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On December 13 2013 02:48 ScoutWBF wrote:Show nested quote +Bob Colayco (Blizzard PR Manager): You look at something like the NCAA college basketball tournament in America, where you have teams like Duke that are ranked number one all year. But then you have the single elimination championship tournament at the end, where Cinderella can get lucky one time... It's great drama, right? Just that nobody wants Cinderella to win, but rather one of the favorites so the community can have somebody who dominates. At least that's the feeling that I got from reading the forum.
Well people always want the better/best to win because they tend to have attractive playstyles. An analogy might be some third tier team winning the FA Cup (for soccer) in England. There's a lot of romanticism about the minnows making it to the big game but 9/10 the final sucks then because they get through on a lot of grit (think cheese) rather than skill (think style). And at least for some of the foreigners I'm invested in them. Manchester United has played like shit for the last 3 years (ignoring titles the actual play has been meh since the CL run) but I follow them because I've been invested emotionally in the team.
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Please cheer for him and maybe he'll show us exciting games!
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Wow, Playa is salty. Had to really dig deep to find something to complain about in that interview, huh?
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Mexico2170 Posts
Morhaime looks like a really charming guy to me.
I think that he plays a big part in the things Blizzard does for StarCraft II, i don't think we would have a WCS if it wasn't for him.
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2012 was the best system. Why? It created tournaments.
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On December 13 2013 03:05 Pandemona wrote:Show nested quote +Regarding those problems, obviously you guys wanted some Koreans to be in America and Europe, since it increases the level of competition and makes it more interesting to watch. But did you anticipate that they would move over so quickly, and in such large numbers?
We felt that having some number of Koreans in other regions would be good. One of the problems you had in 2012 was that most of the best players in the world were in Korea, but a lot of the viewers were outside of Korea. The time zones of the Korean matches made it so difficult, especially if you were in America, to follow what was going on in StarCraft. We wanted to expand the ability to view high level StarCraft to a global scale. We think 2013 actually did a very good job of doing that.
It's sort of a knob – how many Koreans do you want outside of Korea? We still look at GSL as where the top level of StarCraft play is. I think 2014 will be able to preserve the best of both sides.
For me personally i find this kind of thing the complete opposite of what needs to be done. It might just be me but i want the best players playing in the best tournament. WCS Global finals is without doubt a top top level tournament, where the best of the world travel too. BUT GSL was the best of the best before all this and the best went to Korea to play and to see if they could achieve the success. That for me is the best thing to happen, it's like the equivalent of the Champions League in football. Every club (player) wants to be in the Champions League, it's where the money is and the most prestigious trophy. But if some company came in and started making competitions everywhere and started to nationalize Europe into North South East West you still start losing the prestigious tournament as its been divided up and people are jumping on easy money/easy fame/easy path to more money. What i think should of been the idea is to keep the region locks as REGION LOCKS and not allow koreans to play outside in the WCS event, however there is still DreamHack IEM ASUS ROGs and many other tournaments out there for everyone to get in, but i think GSL has suffered and the reason Korean SC2 is not as popular is due to the best players no longer play there all the time. It seems like all of KESPA stays inside Korea for WCS KR as they have too in a sense for Pro League and all the old SC2 original players (NesTea MVP) have all gone abroad along with foreigner teams Korean players. Really do think that is a hinderance and not a positive  Pretty sure people in NA would like a HuK vs Scarlett finals opposed to a Jaedong vs Taeja? or am i wrong in that too xD
You're absolutely right. I really believe what also made the big events like Dreamhack and IEM that much bigger had a lot to do with seeing our favorite players (not specific to non-koreans this includes pro's such as Jaedong and HerO) clash with the Korean badasses and see where they rank up next to each other. Instead of a constant beat-down in the EU and AM scenes we saw some SERIOUS hyped up matches when the koreans came to play on foreign soil. I think what helps a lot with my perception of Korean pro's at least for me is seeing them on AM and EU based teams, however it takes a lot more than just adding them to your roster as EG proved with Revival, JYP, and Alive.
