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!
On October 17 2013 23:54 Littlesheep wrote: I think WCS could be a really cool system that would help foreign teams get exposure and possibly cause some new foreign teams to emerge.
That is, if it really gets region locked.
and I keep telling you people the same shit, but it doesn't seem to register through your heads. I don't blame you for not wanting to read 29+ pages of content trying to filter the good from the bad and it's amazing that Duran's regurgitated dribble gets more attention than a thread that has a Blizzard employee actually reading and responding to directly. You would think this thread would be double in size, but that isn't the case now is it? It gets tedious after a while hearing people ramble about the same old shit without bringing something new to the table.
If you guys truly want another WCG I would tread very carefully. The WCG already has a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths and likewise that's why they get very little promotion around these parts. That's why you pretty much have to find the WCG for yourself on Twitch and the amount of viewers for it for the last few years has been abysmal. Barely anyone paid attention when CombatEx advanced for Canada last year and the numbers for the Finals in China were just as bad for many reasons. Samsung, what the heck are you doing with your marketing dollars if you aren't going to try and give the Event more global exposure? It's as if they've thrown in the towel and are only doing because it's tradition. Then again some people could argue they're in tablet/smartphone/all sorts of other gadgets business and that's why their selection is where it's at today and the WCG is meant to frame those apps/games that use their devices. Makes sense from their side of the business, but I digress.
We want to make sure that each scene can grow and develop at the same time. Something Blizzard sort of understood from the beginning. Personally I would use the leave no player behind approach. Something Riot could even learn to do better. For more info read Starstruck's fancy take on the C9/Fnatic escapades at World's and what the players had to say (for reference all those posts are in this thread). To do this we have to make sure the foreigners and Koreans alike get in as many repetitions as possible against one another. I said it not once; not twice; not thrice. Coincidentally, no more 2-3 kicks at the can (as in 2-3 shots) and your out. Let's make a season of it. 20 appearances at Majors is better than one appearance where a player loses in 2 sets. We want a bigger sample size and this way the player's learn more from experience. Why you think all those Pro League players are well versed? It's because you'll keep seeing them play even if they're in a slump or take a few losses:
"Hey Shooter Girl. I'll take the tray."
On another note I'm completely against regional servers (note: we're talking about gateways; not prelims to some tournament). Never liked the concept yet I see more and more developers making it common practice to have servers for each region because of latency and lag issues-- they want to make things more manageable and look at how many people are playing video games these days (this goes for everything from MOBAs to MMOs). It's hard to blame them. Take Nexon's Dragon Nest for example, where they have a population of several thousand players at any given time (that's their highest population atm btw) yet the servers are still cancerous with lag and all the bots, et la. Lags worse in Vindictus and the population is half of Dragon Nest yet the bots cause more problems! Go figure! F2P games cannot have nice things.
It's as if we took a step backward over the last six years (or perhaps the developers thought we leapt too far forward in the late 90s and early millennium and thought we needed to take a step backward). Or perhaps the World Wide Web got so big as more people got the ability to access it and thought we needed to cut access and set boundaries, hm! If you wanted to play on the Korean servers for many games it's always been a bitch to bypass, but I digress. I remember playing Lineage with my Korean friends and lag was never an issue. The servers would be fine but that has more to do with the server population back then (still talking about the same numbers for Dragon Nest in NA LMFAO). Still the SC:BW B.Net servers would have around 100K people online at any given time back then. It's 2013. We should have the technology and infrastructure to make sure players can play with any other player from any other region without having to worry about latency & lag. We had plenty of ways to get around it back then with third party programs like Hamachi . It sucks that we don't have ways to get around this now. If I want to play with my friend F91 from China. I should be able to do so.
On October 17 2013 08:05 Treemonkeys wrote: I feel there is really no place for me, as someone who wants to enjoy the game, the strategy, the ladder, and the esports matches to go and be part of or read discussion that is enjoyable. This doesn't mean everyone should always agree or be positive, but the community is soiled with an overflow of negativity, and it's always been that way.
