Blizzard Entertainment has announced today that operation of WCS America Season 1 will be handled by ESL (Electronic Sports League) effective immediately. WCS Europe and Global StarCraft II League (GSL) will also go on as planned and are not affected by this news.
NASL recently informed Blizzard that it would be unable to honor its commitment to operate the WCS America Season 1 competition. After hearing this news, Blizzard decided to immediately transfer operation of the league to ESL, in order to protect the interests of the pro players and fans, as well as the integrity of WCS competition.
ESL, our current partner for WCS Europe, will step in and operate WCS America for the rest of Season 1. The remainder of Premier League round of 32 competition will go on as scheduled next Tuesday, March 11 and Wednesday, March 12 with the broadcast originating from ESL’s studio in Cologne, Germany. You’ll be able to catch the action as you always have, through Twitch, the official WCS portal site, or on the Blizzard WCS mobile app for iOS.
In order to accommodate changes in player travel, the WCS America Round of 16 will be delayed until April 5-6 and played live at the ESL studio in Cologne. The WCS America Finals will then take place at the ESL studio on April 10-13, at the same time as the WCS Europe Finals. Blizzard and ESL have already begun working with players to assist with the new travel requirements to Germany.
WCS America Season 2 and Season 3 will take place, and we will announce more details about schedule and operation of those seasons as soon as possible. And as mentioned before, WCS Europe and GSL competition will not be impacted by these changes to WCS America. We’d like to acknowledge NASL’s support of StarCraft II eSports and thank them for producing many memorable events over the years.
We want to thank ESL for being able to step in and help us continue WCS America competition with minimal impact to viewers and players. They continue to grow as a global leader in eSports and Blizzard is proud to work more closely with them on WCS.
Keep checking the official WCS site for further news about WCS America, and be sure to tune in next week for more exciting StarCraft II competition in WCS America Premier League!
It is with wistful hearts that the North American Star League must bid the StarCraft II community farewell today. We notified Blizzard that we would be unable to continue operating WCS America. The league will continue operating, and Blizzard will post an announcement with details on their official WCS Site at http://wcs.battle.net.
Three and a half years ago, a small team of passionate individuals driven by our love of StarCraft II sought to create something special and foster the prominence of eSports in North America. Over time, our mission and our team grew, as did our ambition.
Driven to innovate the daily broadcast space and improve, our crew busily worked behind the scenes each season. In 2011, we broadcast our first two seasons, held our first two events, and invested in and prepared new equipment that would later enable us to deliver a truly live broadcast.
In 2012, our team expanded, and we began a long term commitment to improving our production quality, streamlining broadcasts, and creating engaging content. In so doing, we showcased the lighter side of StarCraft eSports with numerous segments and events like the NASL Sunday ShowDown. We also fell in love with Canada.
Our passion continued in 2013. With the professional StarCraft II landscape evolving, the team decided to push our creativity in a new direction, and we launched The Pulse, a live eSports talk show rich with prepared highlights, interviews, and other segments.
When the opportunity arose to become the official partner for the StarCraft II: World Championship Series in America, we were elated. After all, the company was founded on a love for StarCraft, and Blizzard has always been a wonderful partner. Albeit busy with other projects, the team rolled up our sleeves, added to the family, and expanded the studio so that we could deliver exceptional daily StarCraft II broadcasts once again.
Alas, fate has scouted our fast expand, and our time broadcasting StarCraft has come to an end. To all of our partners, sponsors, friends, and especially our fans, thank you.
The ESL will be the operator of the remainder of World Championship Series America in Season I of 2014 following NASL's announcement that they’re unable to continue operating the league.
All remaining WCS America shows as well as studio events will be produced out of the ESL studios in Cologne, Germany. The remaining round of 32 groups played online will be broadcasted as originally scheduled, on March 11 and March 12 with Kevin “RotterdaM” van der Kooi and Nathan “Nathanias” Fabrikant as the commentators.
The Round of 16 groups will be played on a new date of April 5-6 (two groups a day) in the ESL studio in Cologne which has been home to WCS Europe for almost a year, with the players present as well as a live studio audience. We have already begun working with players on their travel arrangements to Germany. The finals for both WCS Europe and WCS America will take place in the ESL studio in Cologne on April 10-13.
We are fully committed to bringing the StarCraft community the best possible WCS America experience and would like to reassure everyone that the quality at which we produce WCS Europe will not be affected in any way.
WTF I just read the reddit announcement. They just quit mid season? Sounds like some really serious problems or some really bad contracts. I wonder what will happen to Rotterdam
Also who the fuck is gonna take WCS AM now after season 1? Inhouse blizzard broadcast with the old IPL guys?
Guess they gotta do what they gotta do. Best of luck roaming the globe for casting-gigs Rotterdam, you can do it!
If Totalbiscuit would have taken over the show and created a studio out of magic and digestives together with Crank the Brain and just run the absolute crap out of this crap it would have been brilliant, an unfathomably insane amount of brilliant.
So first MLG jumps ship and now NASL, who's gonna do it after this first season? Red Bull? I cant imagine MLG picking it up again after the disaster they had last year.
On March 08 2014 09:19 Anlo wrote: Guess they gotta do what they gotta do. Best of luck roaming the globe for casting-gigs Rotterdam, you can do it!
If Totalbiscuit would have taken over the show and created a studio out of magic and digestives together with Crank the Brain and just run the absolute crap out of this crap it would have been brilliant, an unfathomably insane amount of brilliant.
TB is already GM at esports-saving. We can't rely on him for everything :D
don't really mind whats ESL taking over, but having the games played in Germany seems like a bad idea to me. Even worse is that Europe and AM being played on the same weekend.
I think before they were still on the same weekend, but it was in 2 time zones. How are they gonna fit 2 finals in the same timezone in one weekend?
Everyone in here that is sad clearly was never a player in any NASL event. If you thought MLG did a horrendous job let us not forget the NASL admins just afking during qualifiers and so on. I really do hope some of their staff, such as the casters, find new positions; however, I am not in the least bit sad that someone will be replacing them for running future qualifiers. Them leaving mid-season really just carries across the point.
http://imgur.com/tfnHwXV The end part from demus still makes me laugh. You can clearly hear his accent in the text haha. I really felt bad for him in that qualifier xD
On March 08 2014 09:26 triforks wrote: don't really mind whats ESL taking over, but having the games played in Germany seems like a bad idea to me. Even worse is that Europe and AM being played on the same weekend.
I think before they were still on the same weekend, but it was in 2 time zones. How are they gonna fit 2 finals in the same timezone in one weekend?
My guess would be 2 production crews, 2 hosts and 2 sets of casting lineups. Early shift and late shift. But they have scheduled the finals for 4 days, so they might play them on different days
On March 08 2014 09:20 .kv wrote: good thing Bitter got out before this happen...hope the best for rotti
I think you mean bitter got out because he knew this was happening. Bitter got to a pretty high position within nasl, so I guess we should have seen this coming with him jumping ship. A decision like this doesn't happen overnight. Bitter knew this was coming for a while.
I vote to move wcs na to the saviour of the NA scene.....Mr total biscuit himself! I bet with all dat YouTube money he's got a huge mansion that can fit all the players...plus he's recently gotten to adorable dogs that can fill the hole that was left when chance the dog moved to esgn.
MLG won't touch WCS with a ten foot pole, and for good reason. NA just doesn't have any stable platform for a long term, weekly broadcast. From reading the statement, it seems like NASL is ditching SC2 altogether, which is probably the correct business decision.
On March 08 2014 09:20 .kv wrote: good thing Bitter got out before this happen...hope the best for rotti
I think you mean bitter got out because he knew this was happening. Bitter got to a pretty high position within nasl, so I guess we should have seen this coming with him jumping ship. A decision like this doesn't happen overnight. Bitter knew this was coming for a while.
I don't know Kev... He just posted this on twitter:
Ben Nichol @MrBitterTV 6m Woah. So I'm feeling a little conflicted right now. #SuddenAnnouncements
On March 08 2014 09:34 messioso wrote: I love running qualifiers until 3am! At least this time I can do it from my home and not the office like last year #yayinternetprovider
On March 08 2014 09:20 .kv wrote: good thing Bitter got out before this happen...hope the best for rotti
I think you mean bitter got out because he knew this was happening. Bitter got to a pretty high position within nasl, so I guess we should have seen this coming with him jumping ship. A decision like this doesn't happen overnight. Bitter knew this was coming for a while.
I don't know Kev... He just posted this on twitter:
Ben Nichol @MrBitterTV 6m Woah. So I'm feeling a little conflicted right now. #SuddenAnnouncements
Hmmm that's interesting and surprising if bitter didn't know.
On March 08 2014 09:26 stuchiu wrote: I like how NASL was so god damn insistent on playing KR vs KR games on the NA server but now we get the lan portion of WCS NA in EU.
its ok, they will still be played on NA from Cologne. Its still WCS America.
ESL is reliable as always, really cool from the to take over midseason. Let's see what happens with WCS NA in season 2 and where Rotterdam ends up. Redbull, MLG (lol), Blizzard inhouse production or maybe NESL? I'm sure Kev won't do WOT.
I can't wait for someone to get some info on why this actually happened. I don't understand it. They had a good thing with Blizzard, and they were all passionate, and put on a good show. Why'd they back out?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let RedBull take over and handle WCS AM. Holy shit that would be amazing.
On March 08 2014 09:26 stuchiu wrote: I like how NASL was so god damn insistent on playing KR vs KR games on the NA server but now we get the lan portion of WCS NA in EU.
its ok, they will still be played on NA from Cologne. Its still WCS America.
On March 08 2014 09:26 stuchiu wrote: I like how NASL was so god damn insistent on playing KR vs KR games on the NA server but now we get the lan portion of WCS NA in EU.
its ok, they will still be played on NA from Cologne. Its still WCS America.
They're also adding a hot dog and fireworks vendor to the ESL studio.
On March 08 2014 09:35 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On March 08 2014 09:33 Canucklehead wrote:
On March 08 2014 09:20 .kv wrote: good thing Bitter got out before this happen...hope the best for rotti
I think you mean bitter got out because he knew this was happening. Bitter got to a pretty high position within nasl, so I guess we should have seen this coming with him jumping ship. A decision like this doesn't happen overnight. Bitter knew this was coming for a while.
I don't know Kev... He just posted this on twitter:
Ben Nichol @MrBitterTV 6m Woah. So I'm feeling a little conflicted right now. #SuddenAnnouncements
Hmmm that's interesting and surprising if bitter didn't know.
Maybe Bitter leaving is the reason to why the decision was taken. You can fill in for a caster but as I have understood it he was much more than that.
Thanks for everything NASL. Although it would have been nicer had this been done after the season, I can't really generate any animosity towards the guys at NASL.
On the matter of WCS AM, I hope there won't be any visa issues. I mean this is pretty short notice and WCS AM has two players from the Chinese scene.
MLG has to come in for Season 2. Having WCS AM in EU is just stupid. And ESL shouldn't have to run both, it must be a strain on them. There's no other NA organisation, really.
On March 08 2014 09:16 stuchiu wrote: So Rotterdam is left in limbo?
Since they will continue to cast from the Cologne studios I guess he will work with ESL for WCS America. Also he conveniently is in Germany atm
I think Take said this week that this will be Rotti's shortest trip to Europe and that he's already flying back next week... I guess he didnt know it?
I guess things really moved fast from MrBitter leaving 3 days ago, it seems like he didnt know it back then if i interpret his reaction on twitter correctly.
On March 08 2014 09:54 Larkin wrote: MLG has to come in for Season 2. Having WCS AM in EU is just stupid. And ESL shouldn't have to run both, it must be a strain on them. There's no other NA organisation, really.
The ESL will be the operator of the remainder of World Championship Series America in Season I of 2014 following NASL's announcement that they’re unable to continue operating the league.
All remaining WCS America shows as well as studio events will be produced out of the ESL studios in Cologne, Germany. The remaining round of 32 groups played online will be broadcasted as originally scheduled, on March 11 and March 12 with Kevin “RotterdaM” van der Kooi and Nathan “Nathanias” Fabrikant as the commentators.
The Round of 16 groups will be played on a new date of April 5-6 (two groups a day) in the ESL studio in Cologne which has been home to WCS Europe for almost a year, with the players present as well as a live studio audience. We have already begun working with players on their travel arrangements to Germany. The finals for both WCS Europe and WCS America will take place in the ESL studio in Cologne on April 10-13.
We are fully committed to bringing the StarCraft community the best possible WCS America experience and would like to reassure everyone that the quality at which we produce WCS Europe will not be affected in any way.
I feel so bad for Nathanias... so close to scoring a great job as a caster... and then NASL drops SC2.
and this is also so bad for Rotti. Hes basically doing only SC2 for NASL so he's effectively fired... I dont know if he knows it yet. Cant imagine it, he was so cheerful at SSC..
It's sad to see the remainder of NASL going... why are there no real reasons in their big statement? Also it's indeed a bit strange to have NA finals in Germany... And: Why on the same weekend? Please don't do this!!!
I mean, for me as a viewer, it's awesome news, because honestly I really favor ESL over NASL's production and I really like ESL casters. But for the players and WCS as a whole, I really hope Blizzard finds a new partner for hosting WCS NA in NA. Maybe MLG can take over?
So Rotterdam changes his plans and they fly Nathanias in I guess? Rotti wanted to return to the US immediately after SSC. I wonder if he knew about any of this. Kinda sorry for him and his troubles with casting sc2 at NASL. He hasn't even been full time for a while. I hope he and Nathanias get a nice gig for season 2 and 3.
On March 08 2014 09:54 Larkin wrote: MLG has to come in for Season 2. Having WCS AM in EU is just stupid. And ESL shouldn't have to run both, it must be a strain on them. There's no other NA organisation, really.
There's Blizzard themselves.
I don't know how equipped Blizzard are to do something like this though. They have elements of the IGN team left but I dunno how well that would work.
On March 08 2014 09:55 Squat wrote: It would be kind of funny if a bunch of NA natives had to drop out due to visa issues.
You're also from the EU so I don't understand why you are making such a statement. NA guys, especially from the US, have zero problems going to EU, like absolutely none. And for Koreans I think it is also easier to get an EU visa than an US visa. So no problems should arise here...
On March 08 2014 09:54 Larkin wrote: MLG has to come in for Season 2. Having WCS AM in EU is just stupid. And ESL shouldn't have to run both, it must be a strain on them. There's no other NA organisation, really.
There's Blizzard themselves.
I don't know how equipped Blizzard are to do something like this though. They have elements of the IGN team left but I dunno how well that would work.
Blizzard is more than capable of doing it. Might have to bring in a few new faces to help out, but they can do it.
sad... even though I was joking about not going to the ro16 at the rancho studios because JD lost I'm going to miss having the opportunity to see live games
NASL bet on SC2 and WoT over LoL and Dota2, it was kind of a matter of time. They tried to establish themselves as a niche market provider but the turnout just wasn't there. A shame, but I'm not sure NA could ever support it to begin with. Right now there is MLG, maybe, and...what else?
I was pretty happy with what NASL was delivering today, but really felt like they botched the opportunity to have something cool when they started. Was surprised to see they lasted as long as they did. Will be interesting to see who fills the void.
Cool to see it being given to ESL, and Rotti and Nathanias casting, but so sad to see NASL call it quits. They have provided great content and memories!
It feels like it was just yesterday that Incontrol was announcing the announcement of the announcement of the announcement of the announcement of the announcement of NASL. Sad to see it go. The tournaments they had back in the day were quite good and they did a good job of WCS NA.
On March 08 2014 10:36 DavoS wrote: It's cool that ESL keeps getting bigger but still sucks to see NASL shut down
ESL isn't getting bigger, they're getting saddled with WCS NA because no one else will have anything to do with it. MLG, Dreamhack and Red Bull focus on weekend events and big, brand centric tournaments, which makes perfect sense. Committing to a year long contract of broadcasting content several days a week is a different beast entirely.
This is Blizzard suddenly having WCS NA dropped in their laps and looking for someone to foist it on rather quickly.
On March 08 2014 10:31 Squat wrote: NASL bet on SC2 and WoT over LoL and Dota2, it was kind of a matter of time. They tried to establish themselves as a niche market provider but the turnout just wasn't there. A shame, but I'm not sure NA could ever support it to begin with. Right now there is MLG, maybe, and...what else?
They couldn't do LoL, riot does the LCS NA in house and there are no other lol events. They could have picked up dota, that is already a very crowded field. It's not like they could just pick up dota and get unlimited viewers.
On March 08 2014 10:31 Squat wrote: NASL bet on SC2 and WoT over LoL and Dota2, it was kind of a matter of time. They tried to establish themselves as a niche market provider but the turnout just wasn't there. A shame, but I'm not sure NA could ever support it to begin with. Right now there is MLG, maybe, and...what else?
They couldn't do LoL, riot does the LCS NA in house and there are no other lol events. They could have picked up dota, that is already a very crowded field. It's not like they could just pick up dota and get unlimited viewers.
They were late to the party and were left with an unsustainable business model. Happens all the time. I'm just not sure there is any available or even interested successor. You can't pick up LoL or Dota because the market is already heavily saturated, and you can't do other games because they don't turn a profit. NASL was shit out of luck basically.
On March 08 2014 10:54 AllinMacroMicro wrote: They didn't mention why though. Anybody know why they're leaving Starcraft?
