EPTBlizzard Q&A on WCS 2014 - Page 8
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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 | ||
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Survivor61316
United States470 Posts
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sitromit
7051 Posts
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sitromit
7051 Posts
On October 15 2013 11:25 Survivor61316 wrote: God I miss the old GSL system..at least after that tournament you had an undisputed best player in the world. MVP vying for his 5th GSL title is so much more interesting than watching him get knocked out of the first rounds of EU because he's playing on terrible server lag :/ When the WCS system was first announced I thought it had so much promise, but I feel like its just been handled so poorly. Blizzard is far too focused on trivial things..they should hire Valve as consultants..now thats a company who knows how to put on a great tournament. WCS really killed the hype of GSL for me. It doesn't feel like the best tournament in the world anymore but a just qualifier for another event. | ||
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Clbull
United Kingdom1439 Posts
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j4vz
Canada976 Posts
Im not going to watch a lot of SC2 then, the best from NA/EU/KR are only gonna meet once a year at the global final... and sometimes on tierce tournament. The regional are kinda boring til Ro4... wont have much to watch next year i guess.  | ||
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Dodgin
Canada39254 Posts
On October 15 2013 11:31 j4vz wrote: What ? no season finals ? Im not going to watch a lot of SC2 then, the best from NA/EU/KR are only gonna meet once a year at the global final... and sometimes on tierce tournament. The regional are kinda boring til Ro4... wont have much to watch next year i guess. Or you know, like every few weeks/every month at tournaments like Dreamhack and IEM. | ||
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Brian333
657 Posts
Aside from the obvious changes that should be made to ladder to make it competitive (like limiting GM ladder spots to 1 per IP or something of that nature, giving a rank dependent amount of WCS points to the GM rank holders at the end of every ladder season), they should work on the transparency of ladder competition. When I log into battle.net, aside from seeing the usual stuff, I should see a panel that says currently ongoing matches. In that list should be the currently ongoing games between WCS certified accounts and I should have the option of joining an open chat / broadcast channel where I can spectate that game. It takes viewers away from twitch.tv (a good thing given the declining quality of their service) and individual streaming numbers (a bad thing), but then Blizzard just needs to reimburse the players in a proper fashion. I think the great benefit is it strengthens Bnet as a social platform, helps to fix the ghost town that it currently still is, and gets people back on the service. | ||
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Gaizokubanou
United States61 Posts
On October 15 2013 11:28 Clbull wrote: Talk about a massive fuck-you to the Chinese and Australian scenes. Umm how so? Opening another entire region would be suicidal because it would be splitting already very low viewership. | ||
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Patate
Canada441 Posts
On October 15 2013 09:31 Clawfinger wrote: Definitely not the announcement people were waiting for, but at least it shows that Blizzard is thinking of a lot about the main suggestions that people have been bringing up. If they are disappointed with viewership then I am somewhat scared for the future because nothing is being done to bring more players into the game at the moment. I work in a large automaker. I have a few co-workers that we know don't work much. Whenever they are asked to show what they've done concerning this or that, instead of saying they didn't work on it, they keep saying " we were initially thinking about changing that.... " internally discussing " ... etc it's just like in the WoL era when we were challenging them on key issues, like infestors or pathing, and all they kept saying were "this was discussed internally"... It doesn't mean shit, and they don't need to show the actual work they've done. My guess is that they don't really care about it, sadly. | ||
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jax1492
United States1632 Posts
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
On October 15 2013 10:56 Plansix wrote: The live report threads are fine. The general discussion is pretty worthless now a days. Just filled with negativity no matter what happens. Since when are the LR threads fine? o-O As for the general section it's usual the same stuff rehashed most of the time and there's not much to gain from it. :V | ||
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SaintFrancis
Canada46 Posts
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Bigtony
United States1606 Posts
When Koreans make a home in NA, they are readily adopted- look at Polt and Violet. | ||
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phunnykidd
United States22 Posts
On October 15 2013 09:09 giririsss wrote: Only having 3 seasons? And then not having a season final? So it goes from 7 tournaments to 4. Fail. Utter fail. No wonder GSL are looking elsewhere for new e-sports, this is basically the last nail in the coffin. User was warned for this post you maybe under estimating Blizzard. what if say: instead of a grand slam final each season, they had a grand slam world region where the top 32 competed in an actual final season instead of a weekend bash. i think that would be so sick. they HAVE to have a world final, its gonna be exciting to see how its done. | ||