The minority who are unhappy come to bitch on the forums. The majority who are happy are silent (you are an exception). It makes the community seem overly negative.
The TL SC2 community is just a small part of the overall sc2 community. I'm sure you know that though.
On October 16 2013 02:11 orvinreyes wrote: "we're looking to"
"we're planning to"
"we're still evaluating"
"we will put more thought into"
...just, ugh.
exact my feeling when i was reading through wall of text..
what is the meaning of Q & A session when it is so formal and has no real content at all (imo)
I want sc2 to be successful, no hating Blizzard at and I am very aware that this is much harder issue to deal with then Dota or LoL, but still everyone know that Blizzard can do better then this. I am getting feeling that Blizzard employees dont feel passionate about sc2 scene at all. David Kim? Dustin Browder? i am not sure...
If you actually read it and Kimphan's responses to questions you would understand they want the communities feedback on what they should do better, while they have given us what they want to do in 2014 with WCS.
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.
Just thought those statements should be featured on every upcoming site of this thread.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the WCG format. WCG was great at one point in time. They even had their own anti hack at one point. Their admins actually handled things as well as you could ask for/hope for. But... there simply wasn't enough money to be bad in WCG. People were training like all year round for this one event, where the US finals might have been 4k for first place. The lack of money involved started to show itself most prominently in how the admins started handling things. If you could get an admin to even show up, it was a lucky day. If your opponent didn't show up himself and claimed a walkover, over you, you'd be very lucky to even be able to talk to someone about it, let alone have it be resolved. There is no limit of bad things one could say about WCG admins after a certain year. They were nothing short of a disgrace.
The WCG format is amazing for foreigners. If you're a top 10 player in the US, you would probably always be the best player in the Philippines. There's always going to be countries/regions that are easier. You have to get over that and realize it's needed for the growth of the foreign scene. Nothing gets more viewers than the Olympics. It's like debating what shape a car tire should be. I just don't know about the current shape... does it work? Nah, I can't have that shape... that wouldn't be politically correct. It's silly.
On October 17 2013 23:54 Littlesheep wrote: I think WCS could be a really cool system that would help foreign teams get exposure and possibly cause some new foreign teams to emerge.
That is, if it really gets region locked.
and I keep telling you people the same shit, but it doesn't seem to register through your heads. I don't blame you for not wanting to read 29+ pages of content trying to filter the good from the bad and it's amazing that Duran's regurgitated dribble gets more attention than a thread that has a Blizzard employee actually reading and responding to directly. You would think this thread would be double in size, but that isn't the case now is it? It gets tedious after a while hearing people ramble about the same old shit without bringing something new to the table.
If you guys truly want another WCG I would tread very carefully. The WCG already has a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths and likewise that's why they get very little promotion around these parts. That's why you pretty much have to find the WCG for yourself on Twitch and the amount of viewers for it for the last few years has been abysmal. Barely anyone paid attention when CombatEx advanced for Canada last year and the numbers for the Finals in China were just as bad for many reasons. Samsung, what the heck are you doing with your marketing dollars if you aren't going to try and give the Event more global exposure? It's as if they've thrown in the towel and are only doing because it's tradition. Then again some people could argue they're in tablet/smartphone/all sorts of other gadgets business and that's why their selection is where it's at today and the WCG is meant to frame those apps/games that use their devices. Makes sense from their side of the business, but I digress.