Probably went out of buisiness entirely. Rotterdam didn't even know about this.
Kevin van der Kooi @RotterdaM08 6m Asking and wondering about my situation now, I didn't know about this. It was a bit of a shock but no need to worry, I should be alright.
On March 08 2014 10:54 AllinMacroMicro wrote: They didn't mention why though. Anybody know why they're leaving Starcraft?
Probably went out of buisiness entirely. Rotterdam didn't even know about this.
Kevin van der Kooi @RotterdaM08 6m Asking and wondering about my situation now, I didn't know about this. It was a bit of a shock but no need to worry, I should be alright.
It's kinda really really crappy that he didn't even know before he left the country.
On March 08 2014 10:54 AllinMacroMicro wrote: They didn't mention why though. Anybody know why they're leaving Starcraft?
How is this even a question? It's not profitable. NASL began by running the game at a loss since the beginning, in the hopes that the growth would continue and it would become a profitable investment. It never happened, the scene stagnated and SC2 remained a revenue negative project. Now was apparently when the coffers ran dry and there was no money left to feed intravenously into the scene. Same thing is happening in Korea.
The SC scene still has some shrinking to do before it hits equilibrium and the amount of money coming in is equal or greater to the amount going out.
I guess this means they will run WCS AM at AM friendly times even for the ro16 onwards, the players and casters will have to be up really late if they're in germany though.
Got some serious concerns regarding travel compensation which was supposed to be done through NASL. Hopefully we'll get an answer from Blizzard soon about it otherwise that could be a huge suckerpunch to teams budgets.
I guess this means they will run WCS AM at AM friendly times even for the ro16 onwards, the players and casters will have to be up really late if they're in germany though.
That's not a problem per se if they manage to have entirely separate staff for WCS EU and WCS AM so no one has to work 12 hours+ a day.
Only problem is when it comes to Ro16 and onwards, that no crowd in Germany will want to attend an event that goes from like 0 am to 4 am... Wonder how they will manage that problem.
Kind of disappointing in NASL's decision to be honest. Let's hope another company will step in to support the NA scene. So far it's not looking good. GG.
On March 08 2014 11:11 TotalBiscuit wrote: Got some serious concerns regarding travel compensation which was supposed to be done through NASL. Hopefully we'll get an answer from Blizzard soon about it otherwise that could be a huge suckerpunch to teams budgets.
You got any Axiom guys in WCS NA atm? Sorry, I haven't been following this season much so I'm a little out of the loop. I really think Bizzard should pick up the tab for it regardless, they are the ultimately responsible party.
I guess this means they will run WCS AM at AM friendly times even for the ro16 onwards, the players and casters will have to be up really late if they're in germany though.
That's not a problem per se if they manage to have entirely separate staff for WCS EU and WCS AM so no one has to work 12 hours+ a day.
Only problem is when it comes to Ro16 and onwards, that no crowd in Germany will want to attend an event that goes from like 0 am to 4 am... Wonder how they will manage that problem.
it'll probably just be like when MLG ran it. no crowd. kind of a weird final ceremony
On March 08 2014 11:11 TotalBiscuit wrote: Got some serious concerns regarding travel compensation which was supposed to be done through NASL. Hopefully we'll get an answer from Blizzard soon about it otherwise that could be a huge suckerpunch to teams budgets.
That seems like a pretty big problem. Also seems like that would majorly affect teamless Koreans like Oz, which communicating issues like this would be difficult to sort out.
On March 08 2014 11:11 TotalBiscuit wrote: Got some serious concerns regarding travel compensation which was supposed to be done through NASL. Hopefully we'll get an answer from Blizzard soon about it otherwise that could be a huge suckerpunch to teams budgets.
You got any Axiom guys in WCS NA atm? Sorry, I haven't been following this season much so I'm a little out of the loop. I really think Bizzard should pick up the tab for it regardless, they are the ultimately responsible party.
off the top of my head Heart, Crank, and Alicia made it to the offline portion for Axiom
I'm really curious if they're gonna pre-record it or if they really plan on having the players and casters operate on the graveyard shift in germany for a week or so. Then there's the that whole chinese players having to get different visa's thing...
Never seen an event get moved halfway across the world like this. I'm really surprised there wasn't any option in the US to host it. In house at blizz? Or rent out a conference room at a hotel and do it FGC style?
On March 08 2014 11:11 TotalBiscuit wrote: Got some serious concerns regarding travel compensation which was supposed to be done through NASL. Hopefully we'll get an answer from Blizzard soon about it otherwise that could be a huge suckerpunch to teams budgets.
You got any Axiom guys in WCS NA atm? Sorry, I haven't been following this season much so I'm a little out of the loop. I really think Bizzard should pick up the tab for it regardless, they are the ultimately responsible party.
3 of em, we have the most of any team in that tournament iirc. We sent them because of travel compensation arrangements made for the 2014 season. This puts that into flux, though I trust Blizzard to have our backs regardless. No doubt other teams with Korean players have similar concerns though. I'm most worried about the Chinese players.
On March 08 2014 11:18 tribulator wrote: I'm really curious if they're gonna pre-record it or if they really plan on having the players and casters operate on the graveyard shift in germany for a week or so. Then there's the that whole chinese players having to get different visa's thing...
Never seen an event get moved halfway across the world like this. I'm really surprised there wasn't any option in the US to host it. In house at blizz? Or rent out a conference room at a hotel and do it FGC style?
I think the problem is that this happened on such short notice. Based on reactions from people within and outside NASL it seems like no one knew before today.
Yeah considering Jim couldn't get a visa in time for WCS Season 2 Finals in Germany, it could be a big problem.
Holy crap. Didn't expect this to happen. And certainly not mid-season. I'm guessing that NASL ran out of cash for their operations, but it seems really sad and another blow to the NA SC2 scene..
On March 08 2014 11:16 zelderan wrote: Kind of disappointing in NASL's decision to be honest. Let's hope another company will step in to support the NA scene. So far it's not looking good. GG.
What "decision"? NASL has been run by venture capitalists and most likely they pulled the plug.
Was trying to browse some vods of Mvp's games in WCS NA and it was quite annoying because the videos would play in strange order, no rhyme or reason. WCS EU's vods are much much better - one youtube video for each series rather than game 1, game 2, game 3 etc.
On March 08 2014 11:11 TotalBiscuit wrote: Got some serious concerns regarding travel compensation which was supposed to be done through NASL. Hopefully we'll get an answer from Blizzard soon about it otherwise that could be a huge suckerpunch to teams budgets.
That seems like a pretty big problem. Also seems like that would majorly affect teamless Koreans like Oz, which communicating issues like this would be difficult to sort out.
I think ESL has a pretty good experience when communicating with Koreans, seriously, it's not the first time. The show must go on...
I guess this means they will run WCS AM at AM friendly times even for the ro16 onwards, the players and casters will have to be up really late if they're in germany though.
That's not a problem per se if they manage to have entirely separate staff for WCS EU and WCS AM so no one has to work 12 hours+ a day.
Only problem is when it comes to Ro16 and onwards, that no crowd in Germany will want to attend an event that goes from like 0 am to 4 am... Wonder how they will manage that problem.
it'll probably just be like when MLG ran it. no crowd. kind of a weird final ceremony
Yeah, either that, or they try to do it on a time that is both acceptable for crowd and for NA viewers. Like 21 CET / 15 EST. Also maybe just drop the price or make attendance totally free could help.
In all seriousness this sucks and Blizzard should maybe consider taking WCS AM completly under their control, also i hope no problems for the players arise and they manage to adjust their sleepschedule, if ESL makes a latenightpartyevent for WCS AM i will surely attend, isnt that far from here, USA USA USA chant included.
The Chinese players could be boned if their visas can't be obtained. But maybe they can get in on a travel visa since this should be a one off thing. Those have to be easier to obtain, right? (Hopeful smile)
On March 08 2014 10:31 Eliezar wrote: I was pretty happy with what NASL was delivering today, but really felt like they botched the opportunity to have something cool when they started. Was surprised to see they lasted as long as they did. Will be interesting to see who fills the void.
I think they were cool from day one. They got a league rolling with a good quality stream and a nice site with VOD's so that you could follow it in your own time. Even the chat was cool. It was all cool.
On March 08 2014 11:11 TotalBiscuit wrote: Got some serious concerns regarding travel compensation which was supposed to be done through NASL. Hopefully we'll get an answer from Blizzard soon about it otherwise that could be a huge suckerpunch to teams budgets.
You got any Axiom guys in WCS NA atm? Sorry, I haven't been following this season much so I'm a little out of the loop. I really think Bizzard should pick up the tab for it regardless, they are the ultimately responsible party.
3 of em, we have the most of any team in that tournament iirc. We sent them because of travel compensation arrangements made for the 2014 season. This puts that into flux, though I trust Blizzard to have our backs regardless. No doubt other teams with Korean players have similar concerns though. I'm most worried about the Chinese players.
Alright, cool. I think you should be pretty safe in that case.
The Chinese guys might be fucked though, no question about that. Hard enough to get a Visa as it is, this just makes it even more of a pain for them.
not sure what's wrong with broadcasting it at the same time they do WCS EU... that's 9am PST. Not too bad for NA and much better for the players and casters in EU.
On March 08 2014 11:26 Popkiller wrote: not sure what's wrong with broadcasting it at the same time they do WCS EU... that's 9am PST. Not too bad for NA and much better for the players and casters in EU.
That's fucking terrible, I'm at work and half of the fa base or more will be at class.
Just seems like a few months ago when I attended WCS Season 3 finals at the Convention Center in Toronto. Really a shame, enjoyed that and watching the NASL finals on stream the year before that where Stephano won... really really feel for NASL and wish everyone there all the best going forward
On March 08 2014 11:26 Popkiller wrote: not sure what's wrong with broadcasting it at the same time they do WCS EU... that's 9am PST. Not too bad for NA and much better for the players and casters in EU.
Because if you play the tournament, which now consists mainly of Koreans and a few Chinese fellows, in EU, on an EU centric timetable, you kind of lose any right to call it WCS NA anymore. It's supposed to be an NA region qualifier for the WCS season and grand finals. If they did that it would just be WCS EU 2.
Blizzard restructures everything so there is a tonne of time between active seasons. and still a league goes tits up midway through a season.
its telling that this happens right in the middle of a season rather than in a nice clean neat and tidy way between seasons.
"Alas, fate has scouted our fast expand, and our time broadcasting StarCraft has come to an end. To all of our partners, sponsors, friends, and especially our fans, thank you. "
NASL needed extra cash so when they built their expansion command center they converted it to an orbital command. i guess they couldn't afford bunkers, missile turrets and a planetary fortress upgrade..
I guess this means they will run WCS AM at AM friendly times even for the ro16 onwards, the players and casters will have to be up really late if they're in germany though.
that seems to go against what was said by Kaivax on reddit who basically said that times are still TBD for RO16 on.
On March 08 2014 11:26 Popkiller wrote: not sure what's wrong with broadcasting it at the same time they do WCS EU... that's 9am PST. Not too bad for NA and much better for the players and casters in EU.
That's fucking terrible, I'm at work and half of the fa base or more will be at class.
On March 08 2014 11:33 Advantageous wrote: R.I.P. NASL... i knew something was fishy when frodan, bitter, clutch were no longer involved. never thought this day would come... #dicey ((
aw man I just realized we may never here "I DON'T KNOW KEV IT'S GETTING KINDA DICEY" ever again
On March 08 2014 11:26 Popkiller wrote: not sure what's wrong with broadcasting it at the same time they do WCS EU... that's 9am PST. Not too bad for NA and much better for the players and casters in EU.
That's fucking terrible, I'm at work and half of the fa base or more will be at class.
I guess this means they will run WCS AM at AM friendly times even for the ro16 onwards, the players and casters will have to be up really late if they're in germany though.
that seems to go against what was said by Kaivax on reddit who basically said that times are still TBD for RO16 on.
On March 08 2014 11:33 Advantageous wrote: R.I.P. NASL... i knew something was fishy when frodan, bitter, clutch were no longer involved. never thought this day would come... #dicey ((
aw man I just realized we may never here "I DON'T KNOW KEV IT'S GETTING KINDA DICEY" ever again
On March 08 2014 11:33 Advantageous wrote: R.I.P. NASL... i knew something was fishy when frodan, bitter, clutch were no longer involved. never thought this day would come... #dicey ((
aw man I just realized we may never here "I DON'T KNOW KEV IT'S GETTING KINDA DICEY" ever again
On March 08 2014 11:33 Advantageous wrote: R.I.P. NASL... i knew something was fishy when frodan, bitter, clutch were no longer involved. never thought this day would come... #dicey ((
aw man I just realized we may never here "I DON'T KNOW KEV IT'S GETTING KINDA DICEY" ever again
They can invite Rotti to cast an RB event and hey, there is always Harstem
On March 08 2014 11:44 Bagration wrote: Damn, now not only are NA players basically extinct from WCS Premier, but now even the tournament is being run by EU.
At least ESL will put on a good show
if ESL is based in Europe i think they'll have a hard time putting on solid live events in NA.
my prediction is... the live events for WCS AM in 2014 will suck balls compared to the final WCS event organized by NASL.
ESL's online only stuff should be good though.
basically, Blizzard is unwilling to pay MLG enough money to make it worth their while.
Just goes to show how fragile the sc2 business is. There's just barely enough interest in the game that, if nothing goes wrong, they stay afloat. Unfortunately, looks like a few things went wrong for them.
On March 08 2014 11:22 Plansix wrote: The Chinese players could be boned if their visas can't be obtained. But maybe they can get in on a travel visa since this should be a one off thing. Those have to be easier to obtain, right? (Hopeful smile)
how many Chinese players are there in WCS NA that need visas?
EDIT: ok looking at the wiki
its 2 so far, Xigua and Toodming, mostly Koreans in the ro16 lol
all Koreans so far except for Huk, Xigua, and Toodming
On March 08 2014 11:44 Bagration wrote: Damn, now not only are NA players basically extinct from WCS Premier, but now even the tournament is being run by EU.
At least ESL will put on a good show
if ESL is based in Europe i think they'll have a hard time putting on solid live events in NA.
my prediction is... the live events for WCS AM in 2014 will suck balls compared to the final WCS event organized by NASL.
ESL's online only stuff should be good though.
basically, Blizzard is unwilling to pay MLG enough money to make it worth their while.
So wrong. So so wrong. One you are assuming ESL will be running seasons 2 and 3. Two, ESL has been putting on events I'm NA for years.
Really sad news. After their rocky start, I really came to love NASL. The broadcasts were quality, and they had a lot more personality than many of the other tournament organizations. The scene is definitely worse off without them.
On March 08 2014 11:44 Bagration wrote: Damn, now not only are NA players basically extinct from WCS Premier, but now even the tournament is being run by EU.
At least ESL will put on a good show
if ESL is based in Europe i think they'll have a hard time putting on solid live events in NA.
my prediction is... the live events for WCS AM in 2014 will suck balls compared to the final WCS event organized by NASL.
ESL's online only stuff should be good though.
basically, Blizzard is unwilling to pay MLG enough money to make it worth their while.
? ESL hosts the most geographically diverse set of events out of any organizer
WCS is falling apart... Korea wants *GSL CODE S* back, so its not really WCS korea anymore. Wcs america is in europe with mostly korean players... so its not really WCS america anymore..
ANd WCS europe cant be WCS europe if its the only region where theres a WCS.
On March 08 2014 11:55 Snake.69 wrote: WCS is falling apart... Korea wants *GSL CODE S* back, so its not really WCS korea anymore. Wcs america is in europe with mostly korean players... so its not really WCS america anymore..
ANd WCS europe cant be WCS europe if its the only region where theres a WCS.
What are you even talking about.. GSL hasn't changed...
On March 08 2014 11:55 Snake.69 wrote: WCS is falling apart... Korea wants *GSL CODE S* back, so its not really WCS korea anymore. Wcs america is in europe with mostly korean players... so its not really WCS america anymore..
ANd WCS europe cant be WCS europe if its the only region where theres a WCS.
You're partly right, the situation right now is a bit sketchy, but I hope Blizz will find a new organization in NA that can run future seasons of WCS NA. On the identity problem with Huk being the only American player in WCS NA... well, we never mentioned region lock, did we?
On March 08 2014 11:44 Bagration wrote: Damn, now not only are NA players basically extinct from WCS Premier, but now even the tournament is being run by EU.
At least ESL will put on a good show
if ESL is based in Europe i think they'll have a hard time putting on solid live events in NA.
my prediction is... the live events for WCS AM in 2014 will suck balls compared to the final WCS event organized by NASL.
ESL's online only stuff should be good though.
basically, Blizzard is unwilling to pay MLG enough money to make it worth their while.
So wrong. So so wrong. One you are assuming ESL will be running seasons 2 and 3. Two, ESL has been putting on events I'm NA for years.
this is a fly by seat-of-their-pants last minute decision.. not some calculated move
so you are predicting a live event as good or better than the final event organized by NASL in 2013? i'm predicting they live events in NA will be worse and just part of the general decline of the SC2 esports scene.
its not economically viable, especially in NA where you have a population so spread out. the live events in 2014 in NA will reflect its lack of viability.
If the WCS finals occur at Blizzcon 2014 it'll be great because Blizzard is willing to lose money on that show.
