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Wow sad to see visa issues complicating things again 
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On July 25 2013 23:07 Fischbacher wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2013 22:44 dantawangzi wrote:
I dont get it, all the dota 2 players from China get us visa like no problem, why it is so hard for a sc2 player?? Its a time thing. If you know 4 months in advance that you're going to TI3 its not that hard to get a visa. If you know two weeks in advance that you're going to WCS it suddenly becomes very hard to get a visa.
You need a valid invitation and confirmed plane tickets. Can't get those unless you already qualified.
It's a real pain in the ass to get visas when you hold a Chinese passport
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On July 25 2013 22:03 vidium wrote:
Well blizz should push some money towards lobby in the US to acknowledge SC2 as an esport same as LoL, but knowing them we would get the trademark "Soon" answer.
LoL is waaay bigger so its easier to convince people and it still costs a ton not to mention this is not a decision made it in a day, god knows how long the negotiations went on.
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On July 25 2013 21:11 Frankon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2013 21:06 Fischbacher wrote:On July 25 2013 21:02 ragz_gt wrote:On July 25 2013 21:01 hoemuffin wrote:On July 25 2013 20:56 Sbrubbles wrote:On July 25 2013 20:49 revel8 wrote:
It can be very difficult and time-consuming for Chinese citizens to get permission by their Government to travel abroad. As well as various written invitations from abroad which seem mandatory, the process can just take months. It helps if you have connections with the Communist Party but even with this the granting of Visa's can take a somewhat arbitrary amount of time. The bureaucratic process could do with being streamlined but I suspect it is deliberately onerous.
I am not Chinese but my Dad married a Chinese woman and spends half the year in Beijing. He has told me many stories from his wife's relatives about the hassle it can be for Chinese citizens to obtain Passports and Visas to travel abroad (to the UK).
I don't know specifics, but generally the granting of Visas has absolutely nothing to do with your own government. If the issue was the Visa and not the Passport, the domestic government is probably not the culprit. Edit: ninjaed Since around 2011, you cannot travel abroad unless you have the visa already prearranged, even if they allow visas on arrival. So no US visa, and immigration won't let him get on the plane. Chinese never could in the first place, so doesn't really apply :p Indeed. There is no visa-free travel for Chinese citizens going to the US. Its not like if you're, say, Australian, Canadian or from the EU and you can get a B1/B2 visas upon arrival with near-certainty. Being EU doesnt mean you dont have to get the Visa BEFORE boarding the plane..
Wait... when visiting the US a while back, I'm pretty sure I simply showed up at the airport with a passport and just flew to the US, though I don't quite remember at what point people looked at my documents. This was because of the German passport, not EU?
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What a double slap in the face for those two.
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On July 25 2013 23:44 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2013 21:11 Frankon wrote:On July 25 2013 21:06 Fischbacher wrote:On July 25 2013 21:02 ragz_gt wrote:On July 25 2013 21:01 hoemuffin wrote:On July 25 2013 20:56 Sbrubbles wrote:On July 25 2013 20:49 revel8 wrote:
It can be very difficult and time-consuming for Chinese citizens to get permission by their Government to travel abroad. As well as various written invitations from abroad which seem mandatory, the process can just take months. It helps if you have connections with the Communist Party but even with this the granting of Visa's can take a somewhat arbitrary amount of time. The bureaucratic process could do with being streamlined but I suspect it is deliberately onerous.
I am not Chinese but my Dad married a Chinese woman and spends half the year in Beijing. He has told me many stories from his wife's relatives about the hassle it can be for Chinese citizens to obtain Passports and Visas to travel abroad (to the UK).
I don't know specifics, but generally the granting of Visas has absolutely nothing to do with your own government. If the issue was the Visa and not the Passport, the domestic government is probably not the culprit. Edit: ninjaed Since around 2011, you cannot travel abroad unless you have the visa already prearranged, even if they allow visas on arrival. So no US visa, and immigration won't let him get on the plane. Chinese never could in the first place, so doesn't really apply :p Indeed. There is no visa-free travel for Chinese citizens going to the US. Its not like if you're, say, Australian, Canadian or from the EU and you can get a B1/B2 visas upon arrival with near-certainty. Being EU doesnt mean you dont have to get the Visa BEFORE boarding the plane.. Wait... when visiting the US a while back, I'm pretty sure I simply showed up at the airport with a passport and just flew to the US, though I don't quite remember at what point people looked at my documents. This was because of the German passport, not EU?
Germany is not China. No country treats all other countries equally when it comes to Visas and passports. You may not have to do through the same process the Chinese players need to.
