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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 12:09 larse wrote:
This seems like a shrinking investment to the scene.
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.
Or opening up space for others. The reason are so few leagues is that WCS takes up so much space.
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The Season final were uninteresting and not very motivating for the players after Season 1. Maybe a couple people who make it to Season 3 finals have a chance for BlizzCon if they win the finals. And we get to basically rewatch the Ro6 of each region all over again.
Dropping the Season finals and more emphasize on LAN events in between seasons is great news. Sadly we not not see MLG pick SC2 again. Hopefully Redbull picks up the NA scene.
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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.
It was 5 GSLs and an OSL actually. And a Blizzard cup from GOMTV.
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Even though any answer Blizzard could provide -- short of bringing back BW or completely overhauling SC2 -- would do nothing, I wish they were asked about how they want to approach the unstable (i.e. dying) Korean scene.
While the WCS system does certainly affect the scene, the biggest things holding it back is the game itself. Of course, this applies to the global/foreign scene, too.
One can always hope...
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So much negativity here. This Q&A was good and answered a lot of things. Well done, Blizzard.
For those of you who don't know how to read this kind of official/political texts, here's a simplified rundown on things it actually said as I understood it:
1. There will be a region lock. The exact rules are not decided yet.
2. Season finals will be removed to give more credit to regional finals and create space for other global tournaments (and build hype for world finals).
3. WCS point system will be reworked to promote more events/storylines
All these things are good things. Now lets just wait for the detailed version before we get the torches and pitchforks.
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On October 15 2013 12:23 sitromit wrote:Show nested quote +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. It was 5 GSLs and an OSL actually. And a Blizzard cup from GOMTV.
And that might have been to much. Times change and I remember being totally over whelmed with SC2 through most of 2012.
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On October 15 2013 12:26 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:23 sitromit wrote: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. It was 5 GSLs and an OSL actually. And a Blizzard cup from GOMTV. And that might have been to much. Times change and I remember being totally over whelmed with SC2 through most of 2012.
Nobody put a gun to your head to watch it all.
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On October 15 2013 12:09 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 11:41 StarStruck wrote:On October 15 2013 10:56 Plansix wrote:On October 15 2013 10:52 KrazyTrumpet wrote:On October 15 2013 10:49 Plansix wrote:On October 15 2013 10:39 KrazyTrumpet wrote:
lol, reading through most of these comments is making me sad. They are making efforts to incorporate a lot of the things we've wanted, and people are shitting all over them saying stuff like "wow, no information".
So idiotic, this is actually quite a bit of information. Come on, this is TL, negative is what people do here. Naz'Gul can say everything is great and people still complain. If Blizzard released all the info, people would complain too. The TL Community loves for it. Reddit is more positive now a days. It's really making me just not want to come to the site anymore. 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 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.
Dude there is always whining in the LRs. That's why every other LR a mod has to step in with a note at the top lol. `\('.')/' Not like times have changed that much.
On October 15 2013 12:31 sitromit wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:26 Plansix wrote:On October 15 2013 12:23 sitromit wrote: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. It was 5 GSLs and an OSL actually. And a Blizzard cup from GOMTV. And that might have been to much. Times change and I remember being totally over whelmed with SC2 through most of 2012. Nobody put a gun to your head to watch it all.
Indeed it was a stupid amount of SC2 with the WCS. Just a ridiculous amount.
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WCS won't save Starcraft. The game and players need to do that. People will watch Starcraft when they want to watch Starcraft as this week at IEM showed (with more than 100,000 concurrent viewers at one point). The game is still a bit too volitile and until that is fixed, we will continue to see players fall just as fast as they rose.
TBH I wish Blizzard would feed money and support into pro league. People gathered around their teams and players in pro league. The finals were huge. I think that is more important than just individual tournaments.
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On October 15 2013 12:31 sitromit wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:26 Plansix wrote:On October 15 2013 12:23 sitromit wrote: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. It was 5 GSLs and an OSL actually. And a Blizzard cup from GOMTV. And that might have been to much. Times change and I remember being totally over whelmed with SC2 through most of 2012. Nobody put a gun to your head to watch it all.
That doesn't change the fact that there was a clear over saturation of content. Which can definitely be a bad thing.
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They want to expand the viewer base but how do they intend to do that? For such a small player base compared to LoL or DotA2, SC2 has a very large viewership percentage. The only way to grow it any more is to get more people playing SC2.
And that inevitably makes you look towards F2P multiplayer...
I hope they do something for the Chinese scene. They could allow Chinese-only tournaments to count for WCS points or something. I really think they(or maybe combining China with SEA) deserve their own region though.
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On October 15 2013 12:09 larse wrote:
This seems like a shrinking investment to the scene.