We want to make sure that each scene can grow and develop at the same time. Something Blizzard sort of understood from the beginning. Personally I would use the leave no player behind approach. Something Riot could even learn to do better. For more info read Starstruck's fancy take on the C9/Fnatic escapades at World's and what the players had to say (for reference all those posts are in this thread). To do this we have to make sure the foreigners and Koreans alike get in as many repetitions as possible against one another. I said it not once; not twice; not thrice. Coincidentally, no more 2-3 kicks at the can (as in 2-3 shots) and your out. Let's make a season of it. 20 appearances at Majors is better than one appearance where a player loses in 2 sets. We want a bigger sample size and this way the player's learn more from experience. Why you think all those Pro League players are well versed? It's because you'll keep seeing them play even if they're in a slump or take a few losses:
On another note I'm completely against regional servers (note: we're talking about gateways; not prelims to some tournament). Never liked the concept yet I see more and more developers making it common practice to have servers for each region because of latency and lag issues-- they want to make things more manageable and look at how many people are playing video games these days (this goes for everything from MOBAs to MMOs). It's hard to blame them. Take Nexon's Dragon Nest for example, where they have a population of several thousand players at any given time (that's their highest population atm btw) yet the servers are still cancerous with lag and all the bots, et la. Lags worse in Vindictus and the population is half of Dragon Nest yet the bots cause more problems! Go figure! F2P games cannot have nice things.
It's as if we took a step backward over the last six years (or perhaps the developers thought we leapt too far forward in the late 90s and early millennium and thought we needed to take a step backward). Or perhaps the World Wide Web got so big as more people got the ability to access it and thought we needed to cut access and set boundaries, hm! If you wanted to play on the Korean servers for many games it's always been a bitch to bypass, but I digress. I remember playing Lineage with my Korean friends and lag was never an issue. The servers would be fine but that has more to do with the server population back then (still talking about the same numbers for Dragon Nest in NA LMFAO). Still the SC:BW B.Net servers would have around 100K people online at any given time back then. It's 2013. We should have the technology and infrastructure to make sure players can play with any other player from any other region without having to worry about latency & lag. We had plenty of ways to get around it back then with third party programs like Hamachi . It sucks that we don't have ways to get around this now. If I want to play with my friend F91 from China. I should be able to do so.
You're really all over the place, hard to understand exactly what your point is.
On the subject of regional servers, I think it's a plus when I speak the same language as the people Im playing against, A+ thumbs up from me for regional servers.
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?
Silly, sometimes contradictory big ideas:
Merge AM and EU into one atlantic region, then region lock it by residency
Make a pro league style team league with teams gathered around a single location
Expand studio play to the Ro32
Bring the EU/AM regional finals to different SC2-crazy cities each season
Get rid of Challenger League in EU/AM and implement TSL-style qualification brackets instead
Get rid of Challenger League in EU/AM and grant Premier League spots through offline tournaments
Work together with local leagues and tournaments where a home region is not available such as the Chinese NSL. Grant them spots they can give out for their players.
Get rid of the season finals but create a Champion's League Final from all regions once a year that culminates into Blizzcon.
Let regions put different amount of money on top of the current prize pool
Don't overlap more than two regions. Give regions full attention by having them played out at completely different times.
It doesn't make much sense to give these big ideas without knowing your budget or without knowing what you already have in mind. Truth is, it doesn't really matter what exactly the big step is. What's missing is a strong vision behind WCS. A vision the community can rally behind. WCS 2012, despite its problems, had that. WCS 2013 claimed to create a unifying storyline and to level up SC2 in all regions. It did that to some extent in Europe, but it also led to the dispersal of the GSL storyline and put the American player scene into a state of depression. Creating separate regions but making the choice in which to compete in completely arbitrary (outside of logistical restrictions) indicates a lack of, again, vision. It is not clear what Blizzard was trying to achieve with each region.
While I appreciate feedback from Blizzard in general, I must say that the vague answers add uncertainty to a scene that is already deeply insecure about itself. How can players, teams, sponsors and tournament organizers operate with so much up in the air? How can the community rally behind something which they don't know what it is? What if Blizzard doesn't even know what it wants?
