Just two days into the event with the quarterfinals yet to be played, the 2014 IEM World Championship is already one of the most memorable tournaments of the year. Thrilling games and stunning comebacks abounded, but it was NaNiwa's abrupt forfeiture that stole the show and made March 14, 2014 a day to go down in esports history.
[A]NaNiwa's disinterest in StarCraft 2 was well known before the tournament, and few expected the Swedish Protoss player to put up more than token resistance against TvP specialist CMStorm_Polt in their Ro16 match. However, things quickly took a dramatic turn once Polt scouted out Naniwa's proxy-gateway all-in in game one (VOD). Complaints about soundproofing lead to a quick GG from NaNiwa, and eventually resulted in a sudden, mid-series forfeiture (details here). The internet was soon abuzz with discussion over NaNiwa's action, and the shadow of his forfeiture lingered over the rest of the proceedings.
NaNiwa was not the only player to be the subject of scrutiny. Liquid`TaeJa, who had shocked many with his IdrA-esque, early surrender timings at February's ASUS ROG Winter, continued to be afflicted by the same mental malaise when he faced mYi's StarDust. TaeJa quickly went down 0-2 in the series (VODs]), abruptly surrendering out of games where StarDust had gained a marginal advantage. A 0-3 loss would have put TaeJa at the center of a fiasco to rival NaNiwa's, but he managed to recover his senses in time to score a 3-2 comeback.
Despite featuring two bizarre incidents, day two of IEM was book-ended by series that were notable for the exciting StarCraft 2 that was played. Roccat.HyuN very nearly scored a massive upset over CJ_herO in the opening series of the day as his greed and mass units threatened to overwhelm the two-time IEM championship. However, HyuN blew a chance to close the series out 3-1 when he made the mistake of giving combat to herO in a game where continued backstab attempts would surely have won him the game. Instead, herO was able to use his excellent blink micro to destroy HyuN's overconfident army and tie up the series 2-2. herO's blink micro shined again in the fifth and final set, as his two base blink-stalker all-in was too much for HyuN to overcome.
The final series of the day, CMStorm_Revival vs. mYi.jjakji, gave day two a perfect ending. Coming into the tournament as one of its most shrouded participants, Revival pulled ahead to a 2-1 lead with strong muta-ling play. One game away from elimination, jjakji decided to put his faith in his mechanic Terran style on Heavy Rain. What ensued was a game that was extremely reminiscent of the excellent game played between HyuN and jjakji weeks earlier at SeatStory Cup, a game where jjakji's mech fell apart after fighting for eighty grueling minutes. In a much shorter game that saw Revival lose nearly two hundred mutalisks, jjakji flipped the script and outlasted his opponent.
That win only tied the series 2-2, and jjakji found himself needing one more miracle to advance. Revival's great muta-ling play was too much for jjakji yet again in game five, and he looked to be cruising toward a quarterfinal berth as his huge pack of mutalisks controlled the map. However, the game instantly turned around when Revival flew his mutalisks straight into jjakji's widow mine trap, losing dozens of supply in an instant. Revival was unable to recover from the sudden loss of his army and was forced to surrender a painstaking GG to jjakji.
Day two of IEM also featured several high level Protoss vs. Protoss series which were unfortunately overshadowed by both the in-game and out-of-game drama of the other series. The results from the series were mostly unsurprising, as the players with the better recent form advanced. San defeated MC, Dear took out HerO, and sOs eliminated Oz to reach the quarterfinals.
The IEM World Championship will continue on day three, beginning with the final match of the Ro16 in Life vs. Rogue (which was delayed due to schedule overrun). Afterward, the entire quarter and semifinal brackets will be played out, leaving only the grand finals to be played on Sunday.
On March 15 2014 08:22 DreamTheaterFan wrote: How would Hyun winning vs herO be a ''massive upset''? I know herO is very good, but so is Hyun...
Hyun admits his ZvP is bad, he must have improved alot, he is know more for his ZvZ I feel, but yeh its not exactly the biggest upset ever...
Aye, if that's a 'massive' upset, then there is no such thing as just an upset. I wonder what kind of words we need to use to describe an upset of say, random NA Zerg defeating herO. Titanic? Gargantuan? Galactic? Ziltoidian?
It's what people do though, this hyperbole. It's everywhere. You have one guy play one good game and people run around saying he's "sick good". I remember back in SlayerS days, Jinro called Taeja "sick good". That's probably the only time i've heard the phrase used justifiably. Now it just means grandmaster level or something and a massive upset is just someone losing a game to someone they shouldn't.
hero doing better against a higher level of competition than hyun
That's still not a "massive upset".