Blizzard offers 1,000X more support than any other RTS game receives from its makers.
However, the amount of support they are giving SC2 is decreasing.
Blizzard's apologists can continue to hide behind the "too much saturation" excuse for only so long. There is hardly anything happening after Blizzcon is over. Artosis is gonna be 1 damn good Hearthstone player come 2014!
I think SC2 is great fun. I appreciate Blizzard's work in the RTS genre... but i'm not some "Starstruck fan". i can see what is going on.
And to be brutally transparent about it... Starcraft and "RTS" is Blizzard's #3 money maker. They've got bigger fish to fry.
Its not Blizzard's responsibility to prop up a non-viable industry called "SC2 eSports".
Thanks for the Q&A session, although it didn't tell us much other than "Blizzard's eSports philosophy".
On October 15 2013 12:49 Iodem wrote:
I hope they do something for the Chinese scene. They could allow Chinese-only tournaments to count for WCS points or something. I really think they(or maybe combining China with SEA) deserve their own region though.
China is Blizzard's 1 legit shot at fostering growth in the RTS genre.
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Oh My God They aren't going to fucking region lock it. ./speechless
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On October 15 2013 12:31 sitromit wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:26 Plansix wrote:On October 15 2013 12:23 sitromit wrote: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. It was 5 GSLs and an OSL actually. And a Blizzard cup from GOMTV. And that might have been to much. Times change and I remember being totally over whelmed with SC2 through most of 2012. Nobody put a gun to your head to watch it all.
No, the gun was to GSL's head, and they needed everyone to watch every match.
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I would say, do as lol does and leave korea alone. Let korea have OSL and GSL at the same time. so the koreans will be more inclined to stay in korea. with double the players more will not want to leave.
other than that i like it
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On October 15 2013 13:13 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 12:31 sitromit wrote:On October 15 2013 12:26 Plansix wrote:On October 15 2013 12:23 sitromit wrote: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. It was 5 GSLs and an OSL actually. And a Blizzard cup from GOMTV. And that might have been to much. Times change and I remember being totally over whelmed with SC2 through most of 2012. Nobody put a gun to your head to watch it all. No, the gun was to GSL's head, and they needed everyone to watch every match.
Is this a joke? GSL is the one who got screwed with 2013 WCS changes. Their tournament got marginalized and turned into a glorified qualifier with half the prize money and their ongoing storyline got destroyed by getting merged with OSL under the WCS flag and some of their star players running off to easier regions.
I would bet GOMTV lost a lot of viewers this year. You can tell from the live report threads.
But wait, 5 GSLs was oversaturation supposedly, right? Somehow people were watching more, and now, even with the shine of a new expansion, they seem to be less interested.
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SC2 fans complaining about abundance of contents for their games.
#1stworldesportprobs
NEVER complain about more contents. The moment that contents start to disappear is the moment that your game is on the verge of being phased out. EVERY single one of those contents/tournaments are the legs that hold up a scene. The less pillar one industry have, the more fragile it becomes. Its like when a company tries to "refocus" their resources by closing down their divisions. That is not saying that everyone is fine and dandy, that's inferring that the organization is financially under-performing.
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Calgary26003 Posts
Pretty sure step one should be "playing in your closest geographical region is mandatory".
You're welcome, Blizzard.
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On October 15 2013 13:38 Xiphos wrote:
SC2 fans complaining about abundance of contents for their games.
#1stworldesportprobs
NEVER complain about more contents. The moment that contents start to disappear is the moment that your game is on the verge of being phased out. EVERY single one of those contents/tournaments are the legs that hold up a scene. The less pillar one industry have, the more fragile it becomes. Its like when a company tries to "refocus" their resources by closing down their divisions. That is not saying that everyone is fine and dandy, that's inferring that the organization is financially under-performing.
This isn't true at all. Over-saturation is a problem with businesses that happen all the time. Whether it is stretching a single business to thin by over expanding, or by to many entities entering an emerging market, it is pretty common to see businesses or industries go through these types of cycle.
That doesn't mean what you are saying isn't correct sometimes, but simply assuming that less content = failure and more content = good is not true it is more complicated than that. A lot of it comes to personal preference as well. I think some people would rather see 1 massive tournament giving away 100k, while others would rather see 10 mini tournaments giving away 10k.
Less seasons is not a bad thing, I feel right now like there is way to much content. It is to hard to follow and watch everything and then you miss more than you end up seeing and feel disconnected from the event. It is great that we get high quality games almost every night of the week, but it really is to much.
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On October 15 2013 13:38 Chill wrote:
Pretty sure step one should be "playing in your closest geographical region is mandatory".
You're welcome, Blizzard.
You want a glorified WCG all over again Chill?
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EPT