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Wow, this is really unfortunate. I was really looking forward to the Chinese showing their strength at a live event. :/
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On July 25 2013 23:47 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2013 23:44 Ropid wrote:On July 25 2013 21:11 Frankon wrote:On July 25 2013 21:06 Fischbacher wrote:On July 25 2013 21:02 ragz_gt wrote:On July 25 2013 21:01 hoemuffin wrote:On July 25 2013 20:56 Sbrubbles wrote:On July 25 2013 20:49 revel8 wrote:
It can be very difficult and time-consuming for Chinese citizens to get permission by their Government to travel abroad. As well as various written invitations from abroad which seem mandatory, the process can just take months. It helps if you have connections with the Communist Party but even with this the granting of Visa's can take a somewhat arbitrary amount of time. The bureaucratic process could do with being streamlined but I suspect it is deliberately onerous.
I am not Chinese but my Dad married a Chinese woman and spends half the year in Beijing. He has told me many stories from his wife's relatives about the hassle it can be for Chinese citizens to obtain Passports and Visas to travel abroad (to the UK).
I don't know specifics, but generally the granting of Visas has absolutely nothing to do with your own government. If the issue was the Visa and not the Passport, the domestic government is probably not the culprit. Edit: ninjaed Since around 2011, you cannot travel abroad unless you have the visa already prearranged, even if they allow visas on arrival. So no US visa, and immigration won't let him get on the plane. Chinese never could in the first place, so doesn't really apply :p Indeed. There is no visa-free travel for Chinese citizens going to the US. Its not like if you're, say, Australian, Canadian or from the EU and you can get a B1/B2 visas upon arrival with near-certainty. Being EU doesnt mean you dont have to get the Visa BEFORE boarding the plane.. Wait... when visiting the US a while back, I'm pretty sure I simply showed up at the airport with a passport and just flew to the US, though I don't quite remember at what point people looked at my documents. This was because of the German passport, not EU? Germany is not China. No country treats all other countries equally when it comes to Visas and passports. You may not have to do through the same process the Chinese players need to.
My question is if it's like this for all of EU or not.
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Poland3772 Posts
On July 25 2013 23:49 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2013 23:47 Plansix wrote:On July 25 2013 23:44 Ropid wrote:On July 25 2013 21:11 Frankon wrote:On July 25 2013 21:06 Fischbacher wrote:On July 25 2013 21:02 ragz_gt wrote:On July 25 2013 21:01 hoemuffin wrote:On July 25 2013 20:56 Sbrubbles wrote:On July 25 2013 20:49 revel8 wrote:
It can be very difficult and time-consuming for Chinese citizens to get permission by their Government to travel abroad. As well as various written invitations from abroad which seem mandatory, the process can just take months. It helps if you have connections with the Communist Party but even with this the granting of Visa's can take a somewhat arbitrary amount of time. The bureaucratic process could do with being streamlined but I suspect it is deliberately onerous.
I am not Chinese but my Dad married a Chinese woman and spends half the year in Beijing. He has told me many stories from his wife's relatives about the hassle it can be for Chinese citizens to obtain Passports and Visas to travel abroad (to the UK).
I don't know specifics, but generally the granting of Visas has absolutely nothing to do with your own government. If the issue was the Visa and not the Passport, the domestic government is probably not the culprit. Edit: ninjaed Since around 2011, you cannot travel abroad unless you have the visa already prearranged, even if they allow visas on arrival. So no US visa, and immigration won't let him get on the plane. Chinese never could in the first place, so doesn't really apply :p Indeed. There is no visa-free travel for Chinese citizens going to the US. Its not like if you're, say, Australian, Canadian or from the EU and you can get a B1/B2 visas upon arrival with near-certainty. Being EU doesnt mean you dont have to get the Visa BEFORE boarding the plane.. Wait... when visiting the US a while back, I'm pretty sure I simply showed up at the airport with a passport and just flew to the US, though I don't quite remember at what point people looked at my documents. This was because of the German passport, not EU? Germany is not China. No country treats all other countries equally when it comes to Visas and passports. You may not have to do through the same process the Chinese players need to. My question is if it's like this for all of EU or not.
It's not. This is the case only for rich, western country so probably any country west of Poland + Scandinavia. Polish citizens need visa though I don't know if the procedure is the same as for the Chinese people. In case of Poland the visa problem with US comes and goes every year or so but truth be told - american presidents/senators don't feel like it's too important and for polish people I think it's less and less important to be able to freely fly to US.
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blizzard NEEDS to consult US Government Officials to have Starcraft 2 as an official sport, just like how Riot did with LoL
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Is there any practical reason why Jim and MacSed couldn't participate in WCS anyway from China?
I mean, lag sucks but I'm sure they'd rather play with the lag than not at all. And they can do interview through Skype or whatnot.They can even stick a dummy in the booth.
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That's some serious bullshit. You don't see regular athletes not being able to compete in other countries. Perhaps tournaments could do something to make everything more compelling and easier for foreign players to get a visa, forfeiting a spot because of visa issues is really unfair.
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On July 25 2013 23:58 vhapter wrote:
That's some serious bullshit. You don't see regular athletes not being able to compete in other countries. Perhaps tournaments could do something to make everything more compelling and easier for foreign players to get a visa, forfeiting a spot because of visa issues is really unfair.