On March 08 2014 12:06 Mattumsfox wrote: Redbull to run seasons 2 and 3?
that assumes they want it. WCS NA seems to be a money loser and I don't think RedBull will want to be seen having a failure and will probably play it safe and keep a distance from WCS NA. (My completely speculative guess of course)
On March 08 2014 11:26 Popkiller wrote: not sure what's wrong with broadcasting it at the same time they do WCS EU... that's 9am PST. Not too bad for NA and much better for the players and casters in EU.
That's fucking terrible, I'm at work and half of the fa base or more will be at class.
NA fans are almost like second class citizens.
There's like less than half the number of regular NA viewers as opposed to EU. It's to be expected that EU would get priority. The EU audience is more reliable and there's more of them.
On March 08 2014 11:44 Bagration wrote: Damn, now not only are NA players basically extinct from WCS Premier, but now even the tournament is being run by EU.
At least ESL will put on a good show
if ESL is based in Europe i think they'll have a hard time putting on solid live events in NA.
my prediction is... the live events for WCS AM in 2014 will suck balls compared to the final WCS event organized by NASL.
ESL's online only stuff should be good though.
basically, Blizzard is unwilling to pay MLG enough money to make it worth their while.
So wrong. So so wrong. One you are assuming ESL will be running seasons 2 and 3. Two, ESL has been putting on events I'm NA for years.
this is a fly by seat-of-their-pants last minute decision.. not some calculated move
so you are predicting a live event as good or better than the final event organized by NASL in 2013? i'm predicting they live events willl be worse and just part of the general decline of the SC2 esports scene.
What live event are we talking about here? The events will basically mirror WCS EU, which has been better than WCS NA. There are no more season finals, so no reason to compare to the Toronto event. The WCS AM season finals were at Red bull. Which was a nice event for sure, but nothing amazing that ESL won't match or better.
Red Bull will most likely pick up WCS NA for season 2 would be my guess. Would make sense with their recent announcements about getting involved with ESPORTs and Sc2 plus Bitter has gone there too.
I was just thinking it would be cool if they gave it back to the Blizzard studio, like WCS NA '13 season 2 challenger. Then I remembered that Blizzard just closed down that studio...
RIP NASL, the only surviving NA broadcaster. Unless... MLG wants it back? Do they have SCII casters anymore?
On March 08 2014 12:29 klipik12 wrote: I was just thinking it would be cool if they gave it back to the Blizzard studio, like WCS NA '13 season 2 challenger. Then I remembered that Blizzard just closed down that studio...
RIP NASL, the only surviving NA broadcaster. Unless... MLG wants it back? Do they have SCII casters anymore?
They are bringing back SC2 at MLG Anaheim. I am not sure if they still have their studio in NY.
Rotterdam must have known about this before the announcement because nathanias tweeted that the cat's out of the bag and that he would be casting with Rotterdam next week. If nathanias knew, then don't you think Rotterdam would know too?
On March 08 2014 12:29 klipik12 wrote: I was just thinking it would be cool if they gave it back to the Blizzard studio, like WCS NA '13 season 2 challenger. Then I remembered that Blizzard just closed down that studio...
RIP NASL, the only surviving NA broadcaster. Unless... MLG wants it back? Do they have SCII casters anymore?
They are bringing back SC2 at MLG Anaheim. I am not sure if they still have their studio in NY.
I know they're bringing it back at their tournaments, I was talking about WCS specifically. After how season 1 went for them last year, I doubt they really want it back. Plus, it would probably be on their own website instead of twitch with the terrible chat and no view counts anyway.
On March 08 2014 12:33 Canucklehead wrote: Rotterdam must have known about this before the announcement because nathanias tweeted that the cat's out of the bag and that he would be casting with Rotterdam next week. If nathanias knew, then don't you think Rotterdam would know too?
On March 08 2014 12:33 Canucklehead wrote: Rotterdam must have known about this before the announcement because nathanias tweeted that the cat's out of the bag and that he would be casting with Rotterdam next week. If nathanias knew, then don't you think Rotterdam would know too?
Not when he's saying
Asking and wondering about my situation now, I didn't know about this. It was a bit of a shock but no need to worry, I should be alright.
With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
I really don't think there's any uncertainty... Blizzard isn't going to let there not be future AM seasons just because NASL stopped being their broadcaster. It would be unfair to so many regions. They'll find a broadcaster for future seasons for sure.
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
If they or their team, or their sponsors, thinks that the production and marketing will be botched to the point where they're not being adequately represented for their time and money, they will have a reason to leave. Especially for the NA powerhouses who could easily make it into EU premier.
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
At this rate, dissolving WCS: AM and integrating it with WCS: EU (to create say, WCS: International) seems like the most logical move.
honestly despite a lot of good contents NASL has put out, NASL really should have dealt with this more professionally. the whole scene is still very infant and inexperienced, these announcements should have been notified to some parties and certainly should not be done during mid season.
This underlines the unprofessionalism and struggle of the role of SC2 in eSports. An operator just quits work in the season, Blizzard is lucky to get ESL that fast. It is a sad story and the announcement of Blizzard looks really smooth, regarding this occasion...
On March 08 2014 12:25 jmbthirteen wrote: There are no more season finals, so no reason to compare to the Toronto event. The WCS AM season finals were at Red bull. Which was a nice event for sure, but nothing amazing that ESL won't match or better.
ok, so we pretend it never happened to make it seem like everything is fine? LOL. fewer live events is part of the general decline.
SC2 eSports live events in NA in 2014 won't be as good in terms of quality and quantity... and this haphazard switch from NASL to ESL is merely a symptom. the decline continues.
i'm not blaming ESL in any way. they are just the guys left holding the bag with fewer and fewer resources being dedicated to making live events in NA a great experience.
first i was like daed game sc2 [please dont ban me cause of this] but then i realized that MLG or even Redbull might take the next broadcaster step for WCS AM right? and btw did this all start because of Mr.Bitter's switch to Redbull? hmm.. GG WP NASL i fcking loved The Pulse and your awesome work at #wcsAM and i hope u will have a nice future and hopefully this "end" of the NASL will give #wcsAM and a new broadcaster a new opening
On March 08 2014 12:33 Canucklehead wrote: Rotterdam must have known about this before the announcement because nathanias tweeted that the cat's out of the bag and that he would be casting with Rotterdam next week. If nathanias knew, then don't you think Rotterdam would know too?
Sure if you read the tweet by itself. However, after his second tweet, you can infer that the first tweet was just trolling until he had the green light to reveal the news. Do you think that he was contacted after the announcement to cast with rotterdam? If he was, he wouldn't have said the cat's out of the bag, which implies he was holding onto a secret and now can reveal it.
This was sudden for the public to know, but behind the scenes people at ESL knew because they had to plan and get ready for this. There's no way nathanias got the casting gig 1 hour after the announcement as ESL had to plan this ahead of time. Unless you're going to tell me ESL had this all planned out, but only contacted nathanias and rotterdam to cast next week after the announcement today. I find that hard to believe. I'm not saying they knew weeks in advance. I'm just saying they knew before the public announcement.
What a disastrous loss for the community . I loved the NASL. It was quirky, but it had a lot of heart and you could feel the passion of everyone involved. This doesn't fit a healthy pattern for esports after IGN and MLG.
Does anyone else find humour in how meaningless the NASL announcement was in regards to clarifying anything? It went on about how NASL was growing and expanding... growing and expanding in SC2 every single year.... then ended with a lame and meaningless sc2 reference as to why they are leaving WCS. What was the real reason? If they aren't going to reveal the real reason, they shouldn't have bothered making such a pointless announcement at all.
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
At this rate, dissolving WCS: AM and integrating it with WCS: EU (to creation say, WCS: International) seems like the most logical move.
this is a good idea. if not Blizzard needs to write a giant mofo of a cheque and hand it to Sundance/MLG and make this problem go away.
the last thing Blizzard needs to do is get directly involved in running any competitive esports league. they need to focus on making games.
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
At this rate, dissolving WCS: AM and integrating it with WCS: EU (to create say, WCS: International) seems like the most logical move.
Um no. That goes against Blizzard wanting to bring about aspiring gamers into SC2 and make a name for themselves, especially in America server which is second weakest. At least that's what I think?
I personally think the best way to do this is for Blizzard themselves to do WCS AM. Don't they still have the IPL team?
On March 08 2014 13:10 Zanzabarr wrote: Does anyone else find humour in how meaningless the NASL announcement was in regards to clarifying anything? It went on about how NASL was growing and expanding... growing and expanding in SC2 every single year.... then ended with a lame and meaningless sc2 reference as to why they are leaving WCS. What was the real reason? If they aren't going to reveal the real reason, they shouldn't have bothered making such a pointless announcement at all.
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
If they or their team, or their sponsors, thinks that the production and marketing will be botched to the point where they're not being adequately represented for their time and money, they will have a reason to leave. Especially for the NA powerhouses who could easily make it into EU premier.
Exactly. Guys like Taeja Polt Hero JD Bomber are probably all the favorites in WCS EU the moment they join. Plus lets not forget that WCS AM with MLG wasn't exactly the best run season we have had. Compare that with WCS EU which seems to very rarely have issues and I don't think its absurd to think some guys might consider leaving. (especially if you think about guys that are already knocked out like Hero and JD, they could just start getting ready to do the WCS EU open qualifier now)
WTH @those tweets. I checked Rotti's twitter and he said he had no idea this was going down. How can you go about a reshuffling w/o involving your main caster?
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
At this rate, dissolving WCS: AM and integrating it with WCS: EU (to create say, WCS: International) seems like the most logical move.
Um no. That goes against Blizzard wanting to bring about aspiring gamers into SC2 and make a name for themselves, especially in America server which is second weakest. At least that's what I think?
I personally think the best way to do this is for Blizzard themselves to do WCS AM. Don't they still have the IPL team?
Blizzard as an organiser will probably suffer a number of problems that NASL and MLG experienced while running the event. Simply put, they're not in a position where they're capable of turning out a professional level product before Season 2. A lot of that comes with experience and really only ESL and Redbull have that at the moment. Since both orgs. running WCS AM have given it up, and with viewership less than other regions it's within reason to assume that its just a money sink right now. Consolidation including regional quotas as under the current system would still protect rising talent and unite viewership under a single event.
On March 08 2014 13:30 ssxsilver wrote: WTH @those tweets. I checked Rotti's twitter and he said he had no idea this was going down. How can you go about a reshuffling w/o involving your main caster?
He's assuming that ESL set up the Nathanias gig to cast with Rotterdam.
It's entirely possible Nathanias and Rotti were set to cast WCS NA together under NASL, before NASL dropped out. (That being the "bagged cat".) ESL picked up the slack and took both on board to cast quickly.
That's one possibility anyway. At this point, it's entirely conjecture that flies in the face of every public statement made - Bitter says he didn't know. Rotti says he didn't know. Why wouldn't they both see this coming if ESL and Nathanias (who were not inside the company) knew? Why wouldn't Blizzard know and have everything lined up for a more smooth succession?
On March 08 2014 13:30 ssxsilver wrote: WTH @those tweets. I checked Rotti's twitter and he said he had no idea this was going down. How can you go about a reshuffling w/o involving your main caster?
He's assuming that ESL set up the Nathanias gig to cast with Rotterdam.
It's entirely possible Nathanias and Rotti were set to cast WCS NA together under NASL, before NASL dropped out. (That being the "bagged cat".) ESL picked up the slack and took both on board to cast quickly.
That's one possibility anyway. At this point, it's entirely conjecture that flies in the face of every public statement made - Bitter says he didn't know. Rotti says he didn't know. Why wouldn't they both see this coming if ESL and Nathanias (who were not inside the company) knew? Why wouldn't Blizzard know and have everything lined up for a more smooth succession?
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
At this rate, dissolving WCS: AM and integrating it with WCS: EU (to create say, WCS: International) seems like the most logical move.
Um no. That goes against Blizzard wanting to bring about aspiring gamers into SC2 and make a name for themselves, especially in America server which is second weakest. At least that's what I think?
I personally think the best way to do this is for Blizzard themselves to do WCS AM. Don't they still have the IPL team?
On March 08 2014 13:30 ssxsilver wrote: WTH @those tweets. I checked Rotti's twitter and he said he had no idea this was going down. How can you go about a reshuffling w/o involving your main caster?
He's assuming that ESL set up the Nathanias gig to cast with Rotterdam.
It's entirely possible Nathanias and Rotti were set to cast WCS NA together under NASL, before NASL dropped out. (That being the "bagged cat".) ESL picked up the slack and took both on board to cast quickly.
That's one possibility anyway. At this point, it's entirely conjecture that flies in the face of every public statement made - Bitter says he didn't know. Rotti says he didn't know. Why wouldn't they both see this coming if ESL and Nathanias (who were not inside the company) knew? Why wouldn't Blizzard know and have everything lined up for a more smooth succession?
I dunno. Slasher's on it, though.
I think you're looking into it wayyyy too much.
Nah. I'm willing to trust you, Bitter, and Rotti rather than look for strange conspiracies of silence, like some people in this thread have been. It's also possible ESL just went "hey, Rotti needs a caster" and asked you to do it quickly.
Who knows. Good to know there will be a good casting team no matter how it all happened.
Honestly I have faith these will get worked out in the end. Hopefully Redbull comes and picks up the slack, or this opens the door for another aspiring company to expand their presence and make a name for themselves. ESL could always expand with an NA division or something and basically dominate the WCS broadcasting in both regions.
Anyways, sad to see NASL go but according to players and such they were dropping the ball in some areas, and leaving mid-season with little to no explanation about why is pretty lame. And that ultra lame announcement that explained absolutely nothing and cleared up 0 confusion is a joke. It's just amazing how they rely on this community to survive for so long and then when it's time to dip out we don't get jack shit. I hope they realize this and treat whatever else they decide to do next with more respect.
Seems like the only thing we can infer is that NASL could not sustain the costs of running WCS:America and had to dissolve rather quickly. Why they did this mid-season and not at the beginning is odd, perhaps they thought subscriptions would increase to offset costs?
I guess Blizzard doesn't offer that much support in terms of money. They want organizations to follow their rules but I guess they don't offer much more than prize money and branding. We know from TB in this thread that NASL offered to pay for flights and not Blizzard, so that confirms Blizzard doesn't offer as much you would suspect.
Also WTF is up with Blizzard's contracts? NASL either had to pay penalties for cancelling mid-season or there were no repercussions for dropping support for SC2. Which would further the idea that Blizzard offers little monetary support.
You would think a billion-dollar company would plan for these contingencies.
edit: I also doubt Red Bull would pick up WCS unless Blizzard offers significantly more creative and advertising licenses toward Red Bull.
If you watched any Red Bull event they weren't billed as SC2 tournaments, they were Red Bull Lans with their image plastered everywhere. Even the winners were titled as Red Bull winners not SC2 champions. So unless WCS becomes the Red Bull Series I highly doubt it will happen.
The only organization right now that has the resources and the staff to do WCS in North America is MLG and unless MLG gets more money from Blizzard that is unlikely as well.
On March 08 2014 13:30 ssxsilver wrote: WTH @those tweets. I checked Rotti's twitter and he said he had no idea this was going down. How can you go about a reshuffling w/o involving your main caster?
He's assuming that ESL set up the Nathanias gig to cast with Rotterdam.
It's entirely possible Nathanias and Rotti were set to cast WCS NA together under NASL, before NASL dropped out. (That being the "bagged cat".) ESL picked up the slack and took both on board to cast quickly.
That's one possibility anyway. At this point, it's entirely conjecture that flies in the face of every public statement made - Bitter says he didn't know. Rotti says he didn't know. Why wouldn't they both see this coming if ESL and Nathanias (who were not inside the company) knew? Why wouldn't Blizzard know and have everything lined up for a more smooth succession?
I dunno. Slasher's on it, though.
I think you're looking into it wayyyy too much.
I think he is right on money. he is making perfect sense and any statement out of you is just an approval.
On March 08 2014 15:28 TRaFFiC wrote: what? Not even close Id say. though you bring up some interesting questions.
Activision-Blizzard isn't a billion dollar company?
Whoever is in their legal department isn't doing their jobs or they just didn't care about these scenarios. This makes Blizzard look unprofessional moreso than NASL.
On March 08 2014 15:28 TRaFFiC wrote: what? Not even close Id say. though you bring up some interesting questions.
Activision-Blizzard isn't a billion dollar company?
Whoever is in their legal department isn't doing their jobs or they just didn't care about these scenarios. This makes Blizzard look unprofessional moreso than NASL.
On March 08 2014 15:28 TRaFFiC wrote: what? Not even close Id say. though you bring up some interesting questions.
Activision-Blizzard isn't a billion dollar company?
Whoever is in their legal department isn't doing their jobs or they just didn't care about these scenarios. This makes Blizzard look unprofessional moreso than NASL.
On their balance sheet, it shows 14 million in Assets. I wish I could deduce more, but only took beginner accounting.
Its easy to nit pick when youre not running the show. I wouldnt make such conclusions without evidence.
Going by wiki it's 14 billion with an annual revenue of ~5 billion. I'm guessing you misread the thousands of millions on the paper. But this is besides the point, the only thing we can infer from this thread is that Blizzard doesn't offer the support to these organizations that we think we do.
TB stated a few pages ago that NASL was the company that would be paying the flights for his players not Blizzard. Paying international round trip flights for ~16ish people to America is expensive. NASL probably paid around $75,000-$100,000 per year (3 WCS events), this is just one expense for a company that always struggled to stay afloat and secure monetary support (which obviously they don't have or else this crisis would be happening).
