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On October 02 2013 23:50 teddyoojo wrote:
i dont get it either, korea has exactly the same they had earlier.
Not really, Korea had 5 GSLs+ an OSL last year (only going with 2012 numbers) total of 6 premier leagues.
This year we had 1 GSL + 3 WCS seasons (granted next year will be 4 seasons).
The WCS pricepool more than halfed the first price from GSLs/OSL, but gave the addiotinal chance to grab 40k at the season finals.
WCS scrapped 2 tournaments from Korea so it could fit into the "seasons", less player varience (because less players drop out/come in due to less tournaments).
And thats the main thing I would change for Korea next year to a) give Korean progamers an incentive to play in Korea and b) give the korean players better chances to sustain themselves.
Give WCS KR 6 seasons (4 GSL, 2 OSL, 5 GSL-1OSL whatever you want) with a higher pricepool than this years WCS and the same amount of WCS points and keep EU and AM to 4 seasons. Scrap the points in the season finals and make it a 3-day "super tournament" at the half-way point of the year with the 16 best players thus far (after 2 seasons in EU/AM and 3 in KR). And make Blizzcon the best show on earth.
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I agree with what Fionn said, but that isn't the worst thing. The worst thing is that the local champions don't qualify for Blizzcon. I can deal with champions being beat down at 'grand slams.' It stands to reason that the skill level is close. But the fact that champions don't qualify for Blizzcon automatically means that those local championships dont mean shit even in the eyes of Blizzrd.
Other than that, it's obvious that WCS replaced GSL/OSL because the latter ran out of money. So WCS saved SC2.
But it's also obvious that Blizzard are interested in only dragging this out until LOTV comes out. If they cared about esports they would've grown local scenes the way RIOT or Valve do. But regionlocking WCS US would mean lower immediate skill level, and lower views, and that would mean lower marketing value for LOTV.
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On October 03 2013 00:18 NovaMB wrote:
Give WCS KR 6 seasons (4 GSL, 2 OSL, 5 GSL-1OSL whatever you want) with a higher pricepool than this years WCS and the same amount of WCS points and keep EU and AM to 4 seasons. Scrap the points in the season finals and make it a 3-day "super tournament" at the half-way point of the year with the 16 best players thus far (after 2 seasons in EU/AM and 3 in KR). And make Blizzcon the best show on earth.
Who's gonna pay for that? Where does the money to support a Korean scene with no local interest come from?
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On October 03 2013 00:21 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 00:18 NovaMB wrote:
Give WCS KR 6 seasons (4 GSL, 2 OSL, 5 GSL-1OSL whatever you want) with a higher pricepool than this years WCS and the same amount of WCS points and keep EU and AM to 4 seasons. Scrap the points in the season finals and make it a 3-day "super tournament" at the half-way point of the year with the 16 best players thus far (after 2 seasons in EU/AM and 3 in KR). And make Blizzcon the best show on earth. Who's gonna pay for that? Where does the money to support a Korean scene with no local interest come from?
Blizzard pays the pricepool as they do this year. The events should be able to sustain themselves like they did before. Even moreso if Blizzard funds the prizes.
But I doubt they'd do it
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United States23455 Posts
On October 03 2013 00:20 1Dhalism wrote:
I agree with what Fionn said, but that isn't the worst thing. The worst thing is that the local champions don't qualify for Blizzcon. I can deal with champions being beat down at 'grand slams.' It stands to reason that the skill level is close. But the fact that champions don't qualify for Blizzcon automatically means that those local championships dont mean shit even in the eyes of Blizzrd.
Other than that, it's obvious that WCS replaced GSL/OSL because the latter ran out of money. So WCS saved SC2.
But it's also obvious that Blizzard are interested in only dragging this out until LOTV comes out. If they cared about esports they would've grown local scenes the way RIOT or Valve do. But regionlocking WCS US would mean lower immediate skill level, and lower views, and that would mean lower marketing value for LOTV.
Lower skill level doesn't have to mean lower viewership. Look at the LCS as a model. LCS NA could accurately be described as having the lowest level of skill of the regions, and yet it has extremely high viewer counts. I don't have the answer as to why, but I feel that saying that Lower skill means low viewer counts isn't necessarily true.
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On October 03 2013 00:21 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 00:18 NovaMB wrote:
Give WCS KR 6 seasons (4 GSL, 2 OSL, 5 GSL-1OSL whatever you want) with a higher pricepool than this years WCS and the same amount of WCS points and keep EU and AM to 4 seasons. Scrap the points in the season finals and make it a 3-day "super tournament" at the half-way point of the year with the 16 best players thus far (after 2 seasons in EU/AM and 3 in KR). And make Blizzcon the best show on earth. Who's gonna pay for that? Where does the money to support a Korean scene with no local interest come from?