One would assume that the transferral of power in 2013, Blizzard had a greater vision in mind, if not for 2013, then for 2014. With the end of the year approaching, I can say that I don't really see it. Maybe WCS 2013 was caused by something we, the community don't know. Was WCS 2013 necessary to consolidate the insecure SC2 scene or did it drive other tournament organizers out? Either way, the community doesn't want WCS to manage stagnation or decline. I am convinced that the community, that helps Blizzard make games as great as they are, will deliver when it is asked to do more.
We really appreciate how thorough, productive, and critical the feedback has been coming in. This is good stuff and you guys/gals are great!
We've already made some adjustments to the finer details based on the responses we're hearing from community. We're working very hard to get everything finalized so we can announce the plans for WCS 2014 as soon as possible.
We sincerely thank you for your passion and support <3
On October 18 2013 09:41 kimaphan wrote: We really appreciate how thorough, productive, and critical the feedback has been coming in. This is good stuff and you guys/gals are great!
We've already made some adjustments to the finer details based on the responses we're hearing from community. We're working very hard to get everything finalized so we can announce the plans for WCS 2014 as soon as possible.
We sincerely thank you for your passion and support <3
Thanks for taking the time to read through the posts here and post your comments as well. Excited to see what changes will be coming up.
The best change blizzard can make is to make two different games for Legacy of the Void.
1st Version) Full Game, Full single-player with challenging achievements and insane difficulty levels for the non-competitive people who want to see the story and play some custom maps for fun afterwards. You know the people who enjoy the game but can't deal with ladder anxiety.
2nd Version) Multiplayer only version only, there's no single player option just the ladder no custom maps except for a certain library which is the ladder maps and the community made tournament maps to choose from. Make this version cost extremely little (Free to play entirely, free to play for a trial period or like 5-10$ maximum and you can unlock other options like full customs for 5 more bucks etc)
The next best change is increase viewership by making the multiplayer game more interesting for the casual playerbase:
I want to see a new introduction to the ladder too for the casual player. On the non-ranked ladder you could be really funny and name the leagues like this:
1) Duck League 2) Dirt League 3) Wood League 4) Steel League 5) Nuclear League
The main purpose of this for-fun ladder is to add an entirely new element to the ladder and it's going to be like talent selection for your race of choice. Think of the talent tree's in MMO's or even the single-player game enhancements you can put on certain units. (Zerglings spawning in 3's - Jumping Cliffs, Siege Tanks with less friendly splash damage etc)
This would add an entirely new and random mechanic that I know I've thought about a lot and would actually enjoy playing. You could create so many new strategies with this addition. Talents for your race? Yes Please.
You could make it fun because it wouldn't be the super-competitive and encourage players to experiment with their play rather than the grindy min/max of your macro and micro but instead your strategy of talents you pick for the race you're playing.
To add to this have it start off kind of like an MMO where you have to level up by playing this ladder to unlock more race "Talents" or "Enhancements" by either purchasing them with EXP gained or unlocked as you gain levels.
As you can see my focus is more on getting MORE people in general just interested in the game so the viewership will naturally and pro-actively increase on it's own.
That's how you save SC2 from dying out early not necessarily focusing on the WCS changes.
Something about team leagues. You guys know how F1 manufacturer championships work? There's an individual competition of course, but each team's total points from all their players get thrown into a team leaderboard and the leading team at the end of the season gets a trophy. WCS could do something like that, and I would be happy with it. But, as has been said before, the most popular sports are team-based. An actual official team league in all regions would definitely be great to watch as well. (although what teams would play in EU?)
i can't wait next year and i really hope there will be changes with regions because we will have in s3 finals only vortix and in grand finals maybe naniwa... it would be great to have all of the great koreans in korea so they can compete each other.. or if they are prepared to live where they compete because like that they can help make competition more popular, everyone around them better etc.
I don't see how SC2 will grow as an e-sport if the results are Korean NA, Korean EU and Korean KR champions. I like to see good games, but without NA players, EU players and KR players at the end, there is not much of a story to excite fans in the regions.