Likewise when someone like Naniwa or Huk would compete in GSL the stakes were insanely high as well. And for them to make it to the ro16 at such a brilliant level of play was a thing of awe in itself. I feel like there's literally none of that happening anymore and it's a real shame in my opinion. Some people will disagree with us and say that Jaedong vs Taeja would ultimately produce the best games but where I'm sitting the best games also involve the best storylines. And two Americans battling it out for the top spot on the podium for the America (region) is much more involved dramatically than two Koreans doing the same. That's also not to say that the level of play between Huk - Scarlett and Taeja - Jaedong is actually that much different. From what I've been watching over this past year Huk might not be at that level by a very thin margin, but Scarlett absolutely is.
--------
And then I read this response to the exact same post and I remember why the situation is much more complicated than how I described it.
On December 13 2013 03:53 Yorkie wrote:
Yes, many Koreans have left GSL, but think about the overall implications on the system with no Koreans in NA or EU. The skill progression of foreigner players would slow as they would never need to play Koreans in their own WCS bubble. In addition the global finals would be an extremely one sided affair with only a few top Koreans getting to go while much weaker foreigners comprise the rest of the bracket. The goal of the system is to maintain WCS KR as the most prestigious regional tournament (which it is especially when you consider that a WCS Korea player won every global finals ans blizzcon) and have the global finals and blizzcon be the most important events of the year in SC2. With complete region locking WCS KR becomes the true tournament to win and the global finals and Blizzcon are just formalities as we wait for whichever Korean to get a fat paycheck. That's just my opinion on the matter
I feel like taking this into account it becomes pretty evident that the steps Mike Morhaime and the WCS team are taking are clearly in the right direction. I feel as though a real contributing factor towards stepping back to the types of events I described earlier is definitely being able to see more events such as Red Bull Battlegrounds happening on this side of the hemisphere. Now that MLG is out of the picture I really hope Red Bull or someone similar will come in and deliver more than a few tournaments next year.
Seeing more tournaments like Total Biscuit's Shoutcraft America and EU are also definitely important. Hopefully we could see something similar hosted by Blizzard come into play in a live format. If they want growth on a global scale you need to nurture the global scene, that includes the players from different regions. Especially the ones in your own backyard. I think something that needs to be accepted into the hive mind is that if we want our baby e-sport to grow up to be a real sport one day we're going to need to see growth continue globally. To do that what I think needs to be accepted is that seeing the very top of the top-tier Koreans + a select few "foreigners" clash... while this may be the most entertaining for us hardcore dedicated fans.... it makes it difficult to recruit into our world of love for this game. For that to happen empathy is vital for people to connect and it isn't wrong to say that its considerably easier to empathize with those who speaks the same language as you.
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Great interview but I feel like having a global champion fits a global sport like SC2 so much. It just does feel right.
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On December 13 2013 04:47 Plansix wrote:
Wow, Playa is salty. Had to really dig deep to find something to complain about in that interview, huh?
I just get tired of seeing the guy playing dumb. Maybe I'm naive or w/e, but I still like to see people give honest answers, else what's the point? A fill in the blank with a random answer generator is just as fulfilling as one of his interviews. I'm not a big fan, what can you say.
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I like how he didn't actually answer teh question when TL asked if Blizzard "expected so many Koreans to move over so quickly" when they opened up the regions.
If he were awesome, he would have Real Talked it - "No, but we should have. The competitive level is so much higher in Korea that many left for the easier competition in NA or even EU. While we hoped that they would in turn increase the level of competition as a sort of minimum good scenario, we found out that we were completely wrong. They practiced in Korea, rampaged the online portions and committed to a week at most in NA/EU regions and more than paid for it with their winnings."
But no, we got a COMPLETE dodge. /sigh/
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On December 13 2013 02:17 Darkhoarse wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2013 01:59 Conti wrote:He didn't thank TeamLiquid for their support of Dota2 and LoL. That meanie. He works for Blizzard!