I agree, I think some people are too quick to blame WCS KR, when the whole scene actually fails at winning new sponsors and new viewers. WCS KR is not innocent, but it is only part of it.
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Choya is the man. He has great views on esports. I do hope there is some reform in the WCS system to make it more enjoyable for everyone.
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Not as depressing for me as I thought it would be considering I was in the FXO fold for a while there. If there is still a quality product there will still be viewers - hopefully enough to retain the talent that brings them in the first place.
The SEA scene went through a similar peak and plateau in double speed compared to the rest of the scene but there are still weekly events no matter how minor and still teams that are loyal, with the viewers and players that follow. It's nothing compared to the glory past but I for one am content with that and if the main scene goes this way so be it - or perhaps it's just the BW background making me think nostalgically 
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On October 03 2013 00:18 NovaMB wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2013 23:50 teddyoojo wrote:
i dont get it either, korea has exactly the same they had earlier. Not really, Korea had 5 GSLs+ an OSL last year (only going with 2012 numbers) total of 6 premier leagues. This year we had 1 GSL + 3 WCS seasons (granted next year will be 4 seasons). The WCS pricepool more than halfed the first price from GSLs/OSL, but gave the addiotinal chance to grab 40k at the season finals. WCS scrapped 2 tournaments from Korea so it could fit into the "seasons", less player varience (because less players drop out/come in due to less tournaments). And thats the main thing I would change for Korea next year to a) give Korean progamers an incentive to play in Korea and b) give the korean players better chances to sustain themselves. Give WCS KR 6 seasons (4 GSL, 2 OSL, 5 GSL-1OSL whatever you want) with a higher pricepool than this years WCS and the same amount of WCS points and keep EU and AM to 4 seasons. Scrap the points in the season finals and make it a 3-day "super tournament" at the half-way point of the year with the 16 best players thus far (after 2 seasons in EU/AM and 3 in KR). And make Blizzcon the best show on earth.
I really don't think the number of tournaments is the case. Players in these small teams aren't getting salaries from their sponsors. Sponsors aren't giving salaries because the viewership rating is low. SC2 viewership is so low that sponsors are pulling out.
Last year people are crying the scene is oversaturated with content. But in reality we are getting more games out of WCS from a viewership perspective. So what's the problem? The game is stale and not all that interesting to watch. Maps are virtually the same.
And let's be honest, our favourite players like MVP, life and DRG from WoL or Flash, JD and Bisu from BW aren't winning any tournaments. That's probably hurting the scene a bit.
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I think Blizzard should actually learn a lesson from soccer, even though Sc2 and Soccer is not the same.
But soccer is hugely famous and that has not only to do with it being a beautiful sport.
But in soccer you have different region closed leagues, like the German Bundesliga oder Premier League in England.
The same applys to Blizzards WCS, if they closed the regions.
On top of that, there is the championsleague. A league, where the best of the best meet every 2-3 weeks to play out matches.
I don't know what Blizzard planned on doing, but i think they wanted to come close to some kind of this.
But soccer has huge advantages:
- the regions are closly balanced
- everyone is watching only his own region, because its interesting enough and you are not able to watch any other region with your tv
- the games and the championsleague are watched only one day of the week.
These are the reasons, why its so successful.
And now the things that are different in SC2
- the regions are not even slightly balanced. The best 20 players of this planet come from korea.
- with WCS you are able to watch SC2 5 hours a day 7 days a week ... that is just toooo much. I remember times, where there was only GSL (and MLG only for a weekend), and everyone was watching sc2 on tuesday and thursday and no more.
It's just absurd, but its a fact, that the more you get of something, the less interested you are in that!
Additionally, why should you want to pay for GSL, if you can watch WCS every single day for 6 hours, especially as the WCS europe / american finals are full of koreans aswell?
So what can Blizzard and GOM do to improve the situation?
If Blizzard goes on like this, GOM will be dead soon, because there will be no more people that pay for GSL. So the korean scene will be weaken together with their players, while the foreigners will stay the same... In the end the all the region will be balanced ( i think !! )
But the question is... do we want that? Well i don't think so, because that means we still can watch too much games and the scene will decline.
I think the most important thing is to make the events unique!
In an earlier post someone was talking about, that there were only 14 LR pages due to the match of Rain vs. Soulkey, and the only reason why noone is talking about that is, because GSL is not unique anymore.
