past relationship, I didn't really think this would be a problem." Anyone can stand their ground and say no, but that may affect deals you have in the future.
Also, is it that hard to believe that marketing idiot said Blizzard/activision said "Why would we work with these NASL guys? MLG is already handling our CoD stuff, they should just handle this too. Everything is all set up with them." Once again, as someone who does work for very large companies, that is how terrible decisions are made.
The only thing that any logical person here need remember to realize that Blizzard can certainly put a lot of pressure on companies to do what they want is that Blizzard was able to bully KeSPA in both BW and SC2 into submitting for copyrights and giving part of their profits to Blizzard (among other things). If KeSPA, the biggest eSports organization in the world, can be bullied by Blizzard (even though they only ran one Blizzard-affiliated game), what hope could MLG have?
You could be the most logical man on all of Team Liquid. I had not even thought of using that as an example.
Haha naw, I just got lucky that my brain decided to pull that up out of its garbled mess of memories and information when I saw the words "Blizzard," "bully," and "eSports"
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
thanks for the retraction.
as far the "conspiracy" stuff goes. conspiracy requires discussion of criminal activity.
ATVI pays more attention to the franchises that make the most money. No crime in that. Therefore, no conspiracy.
Back on topic, Blizzard should "partner" with companies if they really want to be part of WCS and not use "pressure tactics"... it just creates a big negative vibe about the whole thing.
It does not look like NASL is being "pressured" .. it looks like they want to be part of it. This is a step in the right direction.
I am not retracting anything. There is no reason to believe that SC2 will not be at every MLG event for the foreseeable future.
lol, all you did was restate the question i asked. good job and gl to NASL with the offline finals for S2!
I hope NASL can return to Toronto where they had their highest revenue offline event.
Conspiracy nut at its finest. You never make statements, just ask questions.
again, a conspiracy is about communicating a crime. no criminal communications ...no conspiracy
furthermore, right below my question were 2 statements... so that part is bull.
let's see if MLG puts on anything like they did during 2011 and 2012. those were some great events. and again , i hope NASL returns to Toronto/Mississauga.
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
thanks for the retraction.
as far the "conspiracy" stuff goes. conspiracy requires discussion of criminal activity.
ATVI pays more attention to the franchises that make the most money. No crime in that. Therefore, no conspiracy.
Back on topic, Blizzard should "partner" with companies if they really want to be part of WCS and not use "pressure tactics"... it just creates a big negative vibe about the whole thing.
It does not look like NASL is being "pressured" .. it looks like they want to be part of it. This is a step in the right direction.
I am not retracting anything. There is no reason to believe that SC2 will not be at every MLG event for the foreseeable future.
lol, all you did was restate the question i asked. good job and gl to NASL with the offline finals for S2!
I hope NASL can return to Toronto where they had their highest revenue offline event.
Conspiracy nut at its finest. You never make statements, just ask questions.
again, a conspiracy is about communicating a crime. no criminal communications ...no conspiracy
furthermore, right below my question were 2 statements... so that part is bull.
let's see if MLG puts on anything like they did during 2011 and 2012. those were some great events. and again , i hope NASL returns to Toronto/Mississauga.
I can't wait for an organization to announce 2 years worth of schedules, and for you to say they're bailing out in the third.
I could also link a shot of upcoming events on Liquipedia if its to much effort for you to click on it.
lol 1 stream and 25 matches. relative to their previous efforts it looks like MLG is "backing away" (your words not mine) to me.
and what is planned for MLG Summer and Fall? MLG changes their format and games every event.
i stated a simple question in my post. if you have an answer with a source regarding what they are doing in 2013 and 2014 with regards to SC2 then post it up.
hopefully they return to what they did in 2011 and 2012, but with all the new rules BLizzard has set up regarding WCS it'll be tough to pull off.
They haven't announced those yet for any of their games(including Cod and LoL), so we don't know.
thanks for the retraction.
as far the "conspiracy" stuff goes. conspiracy requires discussion of criminal activity.
ATVI pays more attention to the franchises that make the most money. No crime in that. Therefore, no conspiracy.
Back on topic, Blizzard should "partner" with companies if they really want to be part of WCS and not use "pressure tactics"... it just creates a big negative vibe about the whole thing.
It does not look like NASL is being "pressured" .. it looks like they want to be part of it. This is a step in the right direction.
I am not retracting anything. There is no reason to believe that SC2 will not be at every MLG event for the foreseeable future.
lol, all you did was restate the question i asked. good job and gl to NASL with the offline finals for S2!
I hope NASL can return to Toronto where they had their highest revenue offline event.
Conspiracy nut at its finest. You never make statements, just ask questions.
again, a conspiracy is about communicating a crime. no criminal communications ...no conspiracy
Ohhh... okay.
so, what do you call that thing where someone believes there's shadowy stuff going on beneath the surface, with people or organizations, or entities CONSPIRING with each other to influence some outcome of something (to some inscrutible benefit), while hiding it from the public or from people who have some stake in the outcome but may be affected in a negative way?
