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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 |
United States43 Posts
On October 15 2013 18:51 Fjodorov wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:44 kimaphan wrote: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?
We will announce how tie breakers for will be handled soon. I promise.
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On October 15 2013 18:54 Sissors 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. 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.
You cant compare different sports to eachother. And if the field hockey league in your country was by far the best in the world by a huge margin but there was a league somewhere else were much worse players made as much or even more money than yeah I would think that was unfair. Especially if you had a field hockey global organisation with a global system controling everything (blizzard).
Blizzard asked where we think some of the reasources should go, so thats why we are even having this discussion. Ofc its mainly up to the teams and players to get their own sponsors.
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I think the ideal situation is region lock, but concurrent or semi-concurrent OSL/GSL seasons with bigger prize pools. The foreign scenes need development and focus, but if the Koreans are stuck in Korea with fewer tournaments than ever, small prize pools, and declining fan interest, the scene will die. I think something significant has to be done to try to make the game bigger in Korea as well, basically everything coming from the players lately is extreme pessimism regarding their domestic scene.
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I think the most important thing for Blizzard to do is to attempt to support the mid-tier and low-tier players financially. That is, to spread out the prize pools for the WCS to make it easier for people to make a living out of playing sc2. In the end, it is that ability which will foster professional gaming (in the literal sense of the word) and will also raise the ceiling for the competetive foreigner scene when more people can focus on playing.
Obviously the solution to the region lock is to leave it as it is, but then go and smash some servers or pull out some plugs so that the ping between servers will be unbearable and you will have to move. *Nods sagaciously*
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Lots of words, but not a lot said from my perspective... I just don't think Blizzard get it.
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You are doing a great job. Keep it up. WCS is fine the way it is, but if you wanted to make a couple of changes then that will be good too. I will agree with any changes that you decide to make. I am truly grateful for this privilege, thank you very much for being so open and transparent for the benefit of the community. I love Blizzard and Starcraft II.
EDIT: <3 XXXOOO
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On October 15 2013 19:03 kimaphan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:51 Fjodorov wrote:On October 15 2013 18:44 kimaphan wrote: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? We will announce how tie breakers for will be handled soon. I promise.
oh wow nice to see some official blizzard representative here on TL answering stuff :D
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The fact is, without a region lock, WCS America is WCS Korea East, and WCS Europe will eventually become (and is rapidly becoming) WCS Korea West.
If the NBA wanted to develop a league in Korea, but made the pay scale the same as the one in the United States, it would rapidly fill with B-level NBA players who looking to make a quick buck. Korean people wouldn't even get to play, and the league would go under. It wouldn't generate interest, no one from Korea would be playing, and it wouldn't become the premier after school sport. If you think this endeavor would be successful, then ask yourself, why isn't the NBA doing it?
The reason the top NBA players come from the United States is because the US has a system to develop talent. It begins in schools, follows to camps during the summer, then into college, and finally the NBA. There are great and experienced coaches at every level. There is no system to develop SC2 talent in the United States. Korea has the system (look at MVP his parents sent him away to a video game camp to learn how to play), they have the coaches. And they produce the best players as a result.
The solution isn't to line up some unpaid US player struggling to practice because has to work versus top paid Koreans on great teams with great coaches and pray he wins. You don't get good at SC2 by going 0-4 in group stages versus Koreans twice a year, just like any national basketball team doesn't get good by getting trounced by the US team in the Olympics or World Championships. In fact, the only national teams that give the US a good fight, are ones from countries where the local scene is developed (Greece, Serbia), and where the local scene isn't filled with B-level NBA players! Does anyone remember this article: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=285603 ? Stephano and Idra were practicing on their home servers, you don't need to play versus Koreans constantly to get good at SC2.
Therefore the way to develop talent and generate interest in any given region, is to create a system to develop talent. Perhaps the best way of doing that would be to create a league with the same cash prize and then lock the region to locals.
Blizzard seems completely oblivious to this basic logic.
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On October 15 2013 19:03 kimaphan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 18:51 Fjodorov wrote:On October 15 2013 18:44 kimaphan wrote: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? We will announce how tie breakers for will be handled soon. I promise.
Ty for the quick response, appreciate you taking the time to answer questions here.
