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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 18:31 GizmoPT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:30 Fjodorov wrote:On October 15 2013 18:13 kimaphan wrote:
We'd love to get your input on where else we should refocus resources in 2014. We can't address everything at once, but what do you think are the top priorities? Growing the overall WCS prize pool? Growing the BlizzCon prize pool? Support player travel to tournament events? League/player housing? Expanding to new regions? Supporting amateur and grassroots level play? Regional tournaments/leagues?
These are just some ideas on where we could focus our resources and are not listed in any particular order. Let us know what you think should be the top priorities! You should use the resources to support the korean scene more. Korea has the hardest region, the true premier league, and the best players in the world. We all know this, they are dominating. Look at any sport in the world and you will find that if you are among the best players in the world and playing the in the best league in the world you will naturally earn more than the rest. Brazilians are the best players in football and their league sucks..
The brazilian league isnt the best. The best players from brazil go the best leagues which are in europe and get payed accordingly. My point was that the korean wcs is the by far the best league in the world and just staying in challenger league is difficult as hell so I would like to see some resources boosting the players who are in the best league in the world but dont get to travel and never win a GSL. Increase the korean prizepool with focus on everyone below top 8 or whatever
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On October 15 2013 18:37 Swisslink wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:31 GizmoPT wrote:On October 15 2013 18:30 Fjodorov wrote:On October 15 2013 18:13 kimaphan wrote:
We'd love to get your input on where else we should refocus resources in 2014. We can't address everything at once, but what do you think are the top priorities? Growing the overall WCS prize pool? Growing the BlizzCon prize pool? Support player travel to tournament events? League/player housing? Expanding to new regions? Supporting amateur and grassroots level play? Regional tournaments/leagues?
These are just some ideas on where we could focus our resources and are not listed in any particular order. Let us know what you think should be the top priorities! You should use the resources to support the korean scene more. Korea has the hardest region, the true premier league, and the best players in the world. We all know this, they are dominating. Look at any sport in the world and you will find that if you are among the best players in the world and playing the in the best league in the world you will naturally earn more than the rest. Brazilians are the best players in football and their league sucks.. That's why they play in Europe to gain the money. And the European League (Champions League) is the hardest -> That's where the money is. The same should be true for Starcraft 2 imo, if more money's on the line in Korea, a Region Lock won't even be necessary, because there's actually a reason to play in Korea :-P
it's a lot easier to relocate as a gamer compare to a whole team. Aside from the cost, these teams will not be Welcomed by the fans from homeland.
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On October 15 2013 18:39 hellokittySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:37 Swisslink wrote:On October 15 2013 18:31 GizmoPT wrote:On October 15 2013 18:30 Fjodorov wrote:On October 15 2013 18:13 kimaphan wrote:
We'd love to get your input on where else we should refocus resources in 2014. We can't address everything at once, but what do you think are the top priorities? Growing the overall WCS prize pool? Growing the BlizzCon prize pool? Support player travel to tournament events? League/player housing? Expanding to new regions? Supporting amateur and grassroots level play? Regional tournaments/leagues?
These are just some ideas on where we could focus our resources and are not listed in any particular order. Let us know what you think should be the top priorities! You should use the resources to support the korean scene more. Korea has the hardest region, the true premier league, and the best players in the world. We all know this, they are dominating. Look at any sport in the world and you will find that if you are among the best players in the world and playing the in the best league in the world you will naturally earn more than the rest. Brazilians are the best players in football and their league sucks.. That's why they play in Europe to gain the money. And the European League (Champions League) is the hardest -> That's where the money is. The same should be true for Starcraft 2 imo, if more money's on the line in Korea, a Region Lock won't even be necessary, because there's actually a reason to play in Korea :-P it's a lot easier to relocate as a gamer compare to a whole team. Aside from the cost, these teams will not be Welcomed by the fans from homeland.
Yeah, but everyone argues that a region lock should be implemented in order to keep the Koreans away. I think a reward to play in the strongest region (-> Korea) would do the job as well 
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4713 Posts
Ok, feedback regarding where to divert resources.
I'd actually like to see Blizzard working more on encouraging smaller, fully region locked tournaments to happen in EU and NA, probably more urgently needed in the NA scene.
I'm saying this because, like in all good sports, you have international competition where you get the best of the best to clash, this is the WCS, but you also have the local scenes where the regional talent has a chance to grow and mature and possibly one day clash with the big boys.
A healthy competitive scene of any kind has both, and right now it feels like we are kind of lacking one of those.