So i think Blizzard should try to copy the soccer system with small changes.
- close regions and put more money in korean GSL, so that there is competition on a regional bases, while everyone wants to watch GSL
- make WCS a single tournament exactly like the champions league in soccer. Invite the stronges 32 players on this planet (give different seats for every region - for example 26 seats to koreans, 4 seats to europeans and 2 seats to americans... there is a good system for calculating that in soccer aswell ... germany for example has 4 seats while romania has only a qualification seat).
That tournament should last a whole year with one or two matches being streamed on sunday evening!
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the WCS system is good for NA and EU but it totally screws the korean scene and thus hurts Esports more than it does good, as Koreans have invaded NA and EU as well. Blizzard killing Sc2 alone
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Really sad news about FXO pulling out of Sc2... this seems to be a regular thing with teams now. I think the biggest issues with WCS is Blizzard not allowing tournaments to run the same time as any WCS match. Which pretty much shut down any other tournaments out there :/ There are still a few IEM/Dreamhack doing what they can but MLG was a big part of the Sc2 scene for players travelling around the world.
Lets hope everything works out for all the FXO guys!
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The SC2 scene is dying and people that dont live in Korea prefer other games. No need to argue with that, there is simple proof. Just go to the TL main page and check the viewers for the streams.
ATM there are like 7-8 people streaming SC2 with a total viewer count of 3,000. And there are 3 people streaming Dota 2 with a total viewer count of 14,000. 3,000 viewers for 7 people streaming sc2 - and yes i am talking about the featured streams.
Trump has minimum of 6,000 viewers streaming a game that is not even released yet - Heartstone.
There is nothing to argue here - if drastic measures are not taken sc2 scene will be at the bottom by the end of 2014.
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On October 03 2013 00:28 eScaper-tsunami wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 00:18 NovaMB wrote:On October 02 2013 23:50 teddyoojo wrote:
i dont get it either, korea has exactly the same they had earlier. Not really, Korea had 5 GSLs+ an OSL last year (only going with 2012 numbers) total of 6 premier leagues. This year we had 1 GSL + 3 WCS seasons (granted next year will be 4 seasons). The WCS pricepool more than halfed the first price from GSLs/OSL, but gave the addiotinal chance to grab 40k at the season finals. WCS scrapped 2 tournaments from Korea so it could fit into the "seasons", less player varience (because less players drop out/come in due to less tournaments). And thats the main thing I would change for Korea next year to a) give Korean progamers an incentive to play in Korea and b) give the korean players better chances to sustain themselves. Give WCS KR 6 seasons (4 GSL, 2 OSL, 5 GSL-1OSL whatever you want) with a higher pricepool than this years WCS and the same amount of WCS points and keep EU and AM to 4 seasons. Scrap the points in the season finals and make it a 3-day "super tournament" at the half-way point of the year with the 16 best players thus far (after 2 seasons in EU/AM and 3 in KR). And make Blizzcon the best show on earth. I really don't think the number of tournaments is the case. Players in these small teams aren't getting salaries from their sponsors. Sponsors aren't giving salaries because the viewership rating is low. SC2 viewership is so low that sponsors are pulling out. Last year people are crying the scene is oversaturated with content. But in reality we are getting more games out of WCS from a viewership perspective. So what's the problem? The game is stale and not all that interesting to watch. Maps are virtually the same. And let's be honest, our favourite players like MVP, life and DRG from WoL or Flash, JD and Bisu from BW aren't winning any tournaments. That's probably hurting the scene a bit.
Well what else is there then? Shrink down until it can sustain itself? Let SC2 become a game like CS:GO where 50k is an outstanding viewership?
If Blizzard wants to keep WCS going they need to make sure the regions arent falling apart and let the players that enjoy playing SC2 be able to sustain themselves in Korea from korean tournaments.
But I guess the real issue is probably the game itself, but I dont know BW well enough to comment on that.
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"New" champions for some reason don't seem to hurt viewership in other (e)sports...
Why? Because these guys often bring something fresh or are just clearly playing above the others (No Tidehunter/Alliance in Dota 2)... Or look at KP/Rattlesnake.int... In most other games "new guys" that stir up shit actually make the game more enjoyable to watch bceause people want to see how and why they win, what strange strat they will use or what the fuss about that new player/team is all about....
