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I'm seeing a lot of comments from people who are disappointed that we did not share the exact plans for WCS 2014. To clarify, we did not intend for this to be an announcement, or an announcement of an announcement for that matter  The reality is that we are still finalizing the details of WCS 2014 with our partners, however, we did not want to wait until everything was finalized before letting you know some of the things we were discussing. We want to give the community an opportunity to provide feedback before we locked down the specific details. We have outlined most of our plans and ideas in some of our answers, but haven't fully committed to any of the decisions because we want to hear from the community. Our goal is to confirm and announce the plans for WCS 2014 before BlizzCon. That gives you at least a week to give us your input on what we've shared! Thanks again for your support! -kimaphan |
On October 15 2013 14:07 FLuE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 13:38 Xiphos wrote:
SC2 fans complaining about abundance of contents for their games.
#1stworldesportprobs
NEVER complain about more contents. The moment that contents start to disappear is the moment that your game is on the verge of being phased out. EVERY single one of those contents/tournaments are the legs that hold up a scene. The less pillar one industry have, the more fragile it becomes. Its like when a company tries to "refocus" their resources by closing down their divisions. That is not saying that everyone is fine and dandy, that's inferring that the organization is financially under-performing. This isn't true at all. Over-saturation is a problem with businesses that happen all the time. Whether it is stretching a single business to thin by over expanding, or by to many entities entering an emerging market, it is pretty common to see businesses or industries go through these types of cycle. That doesn't mean what you are saying isn't correct sometimes, but simply assuming that less content = failure and more content = good is not true it is more complicated than that. A lot of it comes to personal preference as well. I think some people would rather see 1 massive tournament giving away 100k, while others would rather see 10 mini tournaments giving away 10k. Less seasons is not a bad thing, I feel right now like there is way to much content. It is to hard to follow and watch everything and then you miss more than you end up seeing and feel disconnected from the event. It is great that we get high quality games almost every night of the week, but it really is to much.
I'm sort of looking at this like how I look at the BW pro scene. It downsized until it diminishes further and further and then finally vanished. And since this is same industry, history can definitely repeats itself.
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Calgary25997 Posts
On October 15 2013 14:16 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 13:38 Chill wrote:
Pretty sure step one should be "playing in your closest geographical region is mandatory".
You're welcome, Blizzard. You want a glorified WCG all over again Chill?
Yes. Because then at least the qualifying stages will be dynamic.
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On October 15 2013 09:43 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:- No more seasonal finals
- Three seasons instead of four
- Considering some sort of lock, probably not hard region lock
- Possibly Ro32 live
- Possibly ladder contribution to be relevant
- Some way to involve teams
- Rethinking the point system
- More linear system and reworking Challenger League
These are all (extremely) positive changes for the scene. It's good to leave more room to hype each WCS and create room for other tournaments both online and offline. Hopefully the prize money from the missing tournaments leads to some of that finding its way back into the scene. Purely from a structural perspective it is a huge improvement and absolutely what is needed. Most of the above are badly needed, all are improvements, and it is good to see they are being considered. Half of the reactions are really confusing me. It seems an absurd amount of negativity even though most of the information is positive.
Thanks for this i found it kinda hard to extract the informations out of this Q&A.
I dont get why there isn´t a WCS Team league. Most of the money that finance SC2 comes from sponsors which were never supported by wcs because the only thing you could do as a player and a team was T-Shirts and some drinking bottles.
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So pretty much just scaling down but not changing much?
I guess it's too late to do any good anyway.
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United States43 Posts
On October 15 2013 08:57 Monochromatic wrote:
So much talk of the WCS "Storyline."
Personally, I care more about individual tournaments, not one giant system of tournaments, and I find that having so many for so long really weakens the "storyline" of WCS.
To clarify, Mvp's victory in Europe isn't very meaningful when he gets knocked out of challenger in the same cycle.
The part about extending the "Storyline" to other tournaments makes me worry, although I am glad they are keeping the 3 seasons, rather than have it go all year long.