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On October 15 2013 19:13 BronzeKnee wrote:The fact is, without a region lock, WCS America is WCS Korea East, and WCS Europe will eventually become (and is rapidly becoming) WCS Korea West. If the NBA wanted to develop a league in Korea, but made the pay scale the same as the one in the United States, it would rapidly fill with B-level NBA players who looking to make a quick buck. Korean people wouldn't even get to play, and the league would go under. It wouldn't generate interest, no one from Korea would be playing, and it wouldn't become the premier after school sport. The reason the top NBA players come from the United States is because the US has a system to develop talent. It begins in schools, follows to camps during the summer, then into college, and finally the NBA. There are great and experienced coaches at every level. There is no system to develop SC2 talent in the United States. Korea has the system (look at MVP his parents sent him away to a video game camp to learn how to play), they have the coaches. And they produce the best players. You don't get good at SC2 by going 0-4 in group stages versus Koreans twice a year, just like any national basketball team doesn't get good by getting trounced by the US team in the Olympics or World Championships. In fact, the only national teams that give the US a good fight, are ones from countries where the local scene is developed (Greece, Serbia), and where the local scene isn't filled with B-level NBA players! Does anyone remember this article: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=285603 ? Stephano and Idra were practicing on their home servers, you don't need to play versus Koreans constantly to get good at SC2. Therefore the way to develop talent and generate interest in any given region, is to create a system to develop talent. Perhaps the best way of doing that would be to create a league with the same cash prize and then lock the region to locals. Blizzard seems completely oblivious to this basic logic.
generating interest = developing talent?
If players can get good playing on NA then there's no reason to change WCS at all.
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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!
Growing overall prize pool would be important to keep incentive for the lower segment of the top players to play. To increase the efficiency of the show and putting less stress on the players that you want to be placed at a centered studio (the top players), housing for those players and other logistics would be really good I feel, creating a central spot for eSports enviroment.
In the end there has to be some kind of semi reliable income for the players if they are to really put the extra effort in to become really good.
More amateur and grassroot help is ofc also very important, but if there are nothing to strive for, I think it will be hard anyway.
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On October 15 2013 19:14 DusTerr wrote:
If players can get good playing on NA then there's no reason to change WCS at all.
They can't, that is the point, because it isn't just playing on NA (or KR) that makes you good.
It is getting paid to do it, being on a great team, having a great coach, having your parents send you off to summer camp to learn to play video games... ect. These things happen in Korea.
As I said, the solution isn't to line up some unpaid US player on a random team without a good coach struggling to practice because has to work versus top paid Koreans on great teams with great coaches and pray he wins.
Below is the team that beat the US in at the 2006 FIBA World Championships. I don't recognize a single name and I follow the NBA closely. All grassroots talent, that is where it starts! Like the US, Greece has a system that develops talent.
You don't have to play with the best on a regular basis to beat them. It is true in all sports, Stephano proved it in SC2. You just need to be able to practice enough, meaning you get paid to play, you need to have a good coach and you need to be on a good team.
Greece (8-0)
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player FG FGA FG FGA FT FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9 Antonios Fotsis..... * 2 3 1 2 4 5 0 3 3 2 9 0 3 0 0 13
10 N. Chatzivrettas.... * 1 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 12
13 D. Diamantidis...... * 4 6 2 3 2 4 1 2 3 3 12 5 0 1 2 38
14 L. Papadopoulos..... * 3 5 0 0 2 2 0 1 1 3 8 0 3 0 0 9
15 Michail Kakiouzis... * 4 9 1 5 6 7 1 5 6 2 15 1 1 0 1 27
4 T. Papaloukas....... 4 7 0 1 0 0 0 5 5 3 8 12 2 0 0 33
5 S. Schortsanitis.... 6 7 0 0 2 6 0 1 1 3 14 0 0 0 0 17
7 Vasileios Spanoulis. 6 10 3 5 7 9 0 3 3 4 22 1 1 0 0 30
8 P. Vassilopoulos.... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
11 D. Ntikoudis........ 4 5 0 0 0 0 2 2 4 1 8 0 1 0 0 12
12 K. Tsartsaris....... 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 4 3 0 0 0 0 8
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So a big fat bunch of: We totally listen and haven't decided yet. Ah well good thing this game isn't going anywhere, I guess I can't wait for wcs2015 given that the changes for next year won't be to too big.
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On October 15 2013 19:13 BronzeKnee wrote:
You don't get good at SC2 by going 0-4 in group stages versus Koreans twice a year
^This.
Simple as that.
I'll add that should Naniwa be dropped out of it, which is likely to happen at this point, I won't follow the streams of Blizzcon finals. I probably won't be the only one.
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Thank you, Kim, for reading and answering everything in this thread.
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 strongly support this.
With a strong Korean scene, there would be no doubt about what tournament produces the undisputed best player in the world, and there would be less incentive for koreans to migrate to other regions.
Of course, I would also like a system that allows regional talent foster. I don't think those are contractidory priorities.