SC2 is just too boring/stale to watch and thats why "personalities" are so damn important for it... In SC/BW old greats were constantly fased out just to sometimes show a little (or big) spark of live (julys third OSL, Nada making a decent run again...).. Top players in most games, except dead ones, are pretty much constantly influx... Some stick around for long (Flash, Bisu, JD, Stork, Fantasy), some only have a short time in the spotlight (ForGG) and some just make one/two "decent" runs/astonishing games before going back to being "mediocre" (Luxury, Skyhigh, Calm...) or are "mediocre" but can beat basically everyone on a good day never really make it to the very top (Kal, Sea, GGPlay...)...
Yet for some reason, that didn't hurt the game at all... No, it actually made it more exciting.
Btw: I hope i did not "insult" any of the SC/BW players by putting them in these categories and hope i did no big mistakes
Btw2: An example of what is wrong with Hots... I yesterday obeserved some GM PvZ clanwar games... The only "REAL" diffrence i saw from Wol is that there now is a mothership core flying over the P army. I know that there are for sure many nuances and probably even theoretical possibilities in Hots that never were in Wol... But when i don't see them IN PLAY the game just feels stale. SC2 feels too much like a build order/positioning simulator and not enough like a truely dynaimc RTS.
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This community is so impressionable.
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On October 03 2013 00:45 Velr wrote:
"New" champions for some reason don't seem to hurt viewership in other (e)sports...
Why? Because these guys often bring something fresh or are just clearly playing above the others (No Tidehunter/Alliance in Dota 2)... Or look at KP/Rattlesnake.int... In most other games "new guys" that stir up shit actually make the game more enjoyable to watch bceause people want to see how and why they win, what strange strat they will use or what the fuss about that new player/team is all about....
SC2 is just too boring/stale to watch and thats why "personalities" are so damn important for it... In SC/BW old greats were constantly fased out just to sometimes show a little (or big) spark of live (julys third OSL, Nada making a decent run again...).. Top players in most games, except dead ones, are pretty much constantly influx... Some stick around for long (Flash, Bisu, JD, Stork, Fantasy), some only have a short time in the spotlight (ForGG) and some just make one/two "decent" runs/astonishing games before going back to being "mediocre" (Luxury, Skyhigh, Calm...) or are "mediocre" but can beat basically everyone on a good day never really make it to the very top (Kal, Sea, GGPlay...)...
Yet for some reason, that didn't hurt the game at all... No, it actually made it more exciting.
Btw: I hope i did not "insult" any of the SC/BW players by putting them in these categories and hope i did no big mistakes
Btw2: An example of what is wrong with Hots... I yesterday obeserved some GM PvZ clanwar games... The only "REAL" diffrence i saw from Wol is that there now is a mothership core flying over the P army. I know that there are for sure many nuances and probably even theoretical possibilities in Hots that never were in Wol... But when i don't see them IN PLAY the game just feels stale. SC2 feels too much like a build order/positioning simulator and not enough like a truely dynaimc RTS.
Well it is a build order simulator :D
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What a bunch of bullshit. SC2's viewership is on the decline thanks to stiff competition from LoL -- people want to watch the game they play, and people want to play LoL, because it's easy, fun, free, and team-based (whereas SC2 is difficult, frustrating, expensive, and solitary to the point of hostility). Changing or removing WCS is not going to fix this.
On the contrary, WCS is the best thing that could have happened to SC2. It makes it much easier to follow the storylines and watch all of your favorite players. So now the scene makes sense to people other than the most hardcore nerds. I was able to explain it to both my brother and girlfriend, and when they see me watching, they understand the format and are able to ask relevant questions about region tourneys, season finals, etc. (I do agree with the point made about season finals having a detrimental effect on storylines). Plus WCS is better for players, as more of them have a chance to make decent prize money. Plus it's better for foreigners.
There may be other games doing better than our beloved StarCraft, but there's never been a better time to be a StarCraft pro or a StarCraft viewer. And that's all that matters in my book. Most of you people don't know how to appreciate a good thing when you have it, because you're too busy eyeing someone else's good thing. Who cares how well LoL is doing? We get to see SC2 pros from all continents duke it out in tournaments with high production quality, English commentary, generous prize pools, and global significance. And that's not about to end any time soon.
"Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy." -Charlie Munger
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While I do agree Blizzard needs to look at WCS and change quite a few things, for Choya to blame this all on them is a bit much. FXO has clearly been getting out of esports for awhile now. Ever since Boss left, its been a steady departure of their entire esports staff. The guys who wanted to run the team and were dedicated left.
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I definitely agree that WCS is not perfect. I don't like the season finals. I don't see the point of it. I'd rather see more seasons. I do really like the unified point system though.
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EPT