A lot of people suggested full region locking, for WCS and a return to last year's system where you had local heroes rise up form EU and NA. That system probably isn't the best way to do it and go forward in regards to Blizzard's plan to get the best players in the world at Blizzcon, it also sort of invalidates the international competition concept.
So with all the above having being said, since we already have the WCS system in place it would be great if Blizzard could now direct some of its resources to support some local talent, during the downtime between WCS seasons.
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United States43 Posts
On October 15 2013 15:51 Gospadin wrote:
I just want to know how they're going to ensure their players can get Visas, or if they can't get their visa by a certain deadline, promote players who can legally travel instead of walkovers.
We're planning to set a deadline for all Visas to be obtain before the start of Premier League Ro32. In the event a player is unable to obtain a Visa by the deadline, there will be rules in place to pre-determine who the replacement player will be to advance instead.
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On October 15 2013 18:42 Swisslink wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:39 hellokittySC2 wrote:On October 15 2013 18:37 Swisslink wrote:On October 15 2013 18:31 GizmoPT wrote:On October 15 2013 18:30 Fjodorov wrote:On October 15 2013 18:13 kimaphan wrote:
We'd love to get your input on where else we should refocus resources in 2014. We can't address everything at once, but what do you think are the top priorities? Growing the overall WCS prize pool? Growing the BlizzCon prize pool? Support player travel to tournament events? League/player housing? Expanding to new regions? Supporting amateur and grassroots level play? Regional tournaments/leagues?
These are just some ideas on where we could focus our resources and are not listed in any particular order. Let us know what you think should be the top priorities! You should use the resources to support the korean scene more. Korea has the hardest region, the true premier league, and the best players in the world. We all know this, they are dominating. Look at any sport in the world and you will find that if you are among the best players in the world and playing the in the best league in the world you will naturally earn more than the rest. Brazilians are the best players in football and their league sucks.. That's why they play in Europe to gain the money. And the European League (Champions League) is the hardest -> That's where the money is. The same should be true for Starcraft 2 imo, if more money's on the line in Korea, a Region Lock won't even be necessary, because there's actually a reason to play in Korea :-P it's a lot easier to relocate as a gamer compare to a whole team. Aside from the cost, these teams will not be Welcomed by the fans from homeland. Yeah, but everyone argues that a region lock should be implemented in order to keep the Koreans away. I think a reward to play in the strongest region (-> Korea) would do the job as well
I think the point for WCS tournaments in general is the Harness the weaker areas in the world where E-Sports isn't as developed as Korea for example. Hence why the reward is roughly the same.
It might sound unfair if we say "hey, no koreans in foreign tournaments" but we can also say "hey, I wish I was born in korea, where the environment to become a pro gamer is much more realistic than being in the USA" is an excellent example of what exactly Blizzard is trying to do here. It's not who deserves what, it's the global competitiveness and growth of the not-so-lucky E-Sports regions they're looking into investing.
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On October 15 2013 18:30 Fjodorov wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:13 kimaphan wrote:
We'd love to get your input on where else we should refocus resources in 2014. We can't address everything at once, but what do you think are the top priorities? Growing the overall WCS prize pool? Growing the BlizzCon prize pool? Support player travel to tournament events? League/player housing? Expanding to new regions? Supporting amateur and grassroots level play? Regional tournaments/leagues?
These are just some ideas on where we could focus our resources and are not listed in any particular order. Let us know what you think should be the top priorities! You should use the resources to support the korean scene more. Korea has the hardest region, the true premier league, and the best players in the world. We all know this, they are dominating. Look at any sport in the world and you will find that if you are among the best players in the world and playing the in the best league in the world you will naturally earn more than the rest.
I disagree with this. The Korean scene is the best, fine, but is the sole future of SC2 in Korea? I would want to see a global scene grow, so Blizzard needs to invest wisely. The Korean scene can probably support itself without too much subsidies in any case.
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Austria24417 Posts
I posted this somewhere some time ago about WCS Korea but I can't find it so here goes again:
I think the way it currently operates with GSL/OSL holding the tournament and the other one doing a famous piggyback broadcast is restricting the Korean scene a lot and makes it very top heavy. There's a HUGE pool of players that basically have no chance to ever see the light of day because of how much talent there is in Korea that all competes for an extremely limited amount of Challenger League spots - which, if they lose a single Bo3, they immediately lose again and have to start from scratch.