The only question we should be asking is what monetary support is Blizzard actually providing? If it's just prize pool money I can easily see how it hurts these organizations financially.
This isn't nitpicking this is trying to figure out why this happened. I hardly doubt Slasher will find anything substantial and if he does I doubt he would say anything that hurts the image of either these organizations.
What the fuck is going on? Is NASL not owned by Hero Entertainment or whatever production company, are they going under as well?
Closing down with such short notice (im guessing) and Bitter jumping the ship Rotterdam must have known about it or was protected by people. Can't wait for someone to get the details because honestly this announcement doesn't do NASL enough justice.
Edit: And look who's getting a 2nd chance, don't fuck it up MLG. (talking about next season since I can't see ESL actually doing a full on season from their studio at such a time)
I'm sure the ESL guys will do a great job, as they are wont to do, but this really sucks for the NA scene. Who is left that can run a "WCS-quality" production now? Redbull? Blizzard themselves? Jeez...
Also I'm really going to miss going to the WCS NA finals live.
On March 08 2014 15:28 TRaFFiC wrote: what? Not even close Id say. though you bring up some interesting questions.
Activision-Blizzard isn't a billion dollar company?
Whoever is in their legal department isn't doing their jobs or they just didn't care about these scenarios. This makes Blizzard look unprofessional moreso than NASL.
On March 08 2014 15:28 TRaFFiC wrote: what? Not even close Id say. though you bring up some interesting questions.
Activision-Blizzard isn't a billion dollar company?
Whoever is in their legal department isn't doing their jobs or they just didn't care about these scenarios. This makes Blizzard look unprofessional moreso than NASL.
On their balance sheet, it shows 14 million in Assets. I wish I could deduce more, but only took beginner accounting.
Its easy to nit pick when youre not running the show. I wouldnt make such conclusions without evidence.
Going by wiki it's 14 billion with an annual revenue of ~5 billion. I'm guessing you misread the thousands of millions on the paper. But this is besides the point, the only thing we can infer from this thread is that Blizzard doesn't offer the support to these organizations that we think we do.
TB stated a few pages ago that NASL was the company that would be paying the flights for his players not Blizzard. Paying international round trip flights for ~16ish people to America is expensive. NASL probably paid around $75,000-$100,000 per year (3 WCS events), this is just one expense for a company that always struggled to stay afloat and secure monetary support (which obviously they don't have or else this crisis would be happening).
The only question we should be asking is what monetary support is Blizzard actually providing? If it's just prize pool money I can easily see how it hurts these organizations financially.
This isn't nitpicking this is trying to figure out why this happened. I hardly doubt Slasher will find anything substantial and if he does I doubt he would say anything that hurts the image of either these organizations.
I wouldnt just assume blizzard has the resources to fix everyones problems, though I would be interested to know what arrangement they had.
WoT season is ending. With political troubles over in Ukraine/Russia and WoT not soo much gaining track in NA, they may lose /have lost that source of income. Operating alone on SC2, and losing their main guy to run operation (Bitter) leaves HeroLevel is a very bad spot. Dropping it all then is logical. They either will come out with a Titanfall show, or have to dissolve the production company.
NASL recently informed Blizzard that it would be unable to honor its commitment to operate the WCS America Season 1 competition.
But if I go to their website, the only thing I see is StarCraft. I guess they're fully switching to Wot/picking up other games? Or maybe they're going down?
I hate it when they don't give a reason.
Alas, fate has scouted our fast expand, and our time broadcasting StarCraft has come to an end. To all of our partners, sponsors, friends, and especially our fans, thank you.
ESL saving e-Sports, will NASL sound guy work for ESL now? Nath-erdam might be a good combo, who knows, best of luck to both of them and ESL and WCS NA and god bless 'murica
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
At this rate, dissolving WCS: AM and integrating it with WCS: EU (to create say, WCS: International) seems like the most logical move.
Um no. That goes against Blizzard wanting to bring about aspiring gamers into SC2 and make a name for themselves, especially in America server which is second weakest. At least that's what I think?
I personally think the best way to do this is for Blizzard themselves to do WCS AM. Don't they still have the IPL team?
Blizzard as an organiser will probably suffer a number of problems that NASL and MLG experienced while running the event. Simply put, they're not in a position where they're capable of turning out a professional level product before Season 2. A lot of that comes with experience and really only ESL and Redbull have that at the moment. Since both orgs. running WCS AM have given it up, and with viewership less than other regions it's within reason to assume that its just a money sink right now. Consolidation including regional quotas as under the current system would still protect rising talent and unite viewership under a single event.
The question is what about the casting schedule. Many EU viewers cannot really watch AM live and vice versa.
if bitter and rotti ACTUALLY didnt know about this, then that's pretty messed up. i wish we had some more info on why nasl has to drop sc2 so suddenly.
Woah, that's really unexpected. I'm sad to see NASL leave Starcraft, but the circumstance of it (jumping ship in the middle of a commitment) leave a shale taste in my mouth. I hope they find a good stable broadcasting partner or ramp up their in house broadcasting staff again, with HeroesotS coming up and possibly the Hearthstone scene, it wouldn't even be a SC2 only investment and would pay of for Blizz for sure.
NASL ((((((( My all-time favourite thing to watch, NASL S3 was the tournament that truly got me into watching SC2. Used to spend my breaks and skips at school to catch up with last nights VODs. Well, time goes on but it still makes me very sad.
On March 08 2014 09:55 Squat wrote: It would be kind of funny if a bunch of NA natives had to drop out due to visa issues.
Don't worry, that won't happen, Germany is a colony of the US.
politically that's right wing / extremist bullshit... not saying that you are one, because I think you meant it ironic.
@topic: Well I think ESL will make a decent show. But sad to see the NASL dropping SC2 entirely.
Of course I meant it ironic, it was a reference to NSL scandal more than anything, keep those right-wing nutjobs away from me It's very, very rare that a US/Canadian citizen gets denied a VISA, so we really won't need to worry about VISA issues preventing any players from attending, as long as they don't forget to file for it in time. Germany <-> US even has an electronic VISA system, so it's really fast to file for it.
On March 08 2014 19:01 Amiralsims wrote: So WCS America will take place in Europe. This is ridiculous.
Pretty much sums it up. Shows lack of contingency planning on behalf of Blizzard I would say, but then again, I suppose they were taken as much by surprise as anyone else. I can't imagine the people behind NASL will be let anywhere near any official SC2 tournament after this.
On March 08 2014 19:01 Amiralsims wrote: So WCS America will take place in Europe. This is ridiculous.
Pretty much sums it up. Shows lack of contingency planning on behalf of Blizzard I would say, but then again, I suppose they were taken as much by surprise as anyone else. I can't imagine the people behind NASL will be let anywhere near any official SC2 tournament after this.
Well it's probably just crisis management from Blizzard's side. They probably just heard it yesterday as well and called ESL with whom they have good relations as they also produced blizzcon. It's just a make-shift solution so WCS NA doesn't fail. I'm sure they'll look at other options for season 2 and 3.
On March 08 2014 11:55 Snake.69 wrote: WCS is falling apart... Korea wants *GSL CODE S* back, so its not really WCS korea anymore. Wcs america is in europe with mostly korean players... so its not really WCS america anymore..
ANd WCS europe cant be WCS europe if its the only region where theres a WCS.
You're partly right, the situation right now is a bit sketchy, but I hope Blizz will find a new organization in NA that can run future seasons of WCS NA. On the identity problem with Huk being the only American player in WCS NA... well, we never mentioned region lock, did we?
So its the Koreans fault that the NA players suck?
If WCS NA can't survive with viewers watching Koreans then how on earth could they survive with no one watching the NA players?
On March 08 2014 19:01 Amiralsims wrote: So WCS America will take place in Europe. This is ridiculous.
Pretty much sums it up. Shows lack of contingency planning on behalf of Blizzard I would say, but then again, I suppose they were taken as much by surprise as anyone else. I can't imagine the people behind NASL will be let anywhere near any official SC2 tournament after this.
Anyone surprised that an eSports broadcasting company goes under is stupid.
It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams still have sovereignty over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
Well it is sad to see WCS AM not doing so good but it is like it is. Maybe ESL can set up a studio in the US.
On March 08 2014 19:49 crow_mw wrote: Up to date NASL league (before wcs) is the best sc2 show ever broadcasted.
What? Were you around for IPL? Iron Squid? Red Bull?
Since its creation NASL always had the shadow hanging over it of being an amateurish organisation aiming higher than they realistically should have. The way they just quit the SC2 scene seems to confirm this.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
Part of me wonders how much of this situation was created when Blizzard handed WCS NA over to MLG in the first place. Yes, MLG is great at live events, but they clearly were not prepared for the weekly casts that were going to be required of them for WCS. NASL started with the weekly casts and built up from there. And were more well equipped at the time to handle Blizzards vision imo.
It really saddens me to see another promoter / broadcaster leaving a game that still has such a large draw.
I just don't know about this anymore... Perhaps we all need to take a step back and look out our hobby as a whole.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
all dat ESL money. Share a bit with dh would you !
Anyways that's a good news to me, NASL was very bad and they did not do anything beside WCS, at least ESL got IEM and some online cups / teamleagues, i'd rather give them some money.
Still a bit weird that DH didn't jump on that, i mean they wanted to tap into the american market, this was golden opportunity.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
1 ~ there's no such thing as a good monopoly.
2 ~ there's more competition now amongst the players than before. (looking at you scarlett, nani, tlo, state, minigun... all of whom can compete well with the best in the world)
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
On March 08 2014 20:34 shid0x wrote: all dat ESL money. Share a bit with dh would you !
Anyways that's a good news to me, NASL was very bad and they did not do anything beside WCS, at least ESL got IEM and some online cups / teamleagues, i'd rather give them some money.
Still a bit weird that DH didn't jump on that, i mean they wanted to tap into the american market, this was golden opportunity.
Well DH is about huge events and less about daily production
On March 08 2014 20:34 shid0x wrote: all dat ESL money. Share a bit with dh would you !
Anyways that's a good news to me, NASL was very bad and they did not do anything beside WCS, at least ESL got IEM and some online cups / teamleagues, i'd rather give them some money.
Still a bit weird that DH didn't jump on that, i mean they wanted to tap into the american market, this was golden opportunity.
what a silly comment. My guess goes more like this: NASL couldn`t do it anymore, which meant huge trouble for WCS America. ESL steps in to help - not to draw extra profit out of this shitty situation. Have you even asked DH if they wanted to cover WCS America? It`s not like WCS America is a huge cashcow or anything. Remember MLG that stoped doing it because it was not profitable.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
Well you're forgetting the rule that no tournaments of reasonable size can be played at the same time as WCS is on. It hurt NASL very much. They couldn't produce content for quite some months
On March 08 2014 20:37 nihilluz wrote: 1 ~ there's no such thing as a good monopoly.
2 ~ there's more competition now amongst the players than before. (looking at you scarlett, nani, tlo, state, minigun... all of whom can compete well with the best in the world)
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
I strongly disagree this, this is the main reason that other tourneys are worse ("killing them, WCS needs more value/respect than now"). We need a lot more indepedency and exclusiveness, this has missed since sc2 release.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
1 ~ there's no such thing as a good monopoly.
2 ~ there's more competition now amongst the players than before. (looking at you scarlett, nani, tlo, state, minigun... all of whom can compete well with the best in the world)
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
You really believe WCS has had a positive impact on players' skill level? No one is a bigger minigun fan boy than me, but to my knowledge he hasn't even played on the Korean ladder and is just now starting to play on EU. Talented players with a chance to win something are going to be able to compete with the best in the world, regardless. To raise the general skill level, you have to give more players than just 5 a realistic chance to win something.
In the long run, what improves the skill level is getting new blood into your game and giving people a reason to practice enough to realize w/e potential they might have. There is no way in hell the new WCS system has done anything like that. With this WCS system, I probably wouldn't have gotten SC 2.
Even from a viewer standpoint/curiosity standpoint. I'd much rather know who is the best player in the Americas than have thestc knocking out maybe the best one in the round of 32 and making it a tournament where I can't gleam jack.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
Well you're forgetting the rule that no tournaments of reasonable size can be played at the same time as WCS is on. It hurt NASL very much.
Didn't forget. It makes sense. You don't see the PGA scheduling a two major tourneys against each other. Or FIFA allowing any major international soccer tourney to be scheduled against the world cup.
We keep wanting esports to be taken seriously.... when are we as the fans going to take it seriously?
it's not going to be DH tomorrow during the day, then Shoutcraft that same afternoon, followed up by GSL that evening with Proleague capping it off. and to think that such scheduling is a good idea is bad.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
1 ~ there's no such thing as a good monopoly.
2 ~ there's more competition now amongst the players than before. (looking at you scarlett, nani, tlo, state, minigun... all of whom can compete well with the best in the world)
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
You really believe WCS has had a positive impact on players' skill level? No one is a bigger minigun fan boy than me, but to my knowledge he hasn't even played on the Korean ladder and is just now starting to play on EU. Talented players with a chance to win something are going to be able to compete with the best in the world, regardless. To raise the general skill level, you have to give more players than just 5 a realistic chance to win something.
In the long run, what improves the skill level is getting new blood into your game and giving people a reason to practice enough to realize w/e potential they might have. There is no way in hell the new WCS system has done anything like that. With this WCS system, I probably wouldn't have gotten SC 2.
Even from a viewer standpoint/curiosity standpoint. I'd much rather know who is the best player in the Americas than have thestc knocking out maybe the best one in the round of 32 and making it a tournament where I can't gleam jack.
So people are too lazy to learn about the Korean players and see what their personality is?
Fun fact: The NA scene is smaller than what most people actually think it is. If the viewership of WCS NA (with top Koreans) isn't profitable enough to survive, than how would have region locked WCS NA survived with no top Koreans and second and third tier NA players?
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
1 ~ there's no such thing as a good monopoly.
2 ~ there's more competition now amongst the players than before. (looking at you scarlett, nani, tlo, state, minigun... all of whom can compete well with the best in the world)
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
You really believe WCS has had a positive impact on players' skill level? No one is a bigger minigun fan boy than me, but to my knowledge he hasn't even played on the Korean ladder and is just now starting to play on EU. Talented players with a chance to win something are going to be able to compete with the best in the world, regardless. To raise the general skill level, you have to give more players than just 5 a realistic chance to win something.
In the long run, what improves the skill level is getting new blood into your game and giving people a reason to practice enough to realize w/e potential they might have. There is no way in hell the new WCS system has done anything like that. With this WCS system, I probably wouldn't have gotten SC 2.
Even from a viewer standpoint/curiosity standpoint. I'd much rather know who is the best player in the Americas than have thestc knocking out maybe the best one in the round of 32 and making it a tournament where I can't gleam jack.
So people are too lazy to learn about the Korean players and see what their personality is?
I have no interest in dating thestc or any male players. I don't care about this "personality" thing. Personality is often confused with extroversion, anyways, and I'd probably dislike him if he came across as having a great one. I know enough about thestc to know he wouldn't be in WCS if enough of the best Koreans tried to be in WCS America, but he is still probably good enough to beat the best American player. It could go either way, probably.
This tournament may as well be show matches with jaedoing and tajea versus other players, as no one cares about anything else in this tournament. At least I don't. So little is proved and it's such a step down from the previous version. I wouldn't be surprised if the next person to pull out is Blizzard. Just scrap NA.
NA SC2 scene has been a joke from the start, its about time this happened, they have the most vocal players with the lowest skill.So heres hoping Blizzard wakes up and kills the WCS NA dead before it drags down the other 2 with its financial costs.
Theres no shame in it. America is simply not that interested in RTS games when you get right down to it
I don't know how Blizzard predicts or prepares for NASL randomly shutting their doors mid season when some of their own staff didn't know it was comming.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
1 ~ there's no such thing as a good monopoly.
2 ~ there's more competition now amongst the players than before. (looking at you scarlett, nani, tlo, state, minigun... all of whom can compete well with the best in the world)
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
You really believe WCS has had a positive impact on players' skill level? No one is a bigger minigun fan boy than me, but to my knowledge he hasn't even played on the Korean ladder and is just now starting to play on EU. Talented players with a chance to win something are going to be able to compete with the best in the world, regardless. To raise the general skill level, you have to give more players than just 5 a realistic chance to win something.
In the long run, what improves the skill level is getting new blood into your game and giving people a reason to practice enough to realize w/e potential they might have. There is no way in hell the new WCS system has done anything like that. With this WCS system, I probably wouldn't have gotten SC 2.
Even from a viewer standpoint/curiosity standpoint. I'd much rather know who is the best player in the Americas than have thestc knocking out maybe the best one in the round of 32 and making it a tournament where I can't gleam jack.
You're complaint was about a lack of competition, now you're complaining that WCS has somehow lowered the skill level of na players? Look at naniwa. Look at Scarlett. Look at Major. Look at huk, state, idra. What have all these players, and naniwa being the only european mentioned (don't forget Snute) done? they went and lived and played in Korea. They spent a long time training and competing against the best. you want to raise the skill level in na? don't blame wcs, or look to it as some bandaid to fix it. WCS was supposed to put EVERYONE on the same playing field to compete, not to put everyone at the same skill level.
And if you really wanted to know who was the better American player... again, I'll refer you to Shoutcraft. TB does that tourney. It does exist.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
1 ~ there's no such thing as a good monopoly.