Then, how do you say, like what's the word for the THEORY that that person who believes all this has-- about what those said people/organizations are CONSPIRING about in the dark shadowy secret corners of unknown land, what do you call that THEORY? like, what word would you use, I know it can't be a conspiracy theory, but what is it?
anyways, snark aside, MLG is fine, sc2 is fine. This is all good for everyone. Be excited that NASL gets to do what they like and are good at, and MLG gets to do what they like and are good at. Everyone wins.
and again , i hope NASL returns to Toronto/Mississauga.
'Looking forward to Bitterdam ! I think this can be a good move for both MLG and NASL. MLG has their own tournement that they can run now, which in turn gives more content!
On Lo3 they also confirmed that NASL will hold the season finals that are in America and that it will be in North America (that latter part probably wasn't a surprise)
EDIT: And that it will be Season 3's final (again that's been talked about briefly too)
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
JimmyJRaynor hard at work for his next ban it seems.
Though I am gonna misss Axslav's casting of wcs! To me, he's the best analytical casting and he actually makes some great points every once in a while that are actually useful for my play ! That's so rare!
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
JimmyJRaynor hard at work for his next ban it seems.
The man is a legend in his own time. A myth, never to be copied or remade. His view of the world is not to be understood, only viewed from afar with a sense of wonder and confusion.
This is very good news for NASL since I dunno what else they are doing lately besides The Pulse? I'm sure MLG is glad to be able to focus on their events and not have to host other people's events. If what has been said is true Blizzard should've just went with NASL in the first place. Oh well should be good matches coming in August.
On June 19 2013 20:05 Doodsmack wrote: I certainly trust your word more than TB's here. Especially when you're arguing from conjecture ("Blizzard provided most if not all of the money and it didn't cost MLG much trust m e bro they just threw a stream up on the screen after all lolol"), and an insider would have access to actual information. Coupled with some exaggerated negativity...yeah you pretty much couldn't have written a more worthless post bud.
Try posting something worthwhile then (Judging from your "argument" of just rewriting something in your lololbro language you can't I guess). Unless TB was included in the negotioations he is as much an insider as you or I am. He posts from his caster / team owner perspective AND as organisator for a (kinda) competing tournament. But feel free to correct me: - The MLG did host the offline (the most expensive) part in their office. They have this for some years already IIRC and unless they planned to suddenly move away from NY just before WCS happened, they would pay the rent anyway. - Do you *realy* think Blizzard could just say to MLG "Hey, you have to do this and also pay 40000 in prizes". Besides the fact that its a free market and MLG could just say no, what would be Blizzards way to pressure? No Blizzard games? Would hurt themself AND other companies make WCS Tier 1 + 2 events just fine. - If its such a bad thing and MLG was so desperate they had to accept to broadcast WCS, why would NASL *want* to broadcast? Maybe because there *is* profit in it, be it either money or brand exposure. The fact alone that a different company pursues the right to play a part in WCS pretty much proves this part false.
Chances are great MLG did stop because they did such a bad job (yes, parts that were not in their control were responsible too) that it did hurt their brand. Its a company that wants to make profit, they didn't expect that it turned out this way and stopped.
PS: I also think its funny to show them as kind of organisation that wants to foster american talent and it was not in their interest that koreans participated. They INVITED and gave MLG seeds to various koreans even before WCS and in addition kept a system that allowed players to be seeded even if they did produce only very bad results. (I like him as personality, so no offense there if I use him as example: Incontrol)
I stopped reading at the part where you implied MLG's only/main expense in running the offline portion was the office rent money.
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
JimmyJRaynor strikes with inside info on the inter workings of Activision. Apparently they barely know that SC2 exists, even though they alway talk about it at their earnings calls to share holders. Are they lying to their shareholders? Who knows? Do they even know what an RTS is?
SC2 isn't leaving MLG and I don't know why you would have that impression.
so far MLG stated they are doing the June 28-30th event. MLG could easily "leave" SC2 as they "left" Halo OR they could have an event as good as 2012-Anaheim for Summer. If MLG has made a commitment beyond Spring 2013 then post it. It can be placed in the post at the top of the thread. If you do not have this then you are just speculating and then slamming other posters for speculating. An interesting hypocrisy.
SC2 is a very small revenue stream for ATVI. Blizzard has already announced the size of their SC2 team. It is much smaller than the WoW and CoD head count.
Skylanders, WoW and CoD are the primary revenue drivers of ATVI and this is reflected in all their public communications.
Like it or not SC2 is a small part of what ATVI does,
As we continue to move up the executive ladder we see Vivendi shopping ATVI around because they need cash.
good news imo. MLG botched it up in a lot of different ways, not that it was overly terrible but it wasn't my liking and I much much prefer MLG runs its own tournament as in the Pro Circuit they've been doing since SCII was released. Let's hope NASL can improve on what MLG had
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
JimmyJRaynor strikes with inside info on the inter workings of Activision. Apparently they barely know that SC2 exists, even though they alway talk about it at their earnings calls to share holders. Are they lying to their shareholders? Who knows? Do they even know what an RTS is?