Now, what if OSL and GSL kept their old brand as individual tournaments instead of being WCS Korea - but instead functioned as qualifiers for WCS Korea? You could have OSL and GSL running next to each other and players have to choose between them. Then say the top 16 from both would qualify for WCS Korea that could be run as a shorter season or even a weekend tournament.
What good would this do?
- More chances for up and coming players to get in => more motivation, etc.
- It could help stabilize the Korean scene which at the moment is extremely oversaturated
- The quality of WCS Korea would not suffer as only the top players of GSL and OSL would qualify.
- WCS Korea would have a similar intrigue to it as the season finals - you get to see players from OSL and GSL finally compete against each other and measure their skill
- Korean players might not feel the need to "evacuate" to Europe or NA
Overall this is a system that in my opinion works best for Korea because the players live there and having offline tournaments is not an issue there - as long as OGN and GOM would be willing to do it.
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The sole fact that Blizzard is paying attention to TL is absolutely amazing, even though it is a little frightening, because there are some very vocal groups on TL pushing opinions that I strongly disagree with. However, I believe that people from a company that has been working with gamers for decades do know how to interpret internet forums, so it will probably be very good.
I would like to use this opportunity to say that I did really like the whole WCS2013 (even though I haven't been really watching Americe because of time reasons). I understand that players, teems and other people from behind the scenes see problems and have issues that need to be addressed, but as a pure consumer of the content, I am really satisfied and would change absolutely nothing.
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On October 15 2013 18:44 kimaphan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 15:51 Gospadin wrote:
I just want to know how they're going to ensure their players can get Visas, or if they can't get their visa by a certain deadline, promote players who can legally travel instead of walkovers. We're planning to set a deadline for all Visas to be obtain before the start of Premier League Ro32. In the event a player is unable to obtain a Visa by the deadline, there will be rules in place to pre-determine who the replacement player will be to advance instead.
Since we have you here and its a thread about wcs could you tell us what will happen if two players are tied at 16th place in the wcs ranking when the seasons are over. How do you determine who gets the spot at blizzcon?
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I'd actually like some harsher and more direct questions. These questions were "easily dodged" by Blizzard. Hmm.
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On October 15 2013 18:47 DarkLordOlli wrote:
I posted this somewhere some time ago about WCS Korea but I can't find it so here goes again:
I think the way it currently operates with GSL/OSL holding the tournament and the other one doing a famous piggyback broadcast is restricting the Korean scene a lot and makes it very top heavy. There's a HUGE pool of players that basically have no chance to ever see the light of day because of how much talent there is in Korea that all competes for an extremely limited amount of Challenger League spots - which, if they lose a single Bo3, they immediately lose again and have to start from scratch.
Now, what if OSL and GSL kept their old brand as individual tournaments instead of being WCS Korea - but instead functioned as qualifiers for WCS Korea? You could have OSL and GSL running next to each other and players have to choose between them. Then say the top 16 from both would qualify for WCS Korea that could be run as a shorter season or even a weekend tournament.
What good would this do?
- More chances for up and coming players to get in => more motivation, etc.
- It could help stabilize the Korean scene which at the moment is extremely oversaturated
- The quality of WCS Korea would not suffer as only the top players of GSL and OSL would qualify.
- WCS Korea would have a similar intrigue to it as the season finals - you get to see players from OSL and GSL finally compete against each other and measure their skill
Overall this is a system that in my opinion works best for Korea because the players live there and having offline tournaments is not an issue there - as long as OGN and GOM would be willing to do it.
I love this post.
This is an excellent way to keep our existing tournaments and support more players. I'd agree that Korea is oversaturated. After all, it wasnt that long ago that bringing Kespa in practically doubled the amount of active SC2 pros in Korea.
The questions here would be:
1)Is there enough demand for such a tournament? If not... maybe there can be more Dreamhack/IEM/MLG/Redbull/... in Korea?
2)Would GSL/OSL operate it? If not, who would? I don't think Blizzard can operate a full tournament in Korea.
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On October 15 2013 09:10 beesinyoface wrote:
How can you write so much but still be so oblivious to the glaring problems of WCS?
You couldn't?
Well then my friend, you don't have a future working for Blizzard Entertainment.
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On October 15 2013 18:30 Fjodorov wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:13 kimaphan wrote:
We'd love to get your input on where else we should refocus resources in 2014. We can't address everything at once, but what do you think are the top priorities? Growing the overall WCS prize pool? Growing the BlizzCon prize pool? Support player travel to tournament events? League/player housing? Expanding to new regions? Supporting amateur and grassroots level play? Regional tournaments/leagues?