It actually happens quite frequently, just not with Olympics and such as they have special arrangement.
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USA is very restrictive towards mainland Chinese on granting VISA access to country.
Many times people come on short-term VISA and then just move to the USA which the USA is trying to prevent. The USA has no good system for enforcing immigration so the USA does its "enforcement" up front by being very restrictive in granting VISA's to China and some other countries.
Chinese citizens are asked to prove that they will go back to China after their short-term stay and the US likes to see that they own a house in China or have significant financial assets in China. This standard works fine for most rich Chinese tourists to the US but puts esports players who often don't have significant financial assets in a rough spot.
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On July 25 2013 23:57 ragz_gt wrote:
Is there any practical reason why Jim and MacSed couldn't participate in WCS anyway from China?
I mean, lag sucks but I'm sure they'd rather play with the lag than not at all. And they can do interview through Skype or whatnot.They can even stick a dummy in the booth.
Beyond the reason of "rules are rules" Blizzard would likely need to check with their in house counsel to make sure they aren't violating any weird California law about competing for money. States have weird laws in regards to this stuff and changing the rules or requirements once the event has started is a good way to get in trouble. I don’t know the rules for California, but Massachusetts has very explicit laws about changing rules part way through, no matter what the reason is, if money is involved.
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I think some ppl are under the misconception that "if they just planned ahead this wouldn't be a problem". There are many different types of visas, the ones you apply for when you go on vacation (a travel visa) are much easier to obtain.
What Macsed and Jim need are work visas (they are professional players, playing for money professionally, ie. working) and this is a much more difficult and much lengthier process for everyone regardless of nationality. Put on the fact that they're from China (as mentioned above its even more difficult for ppl from China to obtain visas) and this isn't really the fault of iG management or their players having "poor planning".
It was already mentioned above that they applied the moment the found out they qualified.
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somewhat sad considering LoL just removed this problem permanently for them.
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On July 25 2013 23:49 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2013 23:47 Plansix wrote:On July 25 2013 23:44 Ropid wrote:On July 25 2013 21:11 Frankon wrote:On July 25 2013 21:06 Fischbacher wrote:On July 25 2013 21:02 ragz_gt wrote:On July 25 2013 21:01 hoemuffin wrote:On July 25 2013 20:56 Sbrubbles wrote:On July 25 2013 20:49 revel8 wrote:
It can be very difficult and time-consuming for Chinese citizens to get permission by their Government to travel abroad. As well as various written invitations from abroad which seem mandatory, the process can just take months. It helps if you have connections with the Communist Party but even with this the granting of Visa's can take a somewhat arbitrary amount of time. The bureaucratic process could do with being streamlined but I suspect it is deliberately onerous.
I am not Chinese but my Dad married a Chinese woman and spends half the year in Beijing. He has told me many stories from his wife's relatives about the hassle it can be for Chinese citizens to obtain Passports and Visas to travel abroad (to the UK).
I don't know specifics, but generally the granting of Visas has absolutely nothing to do with your own government. If the issue was the Visa and not the Passport, the domestic government is probably not the culprit. Edit: ninjaed Since around 2011, you cannot travel abroad unless you have the visa already prearranged, even if they allow visas on arrival. So no US visa, and immigration won't let him get on the plane. Chinese never could in the first place, so doesn't really apply :p Indeed. There is no visa-free travel for Chinese citizens going to the US. Its not like if you're, say, Australian, Canadian or from the EU and you can get a B1/B2 visas upon arrival with near-certainty. Being EU doesnt mean you dont have to get the Visa BEFORE boarding the plane.. Wait... when visiting the US a while back, I'm pretty sure I simply showed up at the airport with a passport and just flew to the US, though I don't quite remember at what point people looked at my documents. This was because of the German passport, not EU? Germany is not China. No country treats all other countries equally when it comes to Visas and passports. You may not have to do through the same process the Chinese players need to. My question is if it's like this for all of EU or not.
For all EU members except Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria. Romania and Cyprus. It's not an agreement with the EU though, but with the individual governments.
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On July 26 2013 00:07 Gamegene wrote:
somewhat sad considering LoL just removed this problem permanently for them.
It helps the Riot pays the players directly, which removes the need for the US government to worry about the players becoming stranded in the US without money. Unless Blizzard was willing to do the same, it will be hard for them to get the same level of Visa that Riot obtained for its players.
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On July 25 2013 23:58 vhapter wrote:
That's some serious bullshit. You don't see regular athletes not being able to compete in other countries. Perhaps tournaments could do something to make everything more compelling and easier for foreign players to get a visa, forfeiting a spot because of visa issues is really unfair.
Other sports are legally recognized as sports by both federal and state governments. If you want to see e-sports recognized as such, you are going to open a catastrophic can of worms.
Also, other sports have way more money then e-sports, and it makes it much, much easier to demonstrate that you're "legit". You may no bugger all about soccer, but when Man City drops by with their credentials, its pretty easy to get things done.
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EPT