SC2 isn't leaving MLG and I don't know why you would have that impression.
so far MLG stated they are doing the June 28-30th event. MLG could easily "leave" SC2 as they "left" Halo OR they could have an event as good as 2012-Anaheim for Summer. If MLG has made a commitment beyond Spring 2013 then post it. It can be placed in the post at the top of the thread. If you do not have this then you are just speculating and then slamming other posters for speculating. An interesting hypocrisy.
SC2 is a very small revenue stream for ATVI. Blizzard has already announced the size of their SC2 team. It is much smaller than the WoW and CoD head count.
Skylanders, WoW and CoD are the primary revenue drivers of ATVI and this is reflected in all their public communications.
Like it or not SC2 is a small part of what ATVI does,
As we continue to move up the executive ladder we see Vivendi shopping ATVI around because they need cash.
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
JimmyJRaynor strikes with inside info on the inter workings of Activision. Apparently they barely know that SC2 exists, even though they alway talk about it at their earnings calls to share holders. Are they lying to their shareholders? Who knows? Do they even know what an RTS is?
SC2 isn't leaving MLG and I don't know why you would have that impression.
so far MLG stated they are doing the June 28-30th event. MLG could easily "leave" SC2 as they "left" Halo OR they could have an event as good as 2012-Anaheim for Summer. If MLG has made a commitment beyond Spring 2013 then post it. It can be placed in the post at the top of the thread. If you do not have this then you are just speculating and then slamming other posters for speculating. An interesting hypocrisy.
SC2 is a very small revenue stream for ATVI. Blizzard has already announced the size of their SC2 team. It is much smaller than the WoW and CoD head count.
Skylanders, WoW and CoD are the primary revenue drivers of ATVI and this is reflected in all their public communications.
Like it or not SC2 is a small part of what ATVI does,
As we continue to move up the executive ladder we see Vivendi shopping ATVI around because they need cash.
Yes, NASL seems to simply want it more. These guys are all about starcraft and starcraft only so I think this is a good move. Not that mlg did a bad job or anything but I'm looking forward to see how NASL handles this and how wcs America evolves.
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
JimmyJRaynor strikes with inside info on the inter workings of Activision. Apparently they barely know that SC2 exists, even though they alway talk about it at their earnings calls to share holders. Are they lying to their shareholders? Who knows? Do they even know what an RTS is?
SC2 isn't leaving MLG and I don't know why you would have that impression.
so far MLG stated they are doing the June 28-30th event. MLG could easily "leave" SC2 as they "left" Halo OR they could have an event as good as 2012-Anaheim for Summer. If MLG has made a commitment beyond Spring 2013 then post it. It can be placed in the post at the top of the thread. If you do not have this then you are just speculating and then slamming other posters for speculating. An interesting hypocrisy.
SC2 is a very small revenue stream for ATVI. Blizzard has already announced the size of their SC2 team. It is much smaller than the WoW and CoD head count.
Skylanders, WoW and CoD are the primary revenue drivers of ATVI and this is reflected in all their public communications.
Like it or not SC2 is a small part of what ATVI does,
As we continue to move up the executive ladder we see Vivendi shopping ATVI around because they need cash.
Jimmy, you do know that if you get banned on one account they will ban every other account you may have as well, right? They can still track your IP
On June 20 2013 05:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: We won't know until the end of season 3 if moving away from MLG and using NASL was an improvement for WCS-AM. This is definitely a great move for MLG though. They can focus on their true strengths.
Is there any word on whether or not SC2 is going to be at any future MLG events? Or has this "pressure" from Blizzard disappeared?
Blizzard may try to pressure MLG. But , the results of this "pressure" have been a very badly run WCS-AM.
I do not think ATVI will try to leverage the CoD franchise against MLG to force MLG's hand into accommodating SC2 into their live events. They'll use their "CoD franchise power" for CoD related activities.
As stated previously, ATVI barely knows SC2 exists.
CoD, Skylanders, and WoW are the money makers.
JimmyJRaynor strikes with inside info on the inter workings of Activision. Apparently they barely know that SC2 exists, even though they alway talk about it at their earnings calls to share holders. Are they lying to their shareholders? Who knows? Do they even know what an RTS is?
SC2 isn't leaving MLG and I don't know why you would have that impression.
so far MLG stated they are doing the June 28-30th event. MLG could easily "leave" SC2 as they "left" Halo OR they could have an event as good as 2012-Anaheim for Summer. If MLG has made a commitment beyond Spring 2013 then post it. It can be placed in the post at the top of the thread. If you do not have this then you are just speculating and then slamming other posters for speculating. An interesting hypocrisy.
SC2 is a very small revenue stream for ATVI. Blizzard has already announced the size of their SC2 team. It is much smaller than the WoW and CoD head count.
Skylanders, WoW and CoD are the primary revenue drivers of ATVI and this is reflected in all their public communications.
Like it or not SC2 is a small part of what ATVI does,
As we continue to move up the executive ladder we see Vivendi shopping ATVI around because they need cash.
Jimmy, you do know that if you get banned on one account they will ban every other account you may have as well, right? They can still track your IP
Man, he doesn't even try to hide it. He posts in all the same threads, even continues all of the same conversations...
EPT
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