The old WCS (2012) was a fantastic instrument to support amateur and grassroots level play (every sc2 owner should have a taste of competition) while creating strong storylines and supporting local talent. I would like it it to come closer to what it was.
Currently, what we have is a system that artificially distributes prize money, in order, to: 1. very top-heavy to a handful of koreans (whoever does well at the season finals); 2. koreans from foreign teams or code-A/code-B level korean players that migrated to other regions; 3. everyone else, mostly to whatever other koreans migrated, but in a much lower scale.
The problem with this distribution isn't just a matter of "justice", but that it drives air time and how players choose to attend tournaments. Instead of a strong and vibrant premier region showing us who the best player in the world is(korean with GSL/OSL), we have a diluted a league with a much smaller prize pool. Instead of tournament that promote local growth and give local players a realistic chance of a decent prize pool (old WCS), we have almost 2/3 of the competitive scene "attention" being about code-A/code-B korean players vs other code-A/code-b korean players, with the ocasional foreigner making it to the round of 16. Of course this isn't very interesting.
In other words, realistically, the old competitive setup from 2012 was booted in favor of supporting players like Apocalypse, Alive, Heart, Revival and duckdeok. No offense to these players, but they are neither the best in the world nor the most interesting to follow, and yet they are the ones being most favored with how the prize distribution is going and getting the most air time.
How to fix this?
With a strong GSL/OSL leagues, it would support players that are good and consistently do well against tough competion. Players that consistently make ro16 or ro8 in korea, but that currently have less of a shot at making it Blizzcon. It would also make it clear who the "best in the world" is.
With a locked national/regional WCS system (like in 2012), it would estimulate grassroot play, give attention to local followers to know who the best and their area is, and give foreigners a honest shot at making some money (but still less than in the premier region - korea, which they could choose to attend with they want to be the best, like huk, stephano, scarlett, jinro, idra and naniwa did before).
The foreigner vs korean storyline would be promoted at the end of year WCS tournament and in stand-alone events. The truth is, foreigner vs korean is only interesting to watch when it is top koreans vs top foreigner. What we currently watch in WCS EU and WCS AM isn't the most interesting competition, but IEM NYC really was, just like the GSL with foreigners.
Basically, directing the system to what it was in 2012 seems like a clear best option, instead of having the current WCS where uninteresting second-tier koreans are promoted in exchange of local players or the best players.
Sorry if I sounded harsh, but I don't know how else to express this opinions. Thanks again for taking the time to adress the community.
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On October 15 2013 19:22 Seiju wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 19:13 BronzeKnee wrote:
You don't get good at SC2 by going 0-4 in group stages versus Koreans twice a year ^This. Simple as that. I'll add that should Naniwa be dropped out of it, which is likely to happen at this point, I won't follow the streams of Blizzcon finals. I probably won't be the only one.
true i dont watch any tourney with just koreans in it it got boring after all these years... watching favourite Team/Region/Country heroes beat the best is what fuels sports
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On October 15 2013 19:21 Lorch wrote:
So a big fat bunch of: We totally listen and haven't decided yet. Ah well good thing this game isn't going anywhere, I guess I can't wait for wcs2015 given that the changes for next year won't be to too big.
Having one of those days? I had one yesterday, was pissed at everyone and everything :S Why dont you write down what changes you want to see. Saying you want "big changes" doesnt do much good.
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On October 15 2013 19:22 Seiju wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 19:13 BronzeKnee wrote:
You don't get good at SC2 by going 0-4 in group stages versus Koreans twice a year ^This. Simple as that. I'll add that should Naniwa be dropped out of it, which is likely to happen at this point, I won't follow the streams of Blizzcon finals. I probably won't be the only one.
A Blizzard representative comes and tries to answer fans' questions about WCS 2014 and you post something like this? You are literally, mind-bogglingly retarded. Go play a different game. Makes me sick.
EDIT: The creation of a Chinese region would definitely foster the growth of SC2. An unprecedented number of middle class Chinese now with easy access to internet etc etc means there is potentially a HUGE market for SC2
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2014 is not the year to make drastic changes but instead make improvements to what we currently have established.
"2014 is not the year" = buy LotV please
"make drastic changes" = once everybody has bought LotV we drop sc2 as an esport
"but instead make improvements to what we currently have established." = damage control until Blizzard all star or Heartstone becomes more lucrative than Sc2
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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!
In my opinion, new regions should be the priority. At the moment, the scene is depending lots on fans in Europe and America - however Asia in general is a huge market which isn't being given enough attention. With the increased support to Asia, particularly China, you would be increasing 'awareness' of the game in the region, and that would lead to a bigger playerbase, and a bigger viewerbase, which is exactly what both Blizzard, and the scene need.
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EPT