One quest that I would like to have answered is if they are going to reconsider how many points are distributed from each event; take Dreamhack Valencia. Despite being having the same prizepool, and more participants, it gives less WCS points then every other Dreamhack.
Thank you for your feedback Monochromatic. We think the WCS story-line can and has contributed to individual tournaments in a meaningful way, take for example the recent IEM NY event which took place this past weekend. It made the race to BlizzCon even more exciting with players such as HyuN and NaNiwa fighting for more WCS points.
We are definitely reexamining the point system and will be re-balancing the distribution of points for all WCS tiered events in 2014.
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United States43 Posts
On October 15 2013 09:00 SinCitta wrote:
I am none the wiser. But it looks more like minor improvements instead of the big step that is in my opinion needed to bring the scene forward. Not sure if WCS as a whole is still a good concept with Blizzard's reluctance to commit more to it.
Hello SinCitta, what are some of the big steps that you think we should be considering to bring the scene forward?
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United States43 Posts
On October 15 2013 09:04 blade55555 wrote:
wish there was some more info. Wonder when they intend to start wcs 2014.
We're planning to start Season 1 of WCS 2014 in early January. We're still locking down the final schedule with our tournament operators.
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It would be helpful if Blizzard could share more details about their reasoning behind going from 4 to 3 seasons and eliminating Season Finals. I understand that theoretically it's "to free up room for more non-WCS events," but has this decision been taken with some sort of confirmation that there WILL BE more non-WCS events than there were this year, or is that just an assumption Blizzard is making? More DreamHacks and IEMs are great but will there be GSLs/OSLs outside of WCS KR? If we're only having three GSLs/OSLs combined the entire year in 2014, that's pretty sad... Even this four this year didn't feel like very many, and that was with three Season Finals acting as additional "mini-tournaments."
I'm a little surprised at the focus on non-WCS events given how much emphasis is given in Blizzard's Q&A to the "storylines" that develop. The problem with IEMs and DreamHacks, and what makes them much less interesting to me than WCS seasons, is that there's no continuity between them (except the annual finals). You could have entire different players qualifying for one than another, there's no storyline at all. At least in WCS you know the top 8 performers are guaranteed to be in the next tournament...
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WCG in BW was very exciting, and it's just each country sending a few top players.
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On October 15 2013 14:40 kimaphan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 08:57 Monochromatic wrote:
So much talk of the WCS "Storyline."
Personally, I care more about individual tournaments, not one giant system of tournaments, and I find that having so many for so long really weakens the "storyline" of WCS.
To clarify, Mvp's victory in Europe isn't very meaningful when he gets knocked out of challenger in the same cycle.
The part about extending the "Storyline" to other tournaments makes me worry, although I am glad they are keeping the 3 seasons, rather than have it go all year long.
One quest that I would like to have answered is if they are going to reconsider how many points are distributed from each event; take Dreamhack Valencia. Despite being having the same prizepool, and more participants, it gives less WCS points then every other Dreamhack. Thank you for your feedback Monochromatic. We think the WCS story-line can and has contributed to individual tournaments in a meaningful way, take for example the recent IEM NY event which took place this past weekend. It made the race to BlizzCon even more exciting with players such as HyuN and NaNiwa fighting for more WCS points. We are definitely reexamining the point system and will be re-balancing the distribution of points for all WCS tiered events in 2014.
How do you feel about what WCS did to the Korean scene overall. What it did to GSL?
If GSL and OSL are going to continue to alternate for WCS Korea, are you at least considering making OSL change their format from bo1s so that it's consistent with the rest of the system?
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On October 15 2013 14:48 Yakikorosu wrote:
It would be helpful if Blizzard could share more details about their reasoning behind going from 4 to 3 seasons and eliminating Season Finals. I understand that theoretically it's "to free up room for more non-WCS events," but has this decision been taken with some sort of confirmation that there WILL BE more non-WCS events than there were this year, or is that just an assumption Blizzard is making? More DreamHacks and IEMs are great but will there be GSLs/OSLs outside of WCS KR? If we're only having three GSLs/OSLs combined the entire year in 2014, that's pretty sad... Even this four this year didn't feel like very many, and that was with three Season Finals acting as additional "mini-tournaments."