This argument is incredibly stupid because "massive upset" is very subjective
I know right? Would it kill the internet to ever play along? Even once? lol
If that Jjakji vs Revival series isn't in the top 10 at the end of the year, this has been a damn great year, Jjakji's use of Ravens to kill a probably record 130+ mutalisks is amongst the best ever seen, almost making them seem OP along with the nuke usage which was fun as hell, then in game 5, those widow mines gave us one of the most cathartic moments of 2014.
The last 2 games between JJ and Revival were too epic.
and lol naniwa ending this career in a meltdown. How appropriate. He will not get far in life if he continues to have this kind of attitude. #BridgesBurned
i dont get it. Even if the players could hear the casters, the koreans barely understand english. And if it was the crowd cheering during the proxy, was Naniwa planning on proxying every single game like WCS? why not finish the series and lose your chance at 100k$ ?
I just fail to understand how can someone still love nani, since he's been pretty weird from the very beginning... And he made close to no efforts in improving his manners. That's seriously a pretty fucked up attitude really.
On March 15 2014 10:10 ilikeredheads wrote: The last 2 games between JJ and Revival were too epic.
and lol naniwa ending this career in a meltdown. How appropriate. He will not get far in life if he continues to have this kind of attitude. #BridgesBurned
Luckily in the real world most jobs aren't run on sensationalism, incompetence, and exploiting the workers to a large degree for personal fame.
On March 15 2014 08:22 DreamTheaterFan wrote: How would Hyun winning vs herO be a ''massive upset''? I know herO is very good, but so is Hyun...
Hyun is pretty okay, but he isn't even close to top tier korean. herO on the other hand, is in the running for best player overall.
Hyun is top tier zerg. His wins against Dear and Jjackji, and narrow loss to herO shows he can compete with the best. Best zergs atm are Soulkey, Life, Roro, and Hyun.
Very entertaining day of SC2. Players with the best micro and nerves of steel coming out on top. Great group of casters & analysts. (Ret & Incontrol made some less than exciting matches enjoyable on Day 1 also.) Large, expressive crowd. Really raised my sometimes flagging love of SC2. Thanks. Looking forward to more tomorrow!
On March 15 2014 10:20 RaiZ wrote: I just fail to understand how can someone still love nani, since he's been pretty weird from the very beginning... And he made close to no efforts in improving his manners. That's seriously a pretty fucked up attitude really.
For me, while I don't generally agree with his behavior I like him because he is a good player, he's stream was fun, he goes against the rules and he is not constantly trying to make everyone like him. Others might have their reasons.
On March 15 2014 10:24 Faust852 wrote: The only thing I had in mind during the 3rd game of Taeja vs SD was "please do not early gg, please do not early gg".
Superb tournament so far, It has epic TvZ, great TvP, nice drama, big tensions. Well, everything needed !
You missed Hero vs Hyun. That was a very good PvZ. Only shaded by Jjakji vs Revival as series of the day.
Oh, yeah, and some good PvP too. But, I forgive you if that is not your thing.
You guys are all retarded. Waxangel said hyun beating hero would've been a massive upset because hero won 2 back to back iem championships and is the number 1 seed in the bracket. Obviously hyun and every other player in here is amazing too
I guess "massive upset" is a pretty subjective way of looking at it but to me when it's basically the most consistent and arguably best PvZ player in HoTS vs a pretty good zerg that has had some ups and downs, herO losing would be a pretty big shock
On March 15 2014 08:22 DreamTheaterFan wrote: How would Hyun winning vs herO be a ''massive upset''? I know herO is very good, but so is Hyun...
Hyun is pretty okay, but he isn't even close to top tier korean. herO on the other hand, is in the running for best player overall.
Hyun is top tier zerg. His wins against Dear and Jjackji, and narrow loss to herO shows he can compete with the best. Best zergs atm are Soulkey, Life, Roro, and Hyun.
Solar, Jaedong and Rogue should also be on the list.
scrutinizing naniwa's quick gg a little too much arent we? im pretty sure we've all realized how much dramatic naniwa is and he's not shy about showing it in public (despite big events)
On March 15 2014 08:22 DreamTheaterFan wrote: How would Hyun winning vs herO be a ''massive upset''? I know herO is very good, but so is Hyun...
Hyun is pretty okay, but he isn't even close to top tier korean. herO on the other hand, is in the running for best player overall.
Hyun is top tier zerg. His wins against Dear and Jjackji, and narrow loss to herO shows he can compete with the best. Best zergs atm are Soulkey, Life, Roro, and Hyun.
Solar, Jaedong and Rogue should also be on the list.