These are just some ideas on where we could focus our resources and are not listed in any particular order. Let us know what you think should be the top priorities! You should use the resources to support the korean scene more. Korea has the hardest region, the true premier league, and the best players in the world. We all know this, they are dominating. Look at any sport in the world and you will find that if you are among the best players in the world and playing the in the best league in the world you will naturally earn more than the rest.
If you are among the best players in a given league, yes. Being in the best league however isn't that irrelevant. The amount of money you make doesn't depend on how hard it is, it depends on how much sponsors are willing to pay. Field hockey players here play at a probably higher level world wide than soccer players, or at least as high. However they earn a fraction of the money soccer players earn. Unfair? Could be, but it is simply a matter how much sponsors are willing to pay.
If you would now have an african Soccer league with the highest level in the world. Do you think those players would earn the most? No, simply because sponsors wouldn't be willing to pay as much, because a Europe for example is a much more interesting market than Africa.
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On October 15 2013 18:47 BaneRiders wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:30 Fjodorov wrote:On October 15 2013 18:13 kimaphan wrote:
We'd love to get your input on where else we should refocus resources in 2014. We can't address everything at once, but what do you think are the top priorities? Growing the overall WCS prize pool? Growing the BlizzCon prize pool? Support player travel to tournament events? League/player housing? Expanding to new regions? Supporting amateur and grassroots level play? Regional tournaments/leagues?
These are just some ideas on where we could focus our resources and are not listed in any particular order. Let us know what you think should be the top priorities! You should use the resources to support the korean scene more. Korea has the hardest region, the true premier league, and the best players in the world. We all know this, they are dominating. Look at any sport in the world and you will find that if you are among the best players in the world and playing the in the best league in the world you will naturally earn more than the rest. I disagree with this. The Korean scene is the best, fine, but is the sole future of SC2 in Korea? I would want to see a global scene grow, so Blizzard needs to invest wisely. The Korean scene can probably support itself without too much subsidies in any case.
What future to you see for sc2 in korea if you can be top50 player in the world, work 10 hours a day but still barely make a living?
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Canada16217 Posts
I think WCS 2014 needs to put more emphasis on the korean scene by:
- Letting OSL/GSL run their tournaments
- More local development/support for smaller tournaments in korea
General thoughts
- Increase prize pools, more spread out prize distribution
- Region locking whether that's just through residency or locking players out of a region based their nationality i think the former would be the correct decision IMO.
-More content so we can get to know the lesser known talent so storylines can be created early around such players( stuff like what TL is doing is amazing: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=430726 )
- Better scheduling
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As this was asked, i'd like to see more support for grassroots tournaments etc. How about a website hosted by blizzard where all tournaments are listed, sorted by region/type of competition/ etc. pp.Blizzard is asking to register the tournament anyway and collecting a lot of data in the process, so why not publish it somewhere to give new people (= new to the scene) the chance to discover them?
edit: this could also be included into the wcs website, e.g. as part of "want to compete yourself? get your first experience here"
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On October 15 2013 18:51 sd_andeh wrote:
I'd actually like some harsher and more direct questions. These questions were "easily dodged" by Blizzard. Hmm.
Well like it was said in the op, nothing is set by now. They just wanted to give an update and gather some community opinions. Which kind of question should they ask?
Also ask the poorest guy of Blizzard, David Kim, what happens to him every time he makes a statement that is a bit more detailed from "we think the game is balanced" he gets nitpicked and shitstormed.
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So considering from the comments it was the right choice not to waste 5 minutes to read what he "said".
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I don't think there is any doubt that the Korean domination is detrimental to the SC2 scene as a whole.
Compare the difference in interest between "yet another Korean final" and the IEM final this weekend. If you decide to heighten the prize pool for Korea at the cost of the US and EU (where the majority of viewers reside), you risk ensuring that there will continue to be more SC2 pros in Korea than outside it. That is not healthy for SC2.
I appreciate that you tried using Korean players as levers to heighten the level of play in the different regions in 2013, but while I think it made a difference in EU where Korean players resided for longer periods (forgg/stardust), the ship in/ship out tactic of EG/TL/Axiom/Etc. choked out NA players from WCS competition and money.
I think the only way to ensure that the teams wont simply repeat that recipe is a region lock, or better, some sort of requirement of residency for the period of the WCS tournament (excluding other tournaments).
The major SC2 teams have proven to have no qualms with cannibalizing the scenes that are the reasons for their existence, and I suppose you should keep that in mind when you have your discussions with the same teams concerning the future of the WCS.
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EPT