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bertu
Brazil871 Posts
Now we have a mess, and it's not likely going to change. There is no single premier tournament, as in a tournament where only the very best participate. There is also no true regional tournament outside of Korea. Think about it. The new system butchered all the goals that they were trying to promote. It's insane. Now we have only 2 GSL and 1 OSL, with a diluted base and no foreigners. In AM and EU, there are koreans from foreign teams and a lot of code-B players taking most of the slots. The seasonal finals are not the 16 best players in the world - it's 6-8 of the best, arguably, all the others are just lucky to be there. Blizzcon will have the same feeling to it. I am at least glad that they are favoring ending the seasonal tournaments. Whereas there was national WCS and continental WCS, now he have foreigner vs odd koreans. There is no regional vibe to it. The foreigners x koreans storyline was present in old GSL and stand alone events, which, while not extinct, have lost their importance. It makes no sense to reform WCS to promote foreigner vs second-tier koreans. Thinking about all of this, I can't see how to be against regional-locking, in the minimum based upon residency. It's the only way to have true premier events and true local events, with the end of year tournament and stand-alone events being the mish mash of foreigner vs top koreans. Of course, Korean region should have a much much higher prize pool to estimulate local talent to stay and top foreigner to try their luck in being the best. Based in this interview, however, I am not expecting any changes. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On October 15 2013 11:41 StarStruck wrote: Since when are the LR threads fine? o-O As for the general section it's usual the same stuff rehashed most of the time and there's not much to gain from it. :V Whining in LR threads is kept to a minimum by mods and a focused topic. Plus it's people who watch, as opposed to people who just come to hate and only watch a couple of matches when it's near the finals. | ||
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larse
1611 Posts
No more season finals, no new regions, one less season, probably no more prize money, no integration to team league, and more compact WCS events. Although I can understand that they said they want to give more room for non-WCS events, it's uncertain that it will be better for the scene if WCS is smaller. 2010-2012 were great even without WCS, but things change, so not sure if 2014 will be great with a smaller WCS. | ||
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DeadCell
Canada256 Posts
On October 15 2013 11:27 sitromit wrote: WCS really killed the hype of GSL for me. It doesn't feel like the best tournament in the world anymore but a just qualifier for another event. I feel the same way. GSL was the best of the best, it had the greatest players competing for the greatest reward. Now it's still fun to watch don't get me wrong, but it does very much feel like it's just a qualifier. I wish NASL, MLG, and GOMTV still had all their individual events. | ||
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larse
1611 Posts
On October 15 2013 12:08 bertu wrote: In 2012, we had 4 GSLs as the undisputed world premier tournament, with the ocasional foreigner drawing storylines. And an OSL. We also had 2012 as true national and regional tournaments, with an exciting end of they year cup. We had stand-alone events where foreigners faced koreans. Now we have a mess, and it's not likely going to change. There is no single premier tournament, as in a tournament where only the very best participate. There is also no true regional tournament outside of Korea. Think about it. The new system butchered all the goals that they were trying to promote. It's insane. Now we have only 2 GSL and 1 OSL, with a diluted base and no foreigners. In AM and EU, there are koreans from foreign teams and a lot of code-B players taking most of the slots. The seasonal finals are not the 16 best players in the world - it's 6-8 of the best, arguably, all the others are just lucky to be there. Blizzcon will have the same feeling to it. I am at least glad that they are favoring ending the seasonal tournaments. Whereas there was national WCS and continental WCS, now he have foreigner vs odd koreans. There is no regional vibe to it. The foreigners x koreans storyline was present in old GSL and stand alone events, which, while not extinct, have lost their importance. It makes no sense to reform WCS to promote foreigner vs second-tier koreans. Thinking about all of this, I can't see how to be against regional-locking, in the minimum based upon residency. It's the only way to have true premier events and true local events, with the end of year tournament and stand-alone events being the mish mash of foreigner vs top koreans. Of course, Korean region should have a much much higher prize pool to estimulate local talent to stay and top foreigner to try their luck in being the best. Based in this interview, however, I am not expecting any changes. Well said. Well said. I agree you on most part. 2014 looks grim. | ||
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Holdenintherye
Canada1441 Posts
Personally, I like these (supposed) changes. | ||
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