North America ZOTAC Cup comes to an end - Page 2

On January 17 2014 06:31 Squat wrote:

NA has no passion. The turnout was bad, viewership was bad. It's like every other NA event, whining and crying about the lack of them for months. Then one occurs and there's drop outs, no shows, forfeits, people who apparently can't remember that they've scheduled other shit since months before on that particular date.

NA in general just seems to have a pretty poor attitude about the whole "professional" part of professional gamer.

On January 17 2014 08:03 1Dhalism wrote:

Lack of region locking is what killed it.
Don't tell me there is any value in preparing and waiting for a zotac cup to lose in R1 to some random korean fella.

On January 17 2014 08:05 ACrow wrote:

One of the reasons many people prefer to train on EU or Korean servers is the lack of competition on NA ladder. Even if there is no chance of winning the cup, every pro should jump at the opportunity to play top notch Korean pros in tournament settings, just for the opportunity of training.

On January 17 2014 08:12 Zealously wrote:


North America has been, comparatively, pretty fairly weak since pretty much day one. Even before the influx of Koreans, there were fewer competitive NA pros than there were pros from the other regions, and fewer tournaments were won by North Americans. Don't tell me region locking caused that. Here:

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Premier_Tournaments
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Major_Tournaments

On January 17 2014 08:15 Zealously wrote:


You can not possibly equate playing ten matches (or more, provided you participate in a lot of online cups) in a competitive format, against elite competition, to logging on to the NA server and smashing your way through people who're simultaneously drinking on stream. There should be a little bit of both, but I've always thought that the idea that losing to vastly superior players is never a good thing is silly. People watch them play for ideas and inspiration, do they not? Taking them on yourself ever so often is not a bad thing. When it comes to the point when you can't sustain yourself then sure I can see the issue, but improving means losing. You don't improve if you never face someone better than you.

On January 17 2014 08:03 1Dhalism wrote:

Lack of region locking is what killed it.
Don't tell me there is any value in preparing and waiting for a zotac cup to lose in R1 to some random korean fella.

On January 17 2014 08:26 StarVe wrote:


If you're really implying to say that a serious, hard working progamer gains less from playing a Bo3 vs a Samsung B teamer than playing vs avilo on ladder or something.

On January 17 2014 08:26 StarVe wrote:

Koreans were actually beaten quite often. Usually though by EU players who signed up and had to play with the same lag as the Koreans.

On January 17 2014 08:32 1Dhalism wrote:

Yes that's exactly what i'm implying when i mention europe and korean ladders as well as custom games.
Exactly

On January 17 2014 08:41 StarVe wrote:

Well, you do have worse ping to the other servers as a NA resident, so it's not feasible for everyone and probably close to unplayable for some. If good players come to your server I don't see any reason why you shouldn't try to get a few games in with them. It's not like you have to sit there waiting for the games to start, players ladder all the time during those cups.

And ZOTAC was literally just once a week, if you can't spare one evening out of your practice schedule full of laddering on non-NA servers, that's a bit telling, too.

Fancy responding to some other things I wrote and not just the one thing where I was totally wrong?

On January 17 2014 08:45 1Dhalism wrote:

there is no lag to europe. There is some lag to KR, but it's not too bad.

Other things? Well you're entitled to your opinion, i said my peace. I disagree for the reasons i already listed and if i'm wrong i'm wrong, if you're wrong you're wrong. No reason to go in circles with it.

On January 17 2014 08:44 Zealously wrote:


I don't think talent was ever a problem in NA. I think mentality was and is the core issue among many NA pros. "Koreans steal our money", "no region locking ruined us" - Koreans need to live too. There isn't enough room or money in Korea to sustain all the extremely talented and devoted players in South Korea, so they play in online cups hoping to sustain themselves. They usually dedicate more time and often take Starcraft more seriously. I understand that people want to see their local scenes prosper, but I'll never be able to understand the mentality that people who apparently put less time in should be given a (semi-)free pass.

Further, I have to wonder why Europe became a stronger region than North America. My focus was mostly based in Korea in 2010/2011, but weren't there more big tournaments in NA than there were in Europe? Tournaments that, contrary to popular belief, weren't yet swarmed by Koreans? I can buy the argument (although I think it's flawed) that playing much better players isn't helpful, but the NA-Europe connection was certainly there - European pros went to MLG and North American pros went to Dreamhack, yet one scene trailed behind and one scene (kind of) became stronger, despite Koreans "stealing their money".

As for "drinking NA pros", I feel like NA has the highest concentration of "personalities" . You're free to do whatever you want when you stream and when you play Starcraft in my eyes, but if one player likes to play a lot of joke games with subscribers and fans on stream and one player streams dedicated practise sessions where playing well and improving is the main focus, I'll support the latter. My personal opinion is that if you put in less time and/or effort, you don't deserve a chance to complain about better competitors beating you. Once you're on the same level in terms of time and effort spent, then there is a discussion to be had about whether or not it's fair that players from a system with better infrastructure is allowed in.