*Blizzard works for him*
FTFY
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Do they really think that playing a certain amount of games on the NA ladder will hinder the Koreans who are competing in the Premiere league to continue competing in it? All they need to worry about would be how to get the blood of their NA ladder opponents out of their keyboard after a finished session...
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
On December 13 2013 05:11 SicPro wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2013 03:05 Pandemona wrote:Regarding those problems, obviously you guys wanted some Koreans to be in America and Europe, since it increases the level of competition and makes it more interesting to watch. But did you anticipate that they would move over so quickly, and in such large numbers?
We felt that having some number of Koreans in other regions would be good. One of the problems you had in 2012 was that most of the best players in the world were in Korea, but a lot of the viewers were outside of Korea. The time zones of the Korean matches made it so difficult, especially if you were in America, to follow what was going on in StarCraft. We wanted to expand the ability to view high level StarCraft to a global scale. We think 2013 actually did a very good job of doing that.
It's sort of a knob – how many Koreans do you want outside of Korea? We still look at GSL as where the top level of StarCraft play is. I think 2014 will be able to preserve the best of both sides.
For me personally i find this kind of thing the complete opposite of what needs to be done. It might just be me but i want the best players playing in the best tournament. WCS Global finals is without doubt a top top level tournament, where the best of the world travel too. BUT GSL was the best of the best before all this and the best went to Korea to play and to see if they could achieve the success. That for me is the best thing to happen, it's like the equivalent of the Champions League in football. Every club (player) wants to be in the Champions League, it's where the money is and the most prestigious trophy. But if some company came in and started making competitions everywhere and started to nationalize Europe into North South East West you still start losing the prestigious tournament as its been divided up and people are jumping on easy money/easy fame/easy path to more money. What i think should of been the idea is to keep the region locks as REGION LOCKS and not allow koreans to play outside in the WCS event, however there is still DreamHack IEM ASUS ROGs and many other tournaments out there for everyone to get in, but i think GSL has suffered and the reason Korean SC2 is not as popular is due to the best players no longer play there all the time. It seems like all of KESPA stays inside Korea for WCS KR as they have too in a sense for Pro League and all the old SC2 original players (NesTea MVP) have all gone abroad along with foreigner teams Korean players. Really do think that is a hinderance and not a positive Pretty sure people in NA would like a HuK vs Scarlett finals opposed to a Jaedong vs Taeja? or am i wrong in that too xD You're absolutely right. I really believe what also made the big events like Dreamhack and IEM that much bigger had a lot to do with seeing our favorite players clash with the Korean badasses and see where they rank up next to each other. Instead of a constant beat-down in the EU and AM scenes we saw some SERIOUS hyped up matches when the koreans came to play on foreign soil. Likewise when someone like Naniwa or Huk would compete in GSL the stakes were insanely high as well. And for them to make it to the ro16 at such a brilliant level of play was a thing of awe in itself. I feel like there's literally none of that happening anymore and it's a real shame in my opinion. Some people will disagree with us and say that Jaedong vs Taeja would ultimately produce the best games but where I'm sitting the best games also involve the best storylines. And two Americans battling it out for the top spot on the podium for the America (region) is much more involved dramatically than two Koreans doing the same. That's also not to say that the level of play between Huk - Scarlett and Taeja - Jaedong is actually that much different. From what I've been watching over this past year Huk might not be at that level by a very thin margin, but Scarlett absolutely is. -------- And then I read this response to the exact same post and I remember why the situation is much more complicated than how I described it. Show nested quote +On December 13 2013 03:53 Yorkie wrote:
Yes, many Koreans have left GSL, but think about the overall implications on the system with no Koreans in NA or EU. The skill progression of foreigner players would slow as they would never need to play Koreans in their own WCS bubble. In addition the global finals would be an extremely one sided affair with only a few top Koreans getting to go while much weaker foreigners comprise the rest of the bracket. The goal of the system is to maintain WCS KR as the most prestigious regional tournament (which it is especially when you consider that a WCS Korea player won every global finals ans blizzcon) and have the global finals and blizzcon be the most important events of the year in SC2. With complete region locking WCS KR becomes the true tournament to win and the global finals and Blizzcon are just formalities as we wait for whichever Korean to get a fat paycheck. That's just my opinion on the matter I feel like taking this into account it becomes pretty evident that the steps Mike Morhaime and the WCS team are taking are clearly in the right direction. I feel as though a real contributing factor to getting back to the types of events I described earlier is definitely getting to see more events such as Red Bull Battlegrounds happening. Now that MLG is out of the picture I really hope they come in and deliver more than 2 tournaments a year in the coming years. As well as seeing more tournaments like Total Biscuit's Shoutcraft America and EU are definitely important. Hopefully we could see something similar hosted by Blizzard come into play in a live format. If they want growth on a global scale you need to nurture the global scene, that includes the players from different regions. Especially the ones in your own backyard.