2 ~ there's more competition now amongst the players than before. (looking at you scarlett, nani, tlo, state, minigun... all of whom can compete well with the best in the world)
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
You really believe WCS has had a positive impact on players' skill level? No one is a bigger minigun fan boy than me, but to my knowledge he hasn't even played on the Korean ladder and is just now starting to play on EU. Talented players with a chance to win something are going to be able to compete with the best in the world, regardless. To raise the general skill level, you have to give more players than just 5 a realistic chance to win something.
In the long run, what improves the skill level is getting new blood into your game and giving people a reason to practice enough to realize w/e potential they might have. There is no way in hell the new WCS system has done anything like that. With this WCS system, I probably wouldn't have gotten SC 2.
Even from a viewer standpoint/curiosity standpoint. I'd much rather know who is the best player in the Americas than have thestc knocking out maybe the best one in the round of 32 and making it a tournament where I can't gleam jack.
You're complaint was about a lack of competition, now you're complaining that WCS has somehow lowered the skill level of na players? Look at naniwa. Look at Scarlett. Look at Major. Look at huk, state, idra. What have all these players, and naniwa being the only european mentioned (don't forget Snute) done? they went and lived and played in Korea. They spent a long time training and competing against the best. you want to raise the skill level in na? don't blame wcs, or look to it as some bandaid to fix it. WCS was supposed to put EVERYONE on the same playing field to compete, not to put everyone at the same skill level.
And if you really wanted to know who was the better American player... again, I'll refer you to Shoutcraft. TB does that tourney. It does exist.
When I got into this game, there were tournaments EVERYWHERE. So much to win, yet you think this stupid WCS system that players you refer to even hate, is the reason they're good enough to compete with the best? Are you serious? What is wrong with you? When I got into this game, all I heard about was how Huk had all of the top spots on the Korean ladder. Now, people are looking to do fist pumps with you if you can just manage to get GM on the Korean ladder.
On March 08 2014 12:46 bourne117 wrote: With the uncertainty about Season 2 and 3 I wonder if some of the top dogs in AM like JD Taeja Hero Bomber jump ship and go back to EU or KR (if that is even possible don't really remember)
The only uncertainty is who will run it. There is no doubt that the seasons will happen. No reason to leave even if possible
At this rate, dissolving WCS: AM and integrating it with WCS: EU (to create say, WCS: International) seems like the most logical move.
Um no. That goes against Blizzard wanting to bring about aspiring gamers into SC2 and make a name for themselves, especially in America server which is second weakest. At least that's what I think?
I personally think the best way to do this is for Blizzard themselves to do WCS AM. Don't they still have the IPL team?
That only works if NA has a reliable capacity to run and manage the seasons internally. Blizz can't be expected to subsidize and run the entire thing. Either NA can handle WCS NA or it can't, in which case other options must be explored.
Yes it will suck for new talent, but in shitty situations hard calls sometimes have to be made.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
thats not the case. You can replace SC2 with LoL in this text and blizzard with RIOT then you got it right. In WCS players and teams have sovereignity over their actions. In LoL everything is controlled by riot, the players are contracted and paid by RIOT. RIOT really killed any kind of competition besides LCS.
The only difference I see here is riot is actually taking care of the players, where as Blizzard is a billion dollar company more concerned about using their leverage to take care of themselves some more. But, without players or a reason to play... you kinda lose your foundation. If the game is to be controlled, it's a shame it's not Riot.
I don't think so. I would not be surprised if the results in LCS are fixed to contribute to the show factor. Well no guarantee that this is not the case in SC2 but everything controlled by one single entity is never a good thing. As you can see when RIOT tried to forbid the players to stream any game that is competing with LoL, like SC2 or DotA2 etc.
I do believe there are rules against monopolies for good reasons. I don't disagree. I'm simply saying, I believe some monopolies are better than others... You can't just make it to where you're the only tournament going, but tell the players to suck a fat one.
They talk about the need to make the player scene competitive and trying to raise skill level of NA players, etc, and at the same time, they make it to where there are no repercussions for running the shittiest tournaments of all time, since they make the rules and can do w/e. It's hypocrisy. They made it to where to be a top tier WCS tournament you have to have "x" amount in prize money. It's price fixing, as tournaments realize there is no need to spend a penny more than w/e is required to meet certain tiers.
There's no competition anymore. It's just WCS all day, every day. The competition now is to see who can run WCS. That apparently doesn't seem to be a worthy game to be involved in, either.
Just look at what has happened since this new WCS tournament system has been announced. They need to show some humility and make real changes.
1 ~ there's no such thing as a good monopoly.
2 ~ there's more competition now amongst the players than before. (looking at you scarlett, nani, tlo, state, minigun... all of whom can compete well with the best in the world)
3 ~ Dreamhack, IEM, HSC, ShoutCraft, Redbull training grounds... There are plenty of consistent tourneys going on. The point of Blizzard laying down ground rules for them all was to create a stage where your year long run of tourneys culminated with the world finals at BlizzCon. If anything, WCS made these other tourneys that offer wcs points more relevant to watch.
You really believe WCS has had a positive impact on players' skill level? No one is a bigger minigun fan boy than me, but to my knowledge he hasn't even played on the Korean ladder and is just now starting to play on EU. Talented players with a chance to win something are going to be able to compete with the best in the world, regardless. To raise the general skill level, you have to give more players than just 5 a realistic chance to win something.
In the long run, what improves the skill level is getting new blood into your game and giving people a reason to practice enough to realize w/e potential they might have. There is no way in hell the new WCS system has done anything like that. With this WCS system, I probably wouldn't have gotten SC 2.
Even from a viewer standpoint/curiosity standpoint. I'd much rather know who is the best player in the Americas than have thestc knocking out maybe the best one in the round of 32 and making it a tournament where I can't gleam jack.
You're complaint was about a lack of competition, now you're complaining that WCS has somehow lowered the skill level of na players? Look at naniwa. Look at Scarlett. Look at Major. Look at huk, state, idra. What have all these players, and naniwa being the only european mentioned (don't forget Snute) done? they went and lived and played in Korea. They spent a long time training and competing against the best. you want to raise the skill level in na? don't blame wcs, or look to it as some bandaid to fix it. WCS was supposed to put EVERYONE on the same playing field to compete, not to put everyone at the same skill level.
And if you really wanted to know who was the better American player... again, I'll refer you to Shoutcraft. TB does that tourney. It does exist.
When I got into this game, there were tournaments EVERYWHERE. So much to win, yet you think this stupid WCS system that players you refer to even hate, is the reason they're good enough to compete with the best? Are you serious? What is wrong with you? When I got into this game, all I heard about was how Huk had all of the top spots on the Korean ladder. Now, people are looking to do fist pumps with you if you can just manage to get GM on the Korean ladder.
You're delusional.
Yeah and tournaments being everywhere was the problem of SC2. It was tiring even for the viewership. I think with WCS you have good games during the week and then on occasion awesome events like DH, IEM, MLG or HSC and so on.. Sc2 is where it should be. Rather sucessful. We should stop dreaming of beating games like LoL or DotA 2 in viewership. Only because we dont have these viewernumbers it does not mean SC2 is dead. LoL and DotA 2 are f2p and therefore alone they have a huge playerbase. For SC2 you got the barrier to invest money into the game.
So that means that they will play the finals of EU and AM on the same weekend...so non-stop production, so it is in the normal timezone for their viewers? Sounds like a lot of work for the ESL-Staff, but if anyone can do it, then the ESL-guys.
And finally, Nathains finds a job as a WCS-Caster. And Rotti isnt alone.
After all, i think this will improve the quality of WCS AM a lot.
A shame, but I'm actually surprised it didn't happen sooner. It was never very clear whether NASL had enough income to be a sustainable operation. I hope that the Esport broadcasting that brached off of it is doing well.
Everybody on Reddit is engaging in rumor mongering, trying to see conspiracies everywhere. SMH. It's pretty clear that it's a simple matter of economic feasibility. There are no scandals or scapegoats here, the numbers simply didn't add up.
On March 08 2014 21:15 dizzy101 wrote: A shame, but I'm actually surprised it didn't happen sooner. It was never very clear whether NASL had enough income to be a sustainable operation. I hope that the Esport broadcasting that brached off of it is doing well.
Everybody on Reddit is engaging in rumor mongering, trying to see conspiracies everywhere. SMH. It's pretty clear that it's a simple matter of economic feasibility. No hidden agendas, etc.
Never mind with economics, just blame Blizzard seems the norm...
On March 08 2014 21:15 dizzy101 wrote: A shame, but I'm actually surprised it didn't happen sooner. It was never very clear whether NASL had enough income to be a sustainable operation. I hope that the Esport broadcasting that brached off of it is doing well.
Everybody on Reddit is engaging in rumor mongering, trying to see conspiracies everywhere. SMH. It's pretty clear that it's a simple matter of economic feasibility. No hidden agendas, etc.
Never mind with economics, just blame Blizzard seems the norm...
Sad really.
It is a bummer. And there are only a few posters blaming blizzard. Everyone else is just worried and hoping that our favorite casters find a home.
On March 08 2014 21:28 sharkie wrote: Was there no contract that could have avoided happening in midseason? -.-
No contract can force a business to work without money. What is blizzard going to do, sue NASL? How quality of a production do you think we would get from that.
Contracts are not magic. They are paper. They can't force anyone to do anything. Courts do that.
On March 08 2014 21:15 dizzy101 wrote: A shame, but I'm actually surprised it didn't happen sooner. It was never very clear whether NASL had enough income to be a sustainable operation. I hope that the Esport broadcasting that brached off of it is doing well.
Everybody on Reddit is engaging in rumor mongering, trying to see conspiracies everywhere. SMH. It's pretty clear that it's a simple matter of economic feasibility. No hidden agendas, etc.
Never mind with economics, just blame Blizzard seems the norm...
Sad really.
Blizzard did try to blame NASL though...
"NASL recently informed Blizzard that it would be unable to honor its commitment to operate the WCS America Season 1 competition."
i'm glad to see NASL did not attempt to return fire.
On March 08 2014 21:15 dizzy101 wrote: A shame, but I'm actually surprised it didn't happen sooner. It was never very clear whether NASL had enough income to be a sustainable operation. I hope that the Esport broadcasting that brached off of it is doing well.
Everybody on Reddit is engaging in rumor mongering, trying to see conspiracies everywhere. SMH. It's pretty clear that it's a simple matter of economic feasibility. No hidden agendas, etc.
Never mind with economics, just blame Blizzard seems the norm...
Sad really.
Blizzard did try to blame NASL though...
"NASL recently informed Blizzard that it would be unable to honor its commitment to operate the WCS America Season 1 competition."
i'm glad to see NASL did not attempt to return fire.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
Blizzard isn't trying to monopolize anything, the problem is that no one wants their product.
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
Blizzard isn't trying to monopolize anything, the problem is that no one wants their product.
Except all those people watching WCS, MLG, redbull and shoutcraft. But beyond them, you're 100% correct.
NASL actually ends more smoothly than I had always feared. I thought it would crash sooner, and with a lot of drama with outstanding payments and stuff.
Well... Blizzard bought IPL, didn't they? Shouldn't it be possible for those guys to run season 2/3? And of course there's Red Bull - and Red Bull, generally speaking, seems to like spending money on... everything they possibly can.
I just hope one of those two runs the next seasons. Their tournaments have been the best in the NA scene, imo.
On March 08 2014 21:44 Plansix wrote: Except all those people watching WCS, MLG, redbull and shoutcraft. But beyond them, you're 100% correct.
You're forgetting that a game cannot thrive if people only watch it. You need people who play it.
The problem with SC2 since its inception has been a meagre playerbase. Simple as that.
You need a huge playerbase BEFORE you can have a healthy pro-scene. Think of it as a pyramid with, at the base, the casuals and at the top, the pros.
SC2 just doesn't draw casual players in, the way LoL and Dota 2 do.
When you have more people watching RuneScape than SC2 at any given time, you know there's a problem. Blizzard had this coming due to the design of the game. Heck there's even more Diablo than SC2 viewers right now at the time of this post!
On March 08 2014 19:37 playa wrote: It's terrible what has happened with this game. When I got SC 2, WCS was a big reason why I wanted to play. It seemed great. And, besides WCS, there were a million tournaments. Too many! Now? There's next to nothing besides WCS, and WCS isn't worth playing now, besides for a handful of non Koreans, and the tournaments have been run in a way that would have even disgusted WCG admins.
I don't know why Blizzard doesn't get criticized for trying to monopolize the game, when the game has gone nothing but downhill since they have upped their strangle hold on how tournaments are to be run and rules regarding everything. If Blizzard is going to set all the rules and be the only tournament going, then I just wish the billion dollar company would go all the way and run it themselves, instead of delegating it to companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
No one wants to watch thestc in WCS America. Some of these groups in WCS America are so horrible and help no scenes.
Blizzard isn't trying to monopolize anything, the problem is that no one wants their product.
Except all those people watching WCS, MLG, redbull and shoutcraft. But beyond them, you're 100% correct.
Stop being silly, they are spectators, not organizers. Yes people like watching the game, just not enough to be profitable, which means very few tournaments have much incentive to promote the game. No one is making money off of this game.
There is a reason why every single major tournament in NA has dropped SC2 or folded altogether, MG excepted. WCS NA is a pitfall, they had to foist it off on ESL to even have anyone to run it at all.
On March 08 2014 21:44 Plansix wrote: Except all those people watching WCS, MLG, redbull and shoutcraft. But beyond them, you're 100% correct.
You're forgetting that a game cannot thrive if people only watch it. You need people who play it.
The problem with SC2 since its inception has been a meagre playerbase. Simple as that.
You need a huge playerbase BEFORE you can have a healthy pro-scene. Think of it as a pyramid with, at the base, the casuals and at the top, the pros.
SC2 just doesn't draw casual players in, the way LoL and Dota 2 do.
When you have more people watching RuneScape than SC2 at any given time, you know there's a problem. Blizzard had this coming due to the design of the game. Heck there's even more Diablo than SC2 viewers right now at the time of this post!
I would guess that a lot of the seatstorycup viewers are currently watching hearthstone, as it's on the same stream as sc2 and many are interested in both.
Man it's been over a month since we had a good "dead game" discussion and hate on Blizzard circle jerk. Good to see we still have the ability to go back to our roots.
On March 08 2014 22:30 Plansix wrote: Man it's been over a month since we had a good "dead game" discussion and hate on Blizzard circle jerk. Good to see we still have the ability to go back to our roots.
I envy you, must be so easy to dismiss anything you don't like as whining and "lol ded game". Have fun the echo chamber. Your sig is hilariously ironic.
On March 08 2014 22:30 Plansix wrote: Man it's been over a month since we had a good "dead game" discussion and hate on Blizzard circle jerk. Good to see we still have the ability to go back to our roots.
you don't need to tie the 2 issues together. you can love Blizzard and also see with an objective perspective that the SC2 esports viewer base and player-base is in decline.
Blizzard has done a great job with SC2 and they provide the best support of any RTS game maker. I'm happy with Blizzard. Over the past 3 years SC2's popularity has declined.
On March 08 2014 22:30 Plansix wrote: Man it's been over a month since we had a good "dead game" discussion and hate on Blizzard circle jerk. Good to see we still have the ability to go back to our roots.
I envy you, must be so easy to dismiss anything you don't like as whining and "lol ded game". Have fun the echo chamber. Your sig is hilariously ironic.
Hey, I'm just glad we get to see you guys agai . We haven't seen you for a month or so. Something might have hapeened.
Much like Peter Pan and hook, where would Starcraft be without the people claiming is was dying every time we got bad news. It just wouldn't be the same.
On March 08 2014 22:30 Plansix wrote: Man it's been over a month since we had a good "dead game" discussion and hate on Blizzard circle jerk. Good to see we still have the ability to go back to our roots.
I envy you, must be so easy to dismiss anything you don't like as whining and "lol ded game". Have fun the echo chamber. Your sig is hilariously ironic.
Hey, I'm just glad we get to see you guys agai . We haven't seen you for a month or so. Something might have hapeened.
Much like Peter Pan and hook, where would Starcraft be without the people claiming is was dying every time we got bad news. It just wouldn't be the same.
Edit: you do know my sig is scarcastic, right?
Your sig is ironic because you've bought into the whole notion of there being a bunch of people who seriously think the game is dead. You are just regurgitating a meme.
The game is not dead, or dying, but it sure as shit is not healthy. Anyone who is not delusional can see that. Sponsors and tournaments want no part of WCS NA, those are just the facts. How we interpret them is up to us.
On March 08 2014 22:15 Swisslink wrote: Well... Blizzard bought IPL, didn't they? Shouldn't it be possible for those guys to run season 2/3? And of course there's Red Bull - and Red Bull, generally speaking, seems to like spending money on... everything they possibly can.
I just hope one of those two runs the next seasons. Their tournaments have been the best in the NA scene, imo.
SC 2 has always been driven by popular non Koreans. Stephano was like a mythical god-like creature until he went to pro league, where it became evident he would be "just another guy" if he were Korean. Not every tournament should be filled with Koreans, reminding fans that there is no hope and your perception is somewhat of a mirage.
Idra was what, a top 20 player in the US? Yet, he had to essentially retire because he couldn't qualify for any tournaments? In what profession/scene can you say "I'm a top player in my country (a big one)" but I had to retire because there was no hope? You're excluding one of SC 2's biggest draws so fans can see the likes of "theSTC." It's crazy, whether fair or not.