We need a full region lock. Make it so you have to live in the region in which you compete. The story should be "can the underdog NA/EU player upset the favored KR player in the global finals"... Not at the region level.
The money won in the regions need to stay in those regions to grow players and teams.
okay so why is Korea being screwed like this? they can easily make 5 season a year and have to be limited for 3 seasons over 10-11 months. expect GOMTV for sure to make some additional tournaments which will then cause trouble with OGN.
Made a post for this somewhere else but I figured this would be a good place to post the WCS section of it:
A new WCS system is needed to revitalize the competitive scene. Someone once mentioned comparing competitive Starcraft to tennis in terms of rankings and seeding, and I tend to agree. I propose the following:
-WCS points are now enabled for 2v2 and Clan Wars. 2v2 is added to the WCS Regional and Season Finals tournaments, while Clan Wars, due to the complexity and lengthiness of each matchup, would be done through In-Game weekly Blizzard tournaments.
-Weekly in-game Blizzard-run tournaments for WCS POINTS that contribute towards the Season Finals and Blizzcon. Consists of 1v1, 2v2, Clan War (Proleague All-Kill/Regular format each week, with the date determined by the clan), and FFA. This provides an outlet for good players to gain that extra edge in WCS points through the weekly tournamentsn.
In order to balance the fairness of the Clan Wars and ensure that a fun and competitive experience is achieved for all, I have added the Clan Wars as a ladder feature and would make it mandatory that only master level Clan Wars teams and above can enter the tournament.
Team games are a less stressful way of playing the game and would appeal to the casual gamer. Currently the tournaments supported would be the weekly in-game tournaments by Blizzard, as well as the WCS Seasonal tournaments. If other tournaments adopt this format then WCS points will be attributed to those as well.
-Every significantly large/hyped tournament will give WCS points, scaled in amount depending on the size of the prize pool, with a minimum prizepool to be able to give WCS points (e.g. 5 ranks of WCS points depending on the prize pool). What this does is add significance to the more minor tournaments that people might not normally watch, and offer a wider range of tournaments WCS points as opposed to the few that exist now.
-The WCS points, effectively generating a World Ranking system, are used towards seeding in all tournaments that offer WCS points, including the open brackets of the Seasonal WCS qualifiers. This will ensure that a lot of your favorite players will still make it far in the tournament. Note that this doesn’t mean that only the highest ranked WCS players are invited to the tournament, only that if those players decide to enter the tournament they are seeded against people with less WCS points.
-WCS points reset YEARLY
-The top players on each ladder (1v1, 2v2, clan wars) will gain WCS points at the end of each ladder season, each season resets after every Season Finals. This ensures that people play ladder alot and also gives more options to players who wish to maximize their WCS points for Blizzcon. It also enhances the competitiveness of ladder points with something at stake.
To clarify the information above, players will be able to build up WCS points for the season finals by: ranking top ladder, entering blizzard weekly in-game tournaments, getting points from WCS point sanctioned tournaments, including the Seasonal WCS for each Region.
For the seasonal tournaments, Blizzard has hinted that they might make the offline portion of the Seasonal tournaments larger. I truly hope that is the case, offline tournaments are much more fun than online and allow for a live crowd. I propose for the Regionals:
The following players will get an invite to the offline Regional WCS 1v1 tournaments: -The top 16 1v1 players -The top 4 2v2 teams
The following players will get an invite to the online Regional WCS 1v1 tournaments -The top 32 1v1 players -The top 8 2v2 teams
The following players will get an invite to the WCS Season Finals: -The top 32 1v1 players -The top 8 2v2 teams
The following players will get an invite to the offline Blizzcon WCS tournament:
-The top 4 2v2 teams in WCS points -The top 2 clans in WCS points -The top 16 1v1 players in WCS points
-Any clan is allowed to participate in Clan Wars so that means the best clans will probably participate
-Regions will be locked in the interest of giving an even battle ground for every player in their own region and for rejuvenating the foreign scenes. However, blizzard esports division needs to figure out how to keep the scene in Korea vibrant. There needs to be more tournaments in Korea and China; Brood Wars managed to be giant in Korea and I don't think the sole reason was because of the gameplay. I'm pretty sure Blizzard could really help out the scene there if they put their mind to it.