I'm a little surprised at the focus on non-WCS events given how much emphasis is given in Blizzard's Q&A to the "storylines" that develop. The problem with IEMs and DreamHacks, and what makes them much less interesting to me than WCS seasons, is that there's no continuity between them (except the annual finals). You could have entire different players qualifying for one than another, there's no storyline at all. At least in WCS you know the top 8 performers are guaranteed to be in the next tournament...
WCS felt like it is 1 big tournament that never ended. With challanger league, premier league and qualifiers in 3 regions it was very hard to follow which Tournament is in which state. With that Blizzard wants that the events are more unique and special which sounds pretty reasonable. And the Season Finals felt very anticlimactic for me because it felt more like another offline tournament.
You can look at the "Teaja forfeits his WCS Challanger league match" thread why this makes sense. He is a huge fan favorite, on one of the most popular teams and one of the players with the most coverage in SC2 but still 50% of this thread is "what Teaja should play today?".
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It is probably the least informative Q&A I have ever seen.
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United States43 Posts
On October 15 2013 09:06 HeavenResign wrote:Some of these things are clear improvements for people to be happy about, like cutting the global season finals and letting the region finals be a little more special, having more of the competition off-line is good, I take it that means all of the premiere leagues will be off-line. That part is the most interesting to me that she chose those players when talking about region lock, because barring jaedong, aren't Polt, MC, and MVP living in the region of the WCS they're playing in? Under the region-lock system most people seem to want those players would still be playing in the respective WCS regions they've been playing in for 2013. Whether she mentioned those names on purpose or if it was an oversight is something I'm not sure of EDIT: I guess MVP hasn't been staying in Europe, oops 
Hello HeavenResign, I was trying to compare the difference between doing a harsh region-lock by requiring citizenship (valid passport) within a region or doing something less restrictive, such as enforcing some residency restrictions (living in the region but not being a national citizen). We're still gauging what people are asking for when they request for region-lock and if that means citizenship requirement. What would you like to see?
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On October 15 2013 09:12 fuzzylogic44 wrote:
I was hoping for more drastic and more specific changes
I was as well.
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On October 15 2013 15:01 kimaphan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 09:06 HeavenResign wrote:Some of these things are clear improvements for people to be happy about, like cutting the global season finals and letting the region finals be a little more special, having more of the competition off-line is good, I take it that means all of the premiere leagues will be off-line. Jaedong and Polt competing in WCS America, or MC and Jürgen That part is the most interesting to me that she chose those players when talking about region lock, because barring jaedong, aren't Polt, MC, and MVP living in the region of the WCS they're playing in? Under the region-lock system most people seem to want those players would still be playing in the respective WCS regions they've been playing in for 2013. Whether she mentioned those names on purpose or if it was an oversight is something I'm not sure of EDIT: I guess MVP hasn't been staying in Europe, oops Hello HeavenResign, I was trying to compare the difference between doing a harsh region-lock by requiring citizenship (valid passport) within a region or doing something less restrictive, such as enforcing some residency restrictions (living in the region but not being a national citizen). We're still gauging what people are asking for when they request for region-lock and if that means citizenship requirement. What would you like to see?
That's what I got out of it anyway.
Anywho:
On October 15 2013 14:07 FLuE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 13:38 Xiphos wrote:
SC2 fans complaining about abundance of contents for their games.
#1stworldesportprobs
NEVER complain about more contents. The moment that contents start to disappear is the moment that your game is on the verge of being phased out. EVERY single one of those contents/tournaments are the legs that hold up a scene. The less pillar one industry have, the more fragile it becomes. Its like when a company tries to "refocus" their resources by closing down their divisions. That is not saying that everyone is fine and dandy, that's inferring that the organization is financially under-performing. This isn't true at all. Over-saturation is a problem with businesses that happen all the time. Whether it is stretching a single business to thin by over expanding, or by to many entities entering an emerging market, it is pretty common to see businesses or industries go through these types of cycle. That doesn't mean what you are saying isn't correct sometimes, but simply assuming that less content = failure and more content = good is not true it is more complicated than that. A lot of it comes to personal preference as well. I think some people would rather see 1 massive tournament giving away 100k, while others would rather see 10 mini tournaments giving away 10k. Less seasons is not a bad thing, I feel right now like there is way to much content. It is to hard to follow and watch everything and then you miss more than you end up seeing and feel disconnected from the event. It is great that we get high quality games almost every night of the week, but it really is to much.