WCS loves to talk about story lines, but the only storyline I've seen built since the new system is "stay tuned to find out who retires next." That's the only story I'm really aware of atm.
You have to bring relevancy back to saying you're one of the best in your country. Players like incontrol are bad in the grand scheme of things, just like 99.99% of non Koreans. It's splitting hairs when coming up with different tiers for most non Koreans in comparison to Koreans. But, if being one of the best in the Americas had any relevance at all, Incontrol would probably qualify for every tournament, instead of relying on a catz friend list tournament.
I just think it's crazy to know the biggest draws in SC 2, yet have so few of the popular players in the US have a shot at qualifying, when they're good players relative to other Americans...
I'd like to see Nony be able to qualify for tournaments. If I have to wait for nony to be good, relative to Koreans, before he can qualify, then I wouldn't blame him or anyone for retiring before the fact. There's hardly anyone left for non Koreans to root for, because "their players" can't play in any tournaments to begin with..
Man I still vividly remember iNcontrol's announcement of announcement...and how he was subsequently hunted down for overhyping...and the whole "should NASL invite Koreans or not" debate, and the video that they made applying players make about themselves. Fun memories
On March 08 2014 11:55 Snake.69 wrote: WCS is falling apart... Korea wants *GSL CODE S* back, so its not really WCS korea anymore. Wcs america is in europe with mostly korean players... so its not really WCS america anymore..
ANd WCS europe cant be WCS europe if its the only region where theres a WCS.
You're partly right, the situation right now is a bit sketchy, but I hope Blizz will find a new organization in NA that can run future seasons of WCS NA. On the identity problem with Huk being the only American player in WCS NA... well, we never mentioned region lock, did we?
So its the Koreans fault that the NA players suck?
If WCS NA can't survive with viewers watching Koreans then how on earth could they survive with no one watching the NA players?
I don't know if viewer ship even goes into the equation or if NASL went bust simply because they had no idea what they were doing, but I can tell you right away that I would never watch WCS EU if there would be 1-2 Europeans among the top 16 in WCS EU. I think this discussion has been around more than once now, the region lock that was enforced meant little to nothing except for the qualifiers for EU, which provided an excellent opportunity for us in EU to watch entertaining matches on 11 different channels or so, covering fan favorites in probably 7-8 languages. The new challenger league system I find extremely poor, and has resulted in just a few glimpses of many other fan favorites that only got to show what they can in one Bo5, which was their whole season (if they lost). That being said, in the end we have the same number of Koreans in PL in EU since most of them didn't have to lift a finger to stay there.
Contrary to WCS EU, the production of WCS AM qualifiers was probably the biggest fail in a long time, borderline entertaining in its own sadness and misery. It was supposed to be the moment where Americans by and large would be able to get a spot in the sunshine and get some hype. Of course, none of that happened thanks to NASL who couldn't handle the show at all. In the end I suppose the new soft region lock meant for WCS AM that more non-Korean Asian got into in WSC AM. In my opinion, this is exactly how not to build the American scene, from Chile/Uruguay to Canada. Blizzard, time to wake up.
On March 08 2014 22:30 Plansix wrote: Man it's been over a month since we had a good "dead game" discussion and hate on Blizzard circle jerk. Good to see we still have the ability to go back to our roots.
When did I say it's a dead game? Or were you not targeting me?
On March 08 2014 11:55 Snake.69 wrote: WCS is falling apart... Korea wants *GSL CODE S* back, so its not really WCS korea anymore. Wcs america is in europe with mostly korean players... so its not really WCS america anymore..
ANd WCS europe cant be WCS europe if its the only region where theres a WCS.
You're partly right, the situation right now is a bit sketchy, but I hope Blizz will find a new organization in NA that can run future seasons of WCS NA. On the identity problem with Huk being the only American player in WCS NA... well, we never mentioned region lock, did we?
So its the Koreans fault that the NA players suck?
If WCS NA can't survive with viewers watching Koreans then how on earth could they survive with no one watching the NA players?
I don't know if viewer ship even goes into the equation or if NASL went bust simply because they had no idea what they were doing, but I can tell you right away that I would never watch WCS EU if there would be 1-2 Europeans among the top 16 in WCS EU. I think this discussion has been around more than once now, the region lock that was enforced meant little to nothing except for the qualifiers for EU, which provided an excellent opportunity for us in EU to watch entertaining matches on 11 different channels or so, covering fan favorites in probably 7-8 languages. The new challenger league system I find extremely poor, and has resulted in just a few glimpses of many other fan favorites that only got to show what they can in one Bo5, which was their whole season (if they lost). That being said, in the end we have the same number of Koreans in PL in EU since most of them didn't have to lift a finger to stay there.
Contrary to WCS EU, the production of WCS AM qualifiers was probably the biggest fail in a long time, borderline entertaining in its own sadness and misery. It was supposed to be the moment where Americans by and large would be able to get a spot in the sunshine and get some hype. Of course, none of that happened thanks to NASL who couldn't handle the show at all. In the end I suppose the new soft region lock meant for WCS AM that more non-Korean Asian got into in WSC AM. In my opinion, this is exactly how not to build the American scene, from Chile/Uruguay to Canada. Blizzard, time to wake up.
How can you build a scene if no one wants to watch that scene and is extremely unprofitable? WCS NA is not a charity and Blizzard does not have bottomless funds. They are a business.
On March 09 2014 00:52 TotalBiscuit wrote: So I heard back from Blizzard. WCS flight compensation remains the same for this Season for all WCS AM teams.
Thanks for the update and i'm glad that it is one less thing for you and your team to worry about!
I told you so. Devs having this much control of the 'event/competitive' scene... has proven to fragment companies, the gaming communities and players. Its a huge loss to SC2 and gaming in general to not have NASL around. Pretty soon.. all of you out there with great ideas and ambitions will be further squashed by a single entity controlling all content for a specific game.
On March 09 2014 01:49 ES_JohnClark wrote: just gonna say...
I don't believe for a second that you can place the blame with Blizzard. One could even argue that without WCS the state of North American starcraft would've been worse compared to the way it in fact is. Who would've taken over the reins?
And LoL is a direct counterexample to your thesis. One huge corporation controls everything e-sports related to that title, yet the scene is superhealthy and flourishing like crazy.
(This is not to say that that's the way things should be done. I prefer Dota 2's scene by a mile. Just that you cannot blame the state of the scene on Blizz's WCS. You really gotta look elsewhere for explanations as to why things are the way they are.)
On March 09 2014 01:49 ES_JohnClark wrote: just gonna say..
I told you so. Devs having this much control of the 'event/competitive' scene... has proven to fragment companies, the gaming communities and players. Its a huge loss to SC2 and gaming in general to not have NASL around. Pretty soon.. all of you out there with great ideas and ambitions will be further squashed by a single entity controlling all content for a specific game.
Wait... If it was NASL (or MLG like last year), how would that be better? At least this way Blizzard was able to get someone else to take over (as well as being able to fund the possible additional costs of flying players to a different location).
NASL Toronto was one of the sickest events ever. Also I hope we have one of our journalists cover this topic and get an interview with NASL. This is just so sudden and weird, a lot of people have unanswered questions.
Actually .. I am not blaming anyone. Its not Blizzard's intentions to hurt their own community. Also.. LoL/RIOT is a perfect example of what I have been saying for the last 2 years. Outside of LCS .. what is there in the LoL community? The eSports side of things is dieing from the bottom up. RIOT has started to see this and has been putting more effort into building from the base (all of you .. the 99% that play/watch). Blizzard is also trying this with inclusion into colleges and such. BUT.. as I have said before... when devs start dictating who, when, what event organizers can and can not do.. things get pushed around.. smaller tournaments die.. and the industry (not the game community) becomes more and more fragmented. ESports needs corporation and collaboration.. not just within each game community.. but more so as a whole.
On March 08 2014 11:55 Snake.69 wrote: WCS is falling apart... Korea wants *GSL CODE S* back, so its not really WCS korea anymore. Wcs america is in europe with mostly korean players... so its not really WCS america anymore..
ANd WCS europe cant be WCS europe if its the only region where theres a WCS.
You're partly right, the situation right now is a bit sketchy, but I hope Blizz will find a new organization in NA that can run future seasons of WCS NA. On the identity problem with Huk being the only American player in WCS NA... well, we never mentioned region lock, did we?
So its the Koreans fault that the NA players suck?
If WCS NA can't survive with viewers watching Koreans then how on earth could they survive with no one watching the NA players?
I don't know if viewer ship even goes into the equation or if NASL went bust simply because they had no idea what they were doing, but I can tell you right away that I would never watch WCS EU if there would be 1-2 Europeans among the top 16 in WCS EU. I think this discussion has been around more than once now, the region lock that was enforced meant little to nothing except for the qualifiers for EU, which provided an excellent opportunity for us in EU to watch entertaining matches on 11 different channels or so, covering fan favorites in probably 7-8 languages. The new challenger league system I find extremely poor, and has resulted in just a few glimpses of many other fan favorites that only got to show what they can in one Bo5, which was their whole season (if they lost). That being said, in the end we have the same number of Koreans in PL in EU since most of them didn't have to lift a finger to stay there.
Contrary to WCS EU, the production of WCS AM qualifiers was probably the biggest fail in a long time, borderline entertaining in its own sadness and misery. It was supposed to be the moment where Americans by and large would be able to get a spot in the sunshine and get some hype. Of course, none of that happened thanks to NASL who couldn't handle the show at all. In the end I suppose the new soft region lock meant for WCS AM that more non-Korean Asian got into in WSC AM. In my opinion, this is exactly how not to build the American scene, from Chile/Uruguay to Canada. Blizzard, time to wake up.
How can you build a scene if no one wants to watch that scene and is extremely unprofitable? WCS NA is not a charity and Blizzard does not have bottomless funds. They are a business.
On March 09 2014 01:49 ES_JohnClark wrote: just gonna say...
I don't believe for a second that you can place the blame with Blizzard. One could even argue that without WCS the state of North American starcraft would've been worse compared to the way it in fact is. Who would've taken over the reins?
And LoL is a direct counterexample to your thesis. One huge corporation controls everything e-sports related to that title, yet the scene is superhealthy and flourishing like crazy.
(This is not to say that that's the way things should be done. I prefer Dota 2's scene by a mile. Just that you cannot blame the state of the scene on Blizz's WCS. You really gotta look elsewhere for explanations as to why things are the way they are.)
You kind of can blame somewhat on blizzard, they've never thrown a ton of money to the organizations they have running the tournaments. It's why MLG got out of SC2 in regards to WCS. It's just a choice they made to not throw tons of money at the scene, and it falls where it will because of that.
Look at it this way, if blizzard 100% ate the costs to run WCS, there is no reason for NASL to get rid of it as it's all profit potential for them then. Blizzards upside is the league can run the tournament happily and the hope would be then sell more copies of the game to offset costs they spend paying the leagues to run the tournaments. To the best of my knowledge at least in the past say when MLG was running WCS blizzards contribution to it was negligible at best.
Just to add in if blizzard failed anywhere it was not in creating money making opportunities for SC2 outside of selling the game itself. Had they had those it would of probably been easier on their part to justify fully funding WCS for the leagues running it.
On March 09 2014 03:06 Shinespark wrote: I don't understand. Why is NASL pulling out of SC2? I don't feel the post explains that
My bet is lack of money. NASL was started are venture capital and I think they just ran out of cash. Or something happened and the owner couldn't do it any more. They were never a huge team to begin with, so it wouldn't take much for them to need to shut down.
Not terribly surprising, there were rumors for years that they were making no profit and were just blowing through investors money (and whatever subsidies Blizzard gave them). At least they closed with dignity and didn't scam any of their players/employees.
Sad news, but anyone knows whats gonna happen to Roterdam? I really liked his casting, especially because he plays the game and has a better understanding. Hope the NASL soundguy finds a job too
You know blizzard did buy IPL. I wonder if the former IPL people could take over casting. I mean I for one am quite disgusted. Not only is WCS NA essentially all Korean, but we can't even cast the games with US based casting. WCS NA is quite lame
On March 09 2014 03:06 Shinespark wrote: I don't understand. Why is NASL pulling out of SC2? I don't feel the post explains that
I guess that they were unable to find a co-caster for Rotterdam. MrBitter switched to RedBull few days ago. According to Rotterdam's twitter he was very surprised about it.
On March 09 2014 03:06 Shinespark wrote: I don't understand. Why is NASL pulling out of SC2? I don't feel the post explains that
I guess that they were unable to find a co-caster for Rotterdam. MrBitter switched to RedBull few days ago. According to Rotterdam's twitter he was very surprised about it.
There's no way they shut down operations just from not being able to find a co-caster. It's almost certainly the other way around (MrBitter jumped ship after realizing NASL is about to die). Has to be something finances-related. What did it is probably they couldn't afford an offline location to host the Ro16.
I feel particularly bad for Polt and the other NA-based players that made the Ro16--now they'll have to fly to Germany instead of a (relatively) shorter and less jet-lagged trip... (yes, I am assuming Polt will make the Ro16)
It's pretty sad though, I liked BitterdaM. I do hope Blizzard finds a way to do WCS AM S2&3 in the U.S. somehow--maybe they could use Blizzard's studios and get Kevin Knocke casting along with someone else. But please not one of the other former IPL in-house casters. By the time of IPL5, everyone working for IPL except KK was kind of terrible. I'll say it again: reunite KK and Doa! Or plenty of other people would be fine too: incontrol, Husky, Day9, Axslav...
I haven't been checking up with WCS NA at all, but wasn't there talk about NASL doing part of the season and then Blizzard-acquired IPL guys doing the rest? Or am I mixing things up here o.o?
On March 09 2014 04:58 Azelja wrote: I haven't been checking up with WCS NA at all, but wasn't there talk about NASL doing part of the season and then Blizzard-acquired IPL guys doing the rest? Or am I mixing things up here o.o?
You're probably thinking of last year, when MLG dropped WCS NA after S1 and it transitioned to NASL but former IPL Blizzard guys (KK and Kibbelz I think) casted WCS NA Challenger League.
On March 09 2014 04:58 Azelja wrote: I haven't been checking up with WCS NA at all, but wasn't there talk about NASL doing part of the season and then Blizzard-acquired IPL guys doing the rest? Or am I mixing things up here o.o?
You're probably thinking of last year, when MLG dropped WCS NA after S1 and it transitioned to NASL but former IPL Blizzard guys (KK and Kibbelz I think) casted WCS NA Challenger League.
Oh, woops... That's been a year already? Holy check!
On March 09 2014 07:12 Sub40APM wrote: So Rotterdam isnt coming back to America?
Presumably that depends on whether or not WCS AM S2 and S3 will be in America... if not what will be there for him to cast here?
Hmm, if ESL continues to run it, its going to be pretty weird, some of their casters will have to stay up pretty late in Germany to cast the online portions...
Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
On March 09 2014 07:18 TeeTS wrote: Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
I think the game is still great and fun to watch - I'm sorry that you feel otherwise but it's hardly all death and destruction
On March 09 2014 07:18 TeeTS wrote: Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
I think the game is still great and fun to watch - I'm sorry that you feel otherwise but it's hardly all death and destruction
Well, yeah the last changes seem to have fixed some of the latest big problems. But this wont bring back players and audience that left in the past 1,5years.
On March 09 2014 07:18 TeeTS wrote: Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
Isn't it just a case of it being a 1v1 focused game? In normal as well as in e-sports team games tend to appeal to a larger demographic than individual sports.
On March 09 2014 07:18 TeeTS wrote: Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
I think the game is still great and fun to watch - I'm sorry that you feel otherwise but it's hardly all death and destruction
The "dead game" folks haven't had a lot to do for the last couple of months, they are backed up.
On March 09 2014 07:18 TeeTS wrote: Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
I think the game is still great and fun to watch - I'm sorry that you feel otherwise but it's hardly all death and destruction
The "dead game" folks haven't had a lot to do for the last couple of months, they are backed up.
I loved SC2 until mid 2013. Then the game became so unfun and frustrating to play. There are still tons of design problems in the game, that are just overshadowed in top level play right now - so noone cares about them. That´s one big problem, that´s allways been for SC2: David Kim seems to balance only after Code S results. Protoss did poorly in fall 2011? Got a couple of major buffs (cheaper upgrades and immortal range) Zerg doing bad in season 2 of 2012? Queen range and Overlord get´s buffed! No Terrans in Code S this season? We get ghost energy and widow mines buffed, while Protoss gets nerfed.
The game is balanced around a couple of shortterm results without even looking at the real problems. D. Kim tries to get some balanced results with flicking the surface. Also there was never a balance change reverted in SC2 history - no matter how bad it turned out to be. This all lead to the downfall of playerbase and viewer numbers we have now. You don´t have to be apocalyptic to realise, that the game is lacking immensely behind his former peak.
On March 09 2014 07:18 TeeTS wrote: Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
The thing is, every prognosis that came during 2010-2011 was absurdly exaggerated, sponsors and fans assumed a level of growth that was never going to happen. A huge amount of money was pumped into the scene to create the infrastructure necessary to support that kind of explosive growth. And then it never happened. This is the back draft of overly optimistic investments that never payed off, and are now being cancelled or focused elsewhere.