Last but not least, developing storylines is what Blizzard claims is important for WCS in 2014, and I totally agree. Here are things I would do to publicize those storylines for all to see:
-Short documentaries on the backgrounds, playstyles and lifestyle of the players done for every region. Not everyone knows in detail about all the players in the tournaments, and having players to root for makes it more likely for someone to tune in to a stream. Hyungjoon becomes a progamer/NalRa/Project A type videos are examples that were focused on individual players and in my opinion were extremely interesting. I would like to see videos like this at least once a Season for people to have an up and coming player who's progress they can follow, or short segments covering a larger number of the players in the tournament. The latest one, Project A, made it so that even people who didn't know Yellow previously rooted for him as he went from zero to almost advancing to Code A and making it into the GSL. http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors5/vod/65947 here is a link to that show.
-Group selection for the offline portion with ceremonies for the Regional WCS seasons, with player introductions that along with trophies for the ceremonies, kind of like the MSL did: This provides a form of entertainment and showmanship that showcases players individuality and endears them to the viewers by something other than their gameplay.
-Trophies for different achievements that are given at the end of Blizzcon, encapsulating exceptional accomplishments in the form of best overall ceremonies, best player of each race as voted by the players, rookie of the year, etc.
Am I the only one against region locking? Where does the massive number of Korean players who can't find foreign residency go? Unless prize pools and events multiply in Korea, many low/mid-level Korean players–against whom 99% of non-Koreans cannot advance in wcs NA/EU– will eventually disappear. Would the SC2 scene as a whole benefit from that? I have a feeling that region-locked WCS NA and EU will have an initial bump in viewership, then decline along with the quality of players and games, thus bringing the scene back to square one.
The same American player who couldn't advance against a Korean in NA Challenger with a latency advantage could now get deep in NA Premier, while the former WCS NA/EU Korean could struggle to get out of a further stacked KR Challenger or Challenger qualifier. It may take many seasons for play in NA/EU to reach parity with KR, or may never happen as in the case of Brood War, and it could be too late by then. In fact, it's easy to imagine a scenario in which the remaining Korean players with foreign residency more easily dominate NA/EU.
A region-locked system would only "feel" right if the KR Premier winner won a large multiple of prize money and points over the NA/EU winner, with the rest of the distribution scaled proportionately. Seeing how this may be unjustified based on KR viewership and popularity, it could be wise to shift the axis of the WCS system to NA and EU only and let Kespa/GOM/OGN/etc manage a separate system that is self-sustainable in Korea. Then the Koreans who can get foreign team sponsorship/residency and are willing to move abroad can continue to participate in the WCS system, while the remainder continue in the smaller Korean scene or move on altogether.
On October 22 2013 02:52 gnomeinbrain wrote: I don't see how SC2 will grow as an e-sport if the results are Korean NA, Korean EU and Korean KR champions. I like to see good games, but without NA players, EU players and KR players at the end, there is not much of a story to excite fans in the regions.
We need a full region lock. Make it so you have to live in the region in which you compete. The story should be "can the underdog NA/EU player upset the favored KR player in the global finals"... Not at the region level.
The money won in the regions need to stay in those regions to grow players and teams.
I rather see koreans battling than koreans bashing foreigners. Good foreigners would be cool of course but not locking regions actually let's them play more meaningfull games against koreans than with the region lock. Region lock would make america and europe quite bad compared to KR and the global finals would just be the same steamroll. The 'problem' is the huge difference in skill not the format. Still I would like a region lock just because the korean region would be at full strength again then and more fun to watch.