Yeah pretty much this. It's what we call a catch 22 i guess. Guess we will never know what is best as we are forced into accepting this how it is.
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On December 13 2013 05:29 JustPassingBy wrote:
Do they really think that playing a certain amount of games on the NA ladder will hinder the Koreans who are competing in the Premiere league to continue competing in it? All they need to worry about would be how to get the blood of their NA ladder opponents out of their keyboard after a finished session...
The goal is not to lock the Koreans out. The goal is to improve the quality of the NA ladder as a training ground for progamers.
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If there a big tournament in NA there is a damn good chance that Mike Morhaime is somewhere in the crowd. It's great for SC2 that he cares so much,
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On December 13 2013 01:58 Darkhoarse wrote:
Can't be mad at this guy, he says nice things about teamliquid.
I can just because you pucker up to kiss TL doesn't mean we forget about everything. I can see these guys still don't understand why their whole system sucks and why they should do a complete overhaul of it. Then again that isn't his job.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
I don't agree with Morhaime's opinions, therefore his answers are dishonest. The fact that he doesn't agree with my objectively correct ideas on how to improve SC2 also annoys me.
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On December 13 2013 02:06 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2013 02:03 Philozovic wrote:Do you think the entire unified storyline with a global champion at the end is necessary? Compared to say, a system like tennis or golf where you have several majors, but without a specific final tournament to crown the year end champion.
ATP World Tour Finals ?! I mean, TECHNICALLY
Well I don't see much difference, ATP World Tour doesn't crown THE best player of the year. It's just a tournament for top8 only and so is WCS World finals. Is sOs the player of the year ? Hell no, he "just" (no disrepect what so ever) won a big tournament.
On December 13 2013 03:03 Lazzi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2013 02:03 Philozovic wrote:Do you think the entire unified storyline with a global champion at the end is necessary? Compared to say, a system like tennis or golf where you have several majors, but without a specific final tournament to crown the year end champion.
ATP World Tour Finals ?! Well, every single player would rather win a grand slam than the ATP World Tour Final.
Maybe it's just me but I value more a GSL title than Blizzcon.
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On December 13 2013 01:52 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
<h3>How about the format at BlizzCon? StarCraft is a somewhat high-variance game by nature, and single elim tournaments can have wildly unpredictable results. The result this year came out of left field as well. Are you considering changing the WCS finals format so it better fits the entire unified storyline?</h3>We do like the single elimination tournament, especially when we're able to seed it from the points that were earned over the course of an entire season. It's fairly common in other sports to use a single elimination format – we're pretty happy with it.
NOOOoooooo! Waxangel was correct when he said "StarCraft is a somewhat high-variance game by nature, and single elim tournaments can have wildly unpredictable results." Why didn't you listen to him?!
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Mike is a gnome that likes StarCraft.
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United States23455 Posts
On December 13 2013 05:24 sithvincent wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2013 02:17 Darkhoarse wrote:On December 13 2013 01:59 Conti wrote:He didn't thank TeamLiquid for their support of Dota2 and LoL. That meanie. He works for Blizzard! *Blizzard works for him* FTFY
Actually a CEO of a corporation technically works for the Board of Directors, and by extension, the shareholders 
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EPT