What we are seeing is not the game dying, what we are seeing is the superfluous money and infrastructure leaving the scene. It will continue until we hit an equilibrium where the SC2 scene is no longer gobbling up more resources than it can generate. The kind of investments that were made early on were insane, the Starcraft viewer base could never support them. This is the reality check that people were predicting in early 2012, only to be laughed at and scorned. Anyone with a rudimentary grasp of mathematics could see this coming from a mile away.
I would not be surprised if we see some fairly substantial cutbacks in the Korean scene and a few more smaller organizers folding or dropping Sc2 before we hit a level where the investments actually reflect the value of the game. It's bound to happen, no need for tooth gnashing and despair when it hits. Roll with the punches, esports is a rough business.
Im not understanding why the community is still leaving players/events, in some points i think the game and then...news like this destroy all my hopes.
On March 09 2014 09:16 Aeh wrote: Im not understanding why the community is still leaving players/events, in some points i think the game and then...news like this destroy all my hopes.
Where will this go?
No where. MGL is still happening. LotV is still coming out. ESL is going strong. Dream Hack is still doing its thing. IEM is still going strong. GSL and proleague are still doing their thing.
As long as we keep watching, they will run events and the players will come. The only place SC2 is dying is on the forums of TL. Even Reddit doesn't really talk about it any more.
On March 09 2014 07:18 TeeTS wrote: Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
I think the game is still great and fun to watch - I'm sorry that you feel otherwise but it's hardly all death and destruction
The "dead game" folks haven't had a lot to do for the last couple of months, they are backed up.
I loved SC2 until mid 2013. Then the game became so unfun and frustrating to play. There are still tons of design problems in the game, that are just overshadowed in top level play right now - so noone cares about them. That´s one big problem, that´s allways been for SC2: David Kim seems to balance only after Code S results. Protoss did poorly in fall 2011? Got a couple of major buffs (cheaper upgrades and immortal range) Zerg doing bad in season 2 of 2012? Queen range and Overlord get´s buffed! No Terrans in Code S this season? We get ghost energy and widow mines buffed, while Protoss gets nerfed.
The game is balanced around a couple of shortterm results without even looking at the real problems. D. Kim tries to get some balanced results with flicking the surface. Also there was never a balance change reverted in SC2 history - no matter how bad it turned out to be. This all lead to the downfall of playerbase and viewer numbers we have now. You don´t have to be apocalyptic to realise, that the game is lacking immensely behind his former peak.
HOTS killed SC2 for me too. Everyone proclaimed it the best game ever when the new units it shook up the meta, and even David Kim "realized" that "aggressive play is fun to watch" but it turned out to be worse than WOL, and since I had the Beta, I never felt the game was better than WOL.
The Swarmhost, the Widow Mine, the MSC... these are terribly designed units. No amount of "balance" changes will fix them. They are downright annoying to play against and the game really isn't fun to play casually at all for me. It's sad, because back in 2011, I loved to play SC2.
I still enjoy watching SC2, and I have hope that Starbow will take over or that Blizzard will get a new design team for LOTV. But that last line really resonates with me: You don´t have to be apocalyptic to realize, that the game is lacking immensely behind it's former peak.
Yeah I just think SC2 is lacking an X factor, I used to watch it every day now I regularly miss events. I find myself so bored, I usually read a book during matches.
One thing I do miss are fun tournaments, the way that WCS is portrayed is too serious. I miss the days when some random, computer company would host a tournament in Europe and it would be non stop clowning, like 2GD telling mother jokes to Incontrol all day, priceless. They just didn't care. I also miss game orgies at MLG, I would watch fighting games and Halo 3 in between my favorite players damn whatever happened to that, MLG is coming again right?
It would be good for the NA scene to die. SC2 doesn't need it, its better IMO as the Premier League in Football of video games. SC2 would be amazing if it was just Europe and Korean region locked. NA players could go into open brackets at MLGs and win games that way.
I don't even care if the regions go against each other. I think if they catered to a Euro audience and showed SC2 as a new hardcore sport, really marketed it to youths by putting it on cereal boxes, brought some action sports attitude to it, they could get some attention but Blizzard would really need to put its heart into it. I feel like splitting the attention three ways really makes it diluted.
Remember Polish SC2 with that insane crowd, how much passion there was, and then they stopped having crowds, weirdly for months, bring it back to that insane crowd level! Every WCS event should have crowds, even if it was just a University auditorium that could fit 50 people, they could probably get some random Dutch university auditorium to host games at for cheap.
As a fan of the games I would rather see exploding, healthy Euro scene and a Godlike competitive Korean scene than try to make the scene worse overall by trying to pretend there is an American scene and trying to float a sinking ship.
Starcraft 2 had so much money being pumped into from sponsors who thought the scene would explode, which it did, for a short time, then the popularity wore off, mobas become more popular, and the game started to fade, so investors started pulling out. It happens with almost every game, sure some last a lot longer than others (BW, counter strike, etc) but in the end people will generally move on to something else. LoL dominates the e-sports scene now and probably will for quite awhile until the next big thing. It sucks to see sc2 falling so rapidly (barely top 10 on twitch when there's no tourneys on), but thats just how it goes. We will keep seeing companies go, but we also should be happy about the ones who stick around and who still find sc2 worthwhile, perhaps even profitable (Red Bull, Dreamhack, MLG?? GSL/Kespa). I think one of the things that made early sc2 so amazing were the crazy weekend LANs, the legendary MLG brackets and such. I wish we could have these back. I like the group format usually but it gets kind of boring when every single tournament has the 4 player group thing (Match A, match B, winner match, loser match, final match).
I doubt we'll see another explosion in popularity with sc2, maybe around LotV? Maybe the game will balance itself out somehow and reach that level of perfection that Brood War was able to hit, where the game was balanced more around maps and not the races (units like the sentry make this really tough to do though). The fact is, I've been around and played this game since 2010, and while I've lost some of my passion lately, esp hearing things like NASL going away, I still find myself playing on ladder, watching Proleague vods, Day9, tournaments that come on, because I still love this scene and because I just can't leave. enjoy what we have and try not to worry so much
Thats some really good ideas, WoodLeague. Hope someone with the power to use these does read it. We need changes, tournament-wise, and game-wise. Not bit by bit changes, but big ones. We need people that like to experiment. I really like IEM for doing the 100k winner-takes-it-all thing. Those are the things we need, less routine, more action and uniquness, both ingame and outgame.
In no way wish to be overly critical of the NA scene, but for the last god knows how many years it's been talk about marketability when talk shows occur, people being personalities etc, I've always felt that was too much a focus. The NA scene, much more so than even EU seems very much like an old boy's club, the same faces all the time, espousing how important it is to show personality and engage the audience, while never stepping aside themselves to give others that exposure.
The ideas of big E-sports personalities doing what they do should be something to compliment and enhance the tournament and competitive scene all-round, but in NA it seems to have nigh on supplanted actually being good at the game, and getting opportunities from that.
I don't feel MLG helped it with their continuous format changes, that's just to me of course. They have an obligation as a business to pursue other options, but even before they scaled back I felt that they had lost something of their magic. Perhaps that was over-familiarity and oversaturation but I don't feel that's everything,
On March 09 2014 07:18 TeeTS wrote: Well, this is the last big year of professional SC2, it becomes more and more clear. Tournament organizers will drop one after another. Blizzard fucked it up during 2012 and 2013, destroying the game dynamic with some really bad balance changes. This made the game frustrating to play and boring to watch and other games were already lurking, just waiting for SC2 to show some weakness. Sad story in the end: late 2011 - early 2012 was some great time of SC2. The game was pretty well balanced, fun to play, had tons of viewers and tournaments. Good old times
I think the game is still great and fun to watch - I'm sorry that you feel otherwise but it's hardly all death and destruction
While the game is fun to play and to watch, it's definitely lost it's appeal compared to before. I think this is due to having way too many events in too short amount of time. Players and viewers alike are having enough, if that's possible. While I still watch the tournaments and WCS, I find that I don't pay attention much anymore and rather keep it on as a background video kind of thing.
On March 08 2014 22:30 Plansix wrote: Man it's been over a month since we had a good "dead game" discussion and hate on Blizzard circle jerk. Good to see we still have the ability to go back to our roots.
No the game itself isn't dead, per se, just in north america it is. It's not alone either. Shit just look at the korea dota 2 league, for example. It has presented opportunities to those NA players that they wouldn't have got here. League isn't much better for amateur teams wanting to go pro. look at what happened to Team MRN. It's weird also that we have the best economy, probably, on the planet yet we can't keep esports deeply rooted here for some odd reason? We don't have many big teams here to take the next great player in. Besides if we only have one or a few tournaments to keep players even remotely motivated to support themselves until maybe one of those teams decides to pick a player or team up. Why do that when those organizations like Complexity or EG could just utilize their existing rosters? I'd love to hear from teams about that in this or another thread topic with the closure of one more opportunity close by.
On March 09 2014 09:22 Plansix wrote: As long as we keep watching, they will run events and the players will come. The only place SC2 is dying is on the forums of TL. Even Reddit doesn't really talk about it any more.
what a laugh. we can say the same thing for Pac-man. as long as we keep watching people play Pac-man they'll run events and the competitive Pac-man players will come.
the RTS genre is in decline. Blizzard knows this and is adjusting to it... they can only react to their customers tehy can not tell them what to like... and the RTS genre is going the same way as the dot eating maze game.
people saying its "dying" are adding an overly emotional component to the situation. stated more objectively, in every measurable way RTS games are being played less, watched less and consumed less.
This trend began around 2010 or so... and continues.
Starcraft is Blizzard's #3 franchise in terms of profit.... and many years ago RTS games were the cornerstone of Blizz. Hell , Team 1 is working on a MOBA.
there will be some fun events this year.. but if anyone thinks RTS games, new innovations to the RTS genre, and the RTS competitive scene were as good as they were from 2002 to 2007 ... well.. they are dreaming in technicolour.
incidentally, dot eating maze games are fun... they just fell out of favour as consumers' tastes changed. dot eating maze games stopped being the #1 priority of arcade game makers... the RTS genre has experienced a similar phenomenon over the past 10 years.
Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
Dunno, I watched BW since 2005 and I was never bored. I know guys who have played CS since 2000ish and still have a great time with it. Truly amazing games are timeless.
On March 09 2014 09:52 ssregitoss wrote: check the viewer numbers.it tells the truth.nothing else.boring to watch.
The viewer numbers that have shown substantial growth in viewership for regular weekly content you mean?
I wonder how long some of the people who have been saying this have actually been around. I was around when IPL, NASL and even Proleague were getting 5-10k concurrents at most, not the 15-20k WCS NA, 20k+ Proleague or 30-40k WCS EU is getting now
What we have actually seen, is a shift in how Starcraft is consumed and the kind of events that are being put on on a regular basis, which has resulted in some strange numbers that people without proper perspective interpret is DEDGAEM.
On March 09 2014 09:52 ssregitoss wrote: check the viewer numbers.it tells the truth.nothing else.boring to watch.
The viewer numbers that have shown substantial growth in viewership for regular weekly content you mean?
I wonder how long some of the people who have been saying this have actually been around. I was around when IPL, NASL and even Proleague were getting 5-10k concurrents at most, not the 15-20k WCS NA, 20k+ Proleague or 30-40k WCS EU is getting now
What we have actually seen, is a shift in how Starcraft is consumed and the kind of events that are being put on on a regular basis, which has resulted in some strange numbers that people without proper perspective interpret is DEDGAEM.
not to mention, big events still pull in 100k concurrent viewers. I'd be surprised if IEM WC doesn't hit 100k this coming week.
NASL had problems from the start. Look at all the people they have lost recently. Its not the viewership that made NASL shut down, but far more behind the scenes stuff. When you lose Frodan, Gretorp and Mr. Bitter all within a few months, that says something. These guys were all more than casters for NASL.
On March 10 2014 02:07 Squat wrote: Dunno, I watched BW since 2005 and I was never bored. I know guys who have played CS since 2000ish and still have a great time with it. Truly amazing games are timeless.
And I know people who are still loving SC2. Myself included.
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
Well I enjoy(ed) four games WC3, BW, CS1.6 and Quake for years (I want them back, they were never boring) and the "successors" sc2 and CS:GO are very boring (for me) to watch in comparison to the four games (for me). Now I can only follow sc2 because I can't enjoy LOL, DOTA2 and other stuff. Actually I have never enjoyed sc2 but I need a game to watch which I can enjoy.
On March 09 2014 09:52 ssregitoss wrote: check the viewer numbers.it tells the truth.nothing else.boring to watch.
The viewer numbers that have shown substantial growth in viewership for regular weekly content you mean?
I wonder how long some of the people who have been saying this have actually been around. I was around when IPL, NASL and even Proleague were getting 5-10k concurrents at most, not the 15-20k WCS NA, 20k+ Proleague or 30-40k WCS EU is getting now
What we have actually seen, is a shift in how Starcraft is consumed and the kind of events that are being put on on a regular basis, which has resulted in some strange numbers that people without proper perspective interpret is DEDGAEM.
not to mention, big events still pull in 100k concurrent viewers. I'd be surprised if IEM WC doesn't hit 100k this coming week.
NASL had problems from the start. Look at all the people they have lost recently. Its not the viewership that made NASL shut down, but far more behind the scenes stuff. When you lose Frodan, Gretorp and Mr. Bitter all within a few months, that says something. These guys were all more than casters for NASL.
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
Oh, come on... That's such a cop-out it isn't even funny. The quality of the game has deteriorated since HotS. Swarm Hosts ARE boring to watch unless something spectacular happens, PvT is mostly predictable, and ZvZ makes me want to Alt-F4 any broadcast with how ridiculously stale that M/U is.
The game itself isn't boring to watch, it's just not where it needs to be on the fun-o-meter.
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
Oh, come on... That's such a cop-out it isn't even funny. The quality of the game has deteriorated since HotS. Swarm Hosts ARE boring to watch unless something spectacular happens, PvT is mostly predictable, and ZvZ makes me want to Alt-F4 any broadcast with how ridiculously stale that M/U is.
The game itself isn't boring to watch, it's just not where it needs to be on the fun-o-meter.
On March 10 2014 02:07 Squat wrote: Dunno, I watched BW since 2005 and I was never bored. I know guys who have played CS since 2000ish and still have a great time with it. Truly amazing games are timeless.
And I know people who are still loving SC2. Myself included.
Sc2 could become one, too early to tell. Point was that if a game is good enough you can play and watch it for decades and still enjoy it. I've watched hockey since we won the Olympics 1994, never got bored of it.
My question here is what does it say about total prize pool money for 2014? Losing MLG is a shame because as far as I'm concerned they have historically had the best production value, or anyway my favorite - but we also lost MLG's prize pools. So where does losing NASL leave us?
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
Think this is a very good post a lot of people should read.
On March 10 2014 04:16 Djzapz wrote: My question here is what does it say about total prize pool money for 2014? Losing MLG is a shame because as far as I'm concerned they have historically had the best production value, or anyway my favorite - but we also lost MLG's prize pools. So where does losing NASL leave us?
Well we havent heard of any plans from NASL about standalone tournaments, so I guess nothing would change in terms of total prize pool. And since they left SC2 so abruptely I doubt there was ever going to be another NASL. Also MLG is back(for atleast Anaheim), so thats nice.
On March 10 2014 02:07 Squat wrote: Dunno, I watched BW since 2005 and I was never bored. I know guys who have played CS since 2000ish and still have a great time with it. Truly amazing games are timeless.
And I know people who are still loving SC2. Myself included.
Sc2 could become one, too early to tell. Point was that if a game is good enough you can play and watch it for decades and still enjoy it. I've watched hockey since we won the Olympics 1994, never got bored of it.
In my book any game that can make players play it more then a month (like me for instance) and can play it for 4 years is one of those games.
I have very few games that can keep me interested longer then a month, those being age of empires series (2, age of mythology + expo, aoe3), Starcraft 1 and 2
Those are the only games that I have played a lot longer then a month straight and more then an hour when I would play them. Love those games :D.
On March 10 2014 02:07 Squat wrote: Dunno, I watched BW since 2005 and I was never bored. I know guys who have played CS since 2000ish and still have a great time with it. Truly amazing games are timeless.
And I know people who are still loving SC2. Myself included.
Sc2 could become one, too early to tell. Point was that if a game is good enough you can play and watch it for decades and still enjoy it. I've watched hockey since we won the Olympics 1994, never got bored of it.
In my book any game that can make players play it more then a month (like me for instance) and can play it for 4 years is one of those games.
I have very few games that can keep me interested longer then a month, those being age of empires series (2, age of mythology + expo, aoe3), Starcraft 1 and 2
Those are the only games that I have played a lot longer then a month straight and more then an hour when I would play them. Love those games :D.
Peoples enjoyment of SC2 is going to come in waves. I really give no shits about baseball unless the Redsox are playing. Same with Hockey. I don't watch Dota unless a team I like is playing. The idea that people will watch every single match of the GSL, or any other event, every season is crazy.
On March 10 2014 04:16 Djzapz wrote: My question here is what does it say about total prize pool money for 2014? Losing MLG is a shame because as far as I'm concerned they have historically had the best production value, or anyway my favorite - but we also lost MLG's prize pools. So where does losing NASL leave us?
We never lost MLG...
They didn't run sc2 at one event in the past 4 years. One. And that was because Red Bull had an event going on that weekend as well. And the same thing might happen with Dota 2 at Anaheim for MLG. With the amount of events happening, they might be dropping Dota from the event. Yet people aren't saying MLG is abandoning Dota 2.