If the aim is for the highest amount of concurrent viewers over total viewers then I'd fall back on the major LANs as your circuit. In other words, we'd have events every few to several weeks on weekends like yesteryear only now they'd all be connected. It's all about continuity and the build. At the end of the day each brand can still go strong and have it's own identity. Rather than having a WCS system which takes place every several hours. Give people reason to stay up on the weekends to watch the majors. A counter-argument to this would be: doesn't the LCS take place on weekends? (You always have to keep track of your competitors and the overlap). Yep, that's why the organizers should make it their priority to land these titles at their tournaments because at the end of the day it increases their concurrent viewers as long as the developers agree. Put more butts in the seats and people at home can watch split screen. If you have the usual suspects for your League it helps build their brand recognition at the same time.
As for USvBleakill, That's what I'd do anyway. I would get rid of the GSTL & PL and make one big league where The Committee composed of the Blizzard eSports Team and all our major broadcasters/organizers (MLG, IEM, ESL, DH, GOMTV, OGN, NASL, Red Bull, O'Gaming TV, etc.) would accredit teams into the League. In other words, you have to meet a certain criteria in order to make the cut and all the teams would compete at Major Lans.
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On October 15 2013 15:01 USvBleakill wrote:
WCS felt like it is 1 big tournament that never ended.
Wow, I guess people have different views, but that exact thing is the reason I really LIKED WCS... I do agree there was too much Challenger League content at times (which I handily solved by not watching Challenger League except the KR U&Ds). I don't really understand what's so much better about LESS Starcraft. And unless there's going to be GSLs/OSLs outside of WCS KR or IEMs/DreamHacks every few weeks, that's exactly what we'll have with fewer seasons and no Season Finals.
Not doomsaying or anything, I'm actually hopeful it'll all work out, but until someone comes in and points me to some cool stuff they're filling all this new space they have from paring down WCS, it's hard to be excited...
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I have mixed feeling on removing the "season final" events. I did feel like they undermined winning the regional finals (it made them just feel like qualifiers for another tournament), so this will make each region championship feel more important. On the other hand I really liked the high level of those tournaments. Finally, this will probably be really good for the non WCS events as they'll have more opportunity to hold events.
This might also have a huge effect on WCS points (and where to earn them)!
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Personally as a player I think these seem like really good steps to improving WCS, especially adding some light form of region lock (personally I think residency is best) and having each respective regions ladder feeding into WCS in some form to help make each ladder competitive. Thanks for being so transparent Kim!
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HOLYSHIT! Why is no one talking about 3 leagues per region? That would mean that GSL and OSL are coming back!
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Yakikorosu,
To me it felt very discombobulated. I'm looking at the pieces of the whole and at the end of the day a lot of it just doesn't make sense when it came to the formatting, branding and the seasons. Finals of finals? You get what I mean. I can see why they would take those out, lol. We need better continuity. I don't like looking at sections. If I had it my way I would have the same players throughout a year. These are your Pro's who will compete for the Cup. More games between the pros more regularly. More kicks at the can. Accredited teams earning slots for their players. All that good stuff. Let them build more stats against one another. Let them build stories together.
On October 15 2013 15:14 y0su wrote:
I have mixed feeling on removing the "season final" events. I did feel like they undermined winning the regional finals (it made them just feel like qualifiers for another tournament), so this will make each region championship feel more important. On the other hand I really liked the high level of those tournaments. Finally, this will probably be really good for the non WCS events as they'll have more opportunity to hold events.
This might also have a huge effect on WCS points (and where to earn them)!
Technically that's what they were and it did diminish the GSL/OSL.
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EPT