On October 23 2013 10:05 trifecta wrote: Am I the only one against region locking? Where does the massive number of Korean players who can't find foreign residency go? Unless prize pools and events multiply in Korea, many low/mid-level Korean players–against whom 99% of non-Koreans cannot advance in wcs NA/EU– will eventually disappear. Would the SC2 scene as a whole benefit from that? I have a feeling that region-locked WCS NA and EU will have an initial bump in viewership, then decline along with the quality of players and games, thus bringing the scene back to square one.
The same American player who couldn't advance against a Korean in NA Challenger with a latency advantage could now get deep in NA Premier, while the former WCS NA/EU Korean could struggle to get out of a further stacked KR Challenger or Challenger qualifier. It may take many seasons for play in NA/EU to reach parity with KR, or may never happen as in the case of Brood War, and it could be too late by then. In fact, it's easy to imagine a scenario in which the remaining Korean players with foreign residency more easily dominate NA/EU.
A region-locked system would only "feel" right if the KR Premier winner won a large multiple of prize money and points over the NA/EU winner, with the rest of the distribution scaled proportionately. Seeing how this may be unjustified based on KR viewership and popularity, it could be wise to shift the axis of the WCS system to NA and EU only and let Kespa/GOM/OGN/etc manage a separate system that is self-sustainable in Korea. Then the Koreans who can get foreign team sponsorship/residency and are willing to move abroad can continue to participate in the WCS system, while the remainder continue in the smaller Korean scene or move on altogether.
Good post, I agree with you that a strict region lock would not be good for the korean scene as it is, but there needs to be more foreigners advancing through the different leagues, having a Blizzcon with 15-16 koreans is completely ridiculous since it's supposed to be seen as a global finals.
Back in the day, the biggest prize pools were in Korea and there weren't many big prestigious tournament in other regions, so foreigners used to go to Korea to test their mettle. You don't see that anymore because of the arrival of WCS. Perhaps Blizzard could partner with other organizations inside Korea to enable more tournaments for Koreans. The addition of tournaments in China would also help Koreans establish themselves; maybe a WCS China region could be established and Koreans allowed to enter there due to the closeness between locations.
On October 23 2013 11:34 dgwow wrote: having a Blizzcon with 15-16 koreans is completely ridiculous since it's supposed to be seen as a global finals.
This is the same old discussion but look at what happened at 2012's global finals. There were tons of foreigners that made it to the event, and with the exception of Sen (and TitaN) they all got slaughtered horribly by Koreans. All it did was reduce the number of top players qualifying for the tournament. You won't have a true "global finals" just by forcing non-Koreans into the tournament.
On October 23 2013 11:34 dgwow wrote: having a Blizzcon with 15-16 koreans is completely ridiculous since it's supposed to be seen as a global finals.
This is the same old discussion but look at what happened at 2012's global finals. There were tons of foreigners that made it to the event, and with the exception of Sen (and TitaN) they all got slaughtered horribly by Koreans. All it did was reduce the number of top players qualifying for the tournament. You won't have a true "global finals" just by forcing non-Koreans into the tournament.
Agreed. If a tournament is going to have the best of the best in its finals, they're likely going to be Korean.. who cares anyway? I wanna see good games not fan service.
Look at MCs journey to the final -> beat Kas, FireCake, BabyKnight, ThorZaIN, TargA , Genius.. before falling to MMC.
Now look at soo's journey to the final -> beat YongHwa , Bomber, Super, INnoVation, Parting, Soulkey then fall the Dear.
I would say its 5 to 10 times harder than the EU region, yet they have the same WCS points, same money pool. I do not understand how the EU/AM regions make any sense now. Are they just for some pro gamers to take advantage of grabbing more money in a convenient way?
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/doCg1cA.jpg)