On March 10 2014 04:16 Djzapz wrote: My question here is what does it say about total prize pool money for 2014? Losing MLG is a shame because as far as I'm concerned they have historically had the best production value, or anyway my favorite - but we also lost MLG's prize pools. So where does losing NASL leave us?
We never lost MLG...
They didn't run sc2 at one event in the past 4 years. One. And that was because Red Bull had an event going on that weekend as well. And the same thing might happen with Dota 2 at Anaheim for MLG. With the amount of events happening, they might be dropping Dota from the event. Yet people aren't saying MLG is abandoning Dota 2.
Starcraft 2 hasn't been fun for me since beginning of 2013. i watched excessively almost everything from 10-13 when the hype was high and the players were interesting and fun but now, i just feel it's meh
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
I try and watch every basketball game the Toronto Raptors play. I don't find it boring one bit. Well not since the Rudy Gay trade anyways. While there are still frustrating moments at times, overall it's been very exciting to watch.
On March 10 2014 02:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: Oh, come on... That's such a cop-out it isn't even funny. The quality of the game has deteriorated since HotS. Swarm Hosts ARE boring to watch unless something spectacular happens, PvT is mostly predictable, and ZvZ makes me want to Alt-F4 any broadcast with how ridiculously stale that M/U is.
The game itself isn't boring to watch, it's just not where it needs to be on the fun-o-meter.
Did you want Broodlord Infestor back?
I'll take that over long hours of Swarm Hosts any day. At least Broodlord-Infestor ended quickly! I don't think I've seen any exciting games involving Swarm Hosts lately, except for Jjakji vs HyuN today. That was decent.
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
I try and watch every basketball game the Toronto Raptors play. I don't find it boring one bit. Well not since the Rudy Gay trade anyways. While there are still frustrating moments at times, overall it's been very exciting to watch.
On March 10 2014 02:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: Oh, come on... That's such a cop-out it isn't even funny. The quality of the game has deteriorated since HotS. Swarm Hosts ARE boring to watch unless something spectacular happens, PvT is mostly predictable, and ZvZ makes me want to Alt-F4 any broadcast with how ridiculously stale that M/U is.
The game itself isn't boring to watch, it's just not where it needs to be on the fun-o-meter.
Did you want Broodlord Infestor back?
I'll take that over long hours of Swarm Hosts any day. At least Broodlord-Infestor ended quickly! I don't think I've seen any exciting games involving Swarm Hosts lately, except for Jjakji vs HyuN today. That was decent.
I think progamers in the Korean scene just play more exciting games. When everyone in the foreign scene was bemoaning the swarmhost turtle games in PvZ, I don't recall watching many games like that. And Korean PvZ was pretty much all I was watching since Terrans are getting their butts kicked.
Same with T(mech)vZ. IMMvp's wcs am games were so dynamic and put Avilo to shame. And I really like Avilo, don't get me wrong. I watch his mech games regularly on stream - his attitude is kinda shit, calling opponents bad while losing etc. But I enjoy his unique playstyle.
On March 08 2014 22:58 playa wrote: SC 2 has always been driven by popular non Koreans. Stephano was like a mythical god-like creature until he went to pro league, where it became evident he would be "just another guy" if he were Korean. Not every tournament should be filled with Koreans, reminding fans that there is no hope and your perception is somewhat of a mirage.
Idra was what, a top 20 player in the US? Yet, he had to essentially retire because he couldn't qualify for any tournaments? In what profession/scene can you say "I'm a top player in my country (a big one)" but I had to retire because there was no hope? You're excluding one of SC 2's biggest draws so fans can see the likes of "theSTC." It's crazy, whether fair or not.
WCS loves to talk about story lines, but the only storyline I've seen built since the new system is "stay tuned to find out who retires next." That's the only story I'm really aware of atm.
You have to bring relevancy back to saying you're one of the best in your country. Players like incontrol are bad in the grand scheme of things, just like 99.99% of non Koreans. It's splitting hairs when coming up with different tiers for most non Koreans in comparison to Koreans. But, if being one of the best in the Americas had any relevance at all, Incontrol would probably qualify for every tournament, instead of relying on a catz friend list tournament.
I just think it's crazy to know the biggest draws in SC 2, yet have so few of the popular players in the US have a shot at qualifying, when they're good players relative to other Americans...
I'd like to see Nony be able to qualify for tournaments. If I have to wait for nony to be good, relative to Koreans, before he can qualify, then I wouldn't blame him or anyone for retiring before the fact. There's hardly anyone left for non Koreans to root for, because "their players" can't play in any tournaments to begin with..
It's weird how many of the generalizations in this post are accurate while nearly all of the specifics are not.
Stephano was rather mediocrity at EG and last 3months in Millenium (summer 2012 upwards). Before it, he showed passion for this game. If he had passion during EG time (joined in september 2012), he would have played a lot better than he did. Summer 2011 to summer 2012 was obviously the best year and performance for Stephano.
I noticed already in summer 2012 that he lost passion for this game and I really hoped that he left this game instead of joining EG or whatever.
So....Rotti and Nathanias casting WCS NA from Germany? Wonder if there is any point of Rotti staying in America now. I thought he just started to rent his own appartment and such, but there doesn't seem much point for that now if ESL are in charge of WCS NA. And if they want to keep it, it sounds like they will have first choice to do so.
Bad times for Rotti, but i hope he sticks at it, hell hope he moves back to Europe myself mainly due to now DeMuslim is back here too they could start going hard again in Germany like old times <3 But of course it's his choice :D I'll like him whatever he does!
I can imagine that Rotti is casting with Nathanias in AM in season 2&3 at Redbull Avenue (as AM did at WCS NA S2?!). Best thing is that Rotti is going to Redbull as caster, so that we can Bitterdam at WCS NA and Redbull tournaments :D
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
I try and watch every basketball game the Toronto Raptors play. I don't find it boring one bit. Well not since the Rudy Gay trade anyways. While there are still frustrating moments at times, overall it's been very exciting to watch. .
There is a major difference between watching all games of 1 team and how much starcraft most people are watching. Even if you only follow 1 WCS region and don't give a shit about anything outside of WCS, you'll end up watching way way more starcraft than any sports fan would if he followed his favorite team. Starcraft has been oversaturated with content since 2012 and WCS didn't change that one bit. Plus SC2 is a 1 vs 1 RTS games, which is kinda an advantage as there is no direct competition in both areas nowadays, but also a disadvantage since team games have continued to get more and more popular ever since CS came up and most people don't really care about the RTS genre anymore. We are kinda niche and SC2 is way too hard to get into to ever be the #1 game, it was only the major recession in eSports in 09/10 that allowed SC2 to be THE game for a bit, however due to Quake being semi-dead and there not being any other eSports RTS at the moment, SC2 won't go anywhere any time soon. Plus LOTV will give a similar boost like HOTS.
People shouldn't really talk so grimly about the state of foreign sc2. BW had WCG and some online shit for foreigners, I'd say 2 WCS regions + tons of events is a lot better than that. Yes paying for Koreans to take money out of the NA/EU eco-system wasn't the smartest thing ever, and we would probably look at a healthier foreign scene if those Koreans would have come with their own/sponsor money. But MLG is trying to fix that and eventually WCS NA will see less and less Koreans due to the partial region lock and WCS EU has actually forced Koreans to move to EU, which will end up improving the overall skill level in that region.
I'd much rather have someone dig up what made NASL bail out of a contract mid season rather than at least finishing that season. I'm sure breaking a contract like that must have been really expensive. Also Canada looses the most here as NASL was literally the only major event there in the past 5 years.
On March 09 2014 09:52 ssregitoss wrote: check the viewer numbers.it tells the truth.nothing else.boring to watch.
The viewer numbers that have shown substantial growth in viewership for regular weekly content you mean?
I wonder how long some of the people who have been saying this have actually been around. I was around when IPL, NASL and even Proleague were getting 5-10k concurrents at most, not the 15-20k WCS NA, 20k+ Proleague or 30-40k WCS EU is getting now
What we have actually seen, is a shift in how Starcraft is consumed and the kind of events that are being put on on a regular basis, which has resulted in some strange numbers that people without proper perspective interpret is DEDGAEM.
not to mention, big events still pull in 100k concurrent viewers. I'd be surprised if IEM WC doesn't hit 100k this coming week.
NASL had problems from the start. Look at all the people they have lost recently. Its not the viewership that made NASL shut down, but far more behind the scenes stuff. When you lose Frodan, Gretorp and Mr. Bitter all within a few months, that says something. These guys were all more than casters for NASL.
On March 09 2014 09:52 ssregitoss wrote: check the viewer numbers.it tells the truth.nothing else.boring to watch.
The viewer numbers that have shown substantial growth in viewership for regular weekly content you mean?
I wonder how long some of the people who have been saying this have actually been around. I was around when IPL, NASL and even Proleague were getting 5-10k concurrents at most, not the 15-20k WCS NA, 20k+ Proleague or 30-40k WCS EU is getting now
What we have actually seen, is a shift in how Starcraft is consumed and the kind of events that are being put on on a regular basis, which has resulted in some strange numbers that people without proper perspective interpret is DEDGAEM.
not to mention, big events still pull in 100k concurrent viewers. I'd be surprised if IEM WC doesn't hit 100k this coming week.
NASL had problems from the start. Look at all the people they have lost recently. Its not the viewership that made NASL shut down, but far more behind the scenes stuff. When you lose Frodan, Gretorp and Mr. Bitter all within a few months, that says something. These guys were all more than casters for NASL.
IEM WC will go over 100k. Mark my words on that.
IEM has barely any foreigners...
Not so sure it matters this time. I feel it's less about the players and more about who will win ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAAAAAAAAAHS!!!
IEM will easily break 100k. Huge, controversial price pool, many of the absolute best players in the world, lots of hype. These are the kinds of events that SC2 will need to focus on, out of the box thinking where the focal point is more on the show aspect than anything else.
NASL's ambition was pretty much their undoing. They got a lot of hype behind them because they somehow convinced the world that they would become the "GSL of North America". They were aiming too high. First of all, they lacked the experienced, professional crew of GomTV; they were probably a small group of passionate Starcraft 2 fans with little to no experience in the field of organising large-scale tournaments. Their live events reflected this time after time. Even WCS America didn't hold a candle to WCS Europe production-wise. Secondly, they made some weird business decisions. They decided to put the large majority of their money (which no-one knows the origin of) in their prize pool in the hope of attracting the best players in the scene. That obviously paid dividents, but it also left them with a budget that was too low for any kind of production consistent their ambition. Lastly, I always felt like they stubbornly refused to listen to any feedback. After the first season finale's sound debacle, the most obvious thing to do would have been to outsource the sound production, but they didn't. NASL 2 and 3 still had a lot of sound issues. Production-wise there was little improvement. It remained a tournament run by passionate friends, not by professionals. It is commendable that a passionate group of friends tried to set up a tournament of that scale, but as soon as it becomes a business, it needs to be run as a business by people who know to run a business.
I'm quite sure that it would have been better if they started small. This would have left a lot more room for experimentation and error.
On March 09 2014 09:52 ssregitoss wrote: check the viewer numbers.it tells the truth.nothing else.boring to watch.
The viewer numbers that have shown substantial growth in viewership for regular weekly content you mean?
I wonder how long some of the people who have been saying this have actually been around. I was around when IPL, NASL and even Proleague were getting 5-10k concurrents at most, not the 15-20k WCS NA, 20k+ Proleague or 30-40k WCS EU is getting now
What we have actually seen, is a shift in how Starcraft is consumed and the kind of events that are being put on on a regular basis, which has resulted in some strange numbers that people without proper perspective interpret is DEDGAEM.
not to mention, big events still pull in 100k concurrent viewers. I'd be surprised if IEM WC doesn't hit 100k this coming week.
NASL had problems from the start. Look at all the people they have lost recently. Its not the viewership that made NASL shut down, but far more behind the scenes stuff. When you lose Frodan, Gretorp and Mr. Bitter all within a few months, that says something. These guys were all more than casters for NASL.
IEM WC will go over 100k. Mark my words on that.
IEM has barely any foreigners...
One of the foreigners they have is Naniwa who is probably ~6 foreigners for viewership. Also with star power Koreans like Jaedong, Polt, HerO, Taeja, MC, Life, Hyun, etc. I think viewership will be over 100k for a lot of this event.
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
I try and watch every basketball game the Toronto Raptors play. I don't find it boring one bit. Well not since the Rudy Gay trade anyways. While there are still frustrating moments at times, overall it's been very exciting to watch.
That's totally cool that you find basketball entertaining enough to keep watching, but you're not disproving my point. For you, basketball is still exciting. That doesn't mean that it's any better or worse than any other sport/game, it just appeals more to you.
It's actually a good example to prove my point- I used to *love* basketball growing up. I played street games with my friends every day we had a chance, hours at a time. I watched tons of NBA and knew the Chicago Bulls lineup and stats like the back of my hand.
Now, I find basketball pretty boring. I mean, if I have to watch a sport, I'd still pick basketball, but it just doesn't appeal to me anymore. Does that mean basketball is flawed? No way! It just didn't hold my attention.
On March 10 2014 02:03 muzzy wrote: Everyone who has these comments like "Oh, I've been watching for years but am bored now" doesn't seem to understand- The problem is personal, not with the game.
People get bored of everything. The fact that you could watch for years and just now get bored is an indication of how interesting SC2 is to watch.
If you don't find it entertaining, take a break!
I basically stopped playing and watched very little for around 6 months after HoTS came out, because I was bored. I am back to playing now and in fact, this last season has been my most active since the first couple seasons of WoL.
I still absolutely love the game, both playing and watching, and the quality as a spectator is honestly SO much better now. Go back and try to watch games from 2011-2012 now and it's almost painful. The game has developed so much, not just in play, but also in the polish of the commentating, tournaments, interface and so forth.
You may find the game boring, but that is subjective. Objectively, it cannot be argued that it hasn't drastically improved.
I try and watch every basketball game the Toronto Raptors play. I don't find it boring one bit. Well not since the Rudy Gay trade anyways. While there are still frustrating moments at times, overall it's been very exciting to watch.
That's totally cool that you find basketball entertaining enough to keep watching, but you're not disproving my point. For you, basketball is still exciting. That doesn't mean that it's any better or worse than any other sport/game, it just appeals more to you.
It's actually a good example to prove my point- I used to *love* basketball growing up. I played street games with my friends every day we had a chance, hours at a time. I watched tons of NBA and knew the Chicago Bulls lineup and stats like the back of my hand.
Now, I find basketball pretty boring. I mean, if I have to watch a sport, I'd still pick basketball, but it just doesn't appeal to me anymore. Does that mean basketball is flawed? No way! It just didn't hold my attention.
but as a business you have to view your product as flawed if it's not holding the consumer's interest anymore. esports exists because people see an angle for profit in it. if people don't want to watch the games, the profit potential starts to disappear. you'd better believe if a lot of people just suddenly stopped watching the NBA they would be having a crisis in their marketing room trying to figure out how to change and adapt and overcome their flaws
there are many people who are lifelong fans of basketball/baseball/other sports as teams and players come and go, so clearly there's a basis for thinking a game has somehow failed if it doesn't remain interesting over extended periods. baseball is going on 100+ years now, and people have probably been playing some form of soccer for centuries
if starcraft is "different" because it's a pc game, then we should stop trying so hard to force the "this is an eSPORT, we're playing SPORTS" thing because you're not holding it to the same standard as established sports models like NBA, NFL, MLB, or whatever. either it's a successful computer game or it's an unsuccessful sport (assuming the scene really is dying, which i'm not proffering an opinion on because i frankly don't care)
On March 11 2014 03:00 maartendq wrote: NASL's ambition was pretty much their undoing. They got a lot of hype behind them because they somehow convinced the world that they would become the "GSL of North America". They were aiming too high. First of all, they lacked the experienced, professional crew of GomTV; they were probably a small group of passionate Starcraft 2 fans with little to no experience in the field of organising large-scale tournaments. Their live events reflected this time after time. Even WCS America didn't hold a candle to WCS Europe production-wise. Secondly, they made some weird business decisions. They decided to put the large majority of their money (which no-one knows the origin of) in their prize pool in the hope of attracting the best players in the scene. That obviously paid dividents, but it also left them with a budget that was too low for any kind of production consistent their ambition. Lastly, I always felt like they stubbornly refused to listen to any feedback. After the first season finale's sound debacle, the most obvious thing to do would have been to outsource the sound production, but they didn't. NASL 2 and 3 still had a lot of sound issues. Production-wise there was little improvement. It remained a tournament run by passionate friends, not by professionals. It is commendable that a passionate group of friends tried to set up a tournament of that scale, but as soon as it becomes a business, it needs to be run as a business by people who know to run a business.
I'm quite sure that it would have been better if they started small. This would have left a lot more room for experimentation and error.
On March 10 2014 03:08 Yezzus wrote: Is it due to the viewers? SC2 doesnt even reach the front page of twitch anymore at times
The amount of people watching player streams has dropped significantly, but SC2 is still part of the "Big 3" when there are major tournaments on.
Not so sure of this. SC2 may become #4 pretty soon with how fast CS:GO is growing. The CS viewership for IEM was huge, and with how often valve puts it on sale for under $4 and how accessible shooters are in general, that trend may continue.
EPT