On March 15 2014 08:22 DreamTheaterFan wrote: How would Hyun winning vs herO be a ''massive upset''? I know herO is very good, but so is Hyun...
Hyun is pretty okay, but he isn't even close to top tier korean. herO on the other hand, is in the running for best player overall.
Hyun is top tier zerg. His wins against Dear and Jjackji, and narrow loss to herO shows he can compete with the best. Best zergs atm are Soulkey, Life, Roro, and Hyun.
Solar, Jaedong and Rogue should also be on the list.
naw solar and rogue meh. jd okay
A very easy argument could be made that Rogue is currently in better shape than JD, and a hard one could be made that he is currently in better shape than Hyun and Roro.
On March 15 2014 08:22 DreamTheaterFan wrote: How would Hyun winning vs herO be a ''massive upset''? I know herO is very good, but so is Hyun...
Hyun is pretty okay, but he isn't even close to top tier korean. herO on the other hand, is in the running for best player overall.
Hyun is top tier zerg. His wins against Dear and Jjackji, and narrow loss to herO shows he can compete with the best. Best zergs atm are Soulkey, Life, Roro, and Hyun.
Solar, Jaedong and Rogue should also be on the list.
naw solar and rogue meh. jd okay
A very easy argument could be made that Rogue is currently in better shape than JD, and a hard one could be made that he is currently in better shape than Hyun and Roro.
He beat Rain, Sacsri, Zest, Sora and Soulkey to qualify for this IEM and he's 8-5 in proleague with wins over Rain and Hero. I would say he's one of the best up-and-coming players in the world. The games he won were also really exciting as well, give him a few more months and I think he would defiinitely get a lot more fans.
On March 15 2014 13:42 r691175002 wrote: Honestly I feel sorry for Naniwa. I can't imagine how his birthday could be any shittier.
I'm not trying to defend the guy, but I'm not sure anyone deserves to have such a horrifically bad day.
Time heals all wounds. We all know that when he is motivated, he's one of the top performing foreigners in the world, if not the best outright. That being said, not sure how his sponsors feel about it. A wise man once said that any press is good press, but we'll see
On March 15 2014 10:18 for_the_swarm wrote: i dont get it. Even if the players could hear the casters, the koreans barely understand english. And if it was the crowd cheering during the proxy, was Naniwa planning on proxying every single game like WCS? why not finish the series and lose your chance at 100k$ ?
It's not about understanding casters. It's hearing the audience and their reactions. If it's in the beginning of the game and you can suddenly hear the crowd excited, when usually nothing's supposed to be happening, there's something up — leading you to check for hidden stuff, or something. It's common enough. Hell, some players have even said they've intentionally not looked for something after they've heard the audience get excited, for fear of appearing to be cheating by acting on that knowledge.
It's a similar situation in Dota 2. Alliance, having pulled some crazy and unexpected level 1 Roshans (the first one at the Dreamhack lan — the only one at a lan to date), have said in recent interviews that they refrain from using similar tactics at lans nowadays due to a suddenly excited crowd tipping their opponents off.
Soundproofing is a real problem in situations where the reactions of an audience can tip you off to something happening.
On March 15 2014 10:18 for_the_swarm wrote: i dont get it. Even if the players could hear the casters, the koreans barely understand english. And if it was the crowd cheering during the proxy, was Naniwa planning on proxying every single game like WCS? why not finish the series and lose your chance at 100k$ ?
It's not about understanding casters. It's hearing the audience and their reactions. If it's in the beginning of the game and you can suddenly hear the crowd excited, when usually nothing's supposed to be happening, there's something up — leading you to check for hidden stuff, or something. It's common enough. Hell, some players have even said they've intentionally not looked for something after they've heard the audience get excited, for fear of appearing to be cheating by acting on that knowledge.
It's a similar situation in Dota 2. Alliance, having pulled some crazy and unexpected level 1 Roshans (the first one at the Dreamhack lan — the only one at a lan to date), have said in recent interviews that they refrain from using similar tactics at lans nowadays due to a suddenly excited crowd tipping their opponents off.
Soundproofing is a real problem in situations where the reactions of an audience can tip you off to something happening.
except its already been proven on reddit that polt scouts that position in all his tvp's and if you even watch the clip he queued the scv to go that way before the audience gave any loud OOOHHH and it still doesnt excuse him to forfeit 2+ games because of that. soundproofing is a real issue but in this game the outcome would have been the same regardless
Those widow mines.... I am still feeling both sadness and happiness at the same time. I loved the comeback, but I don't know if that's good for the e-sports scene. But I know others who think hated the mines and think that they are bad for the scene.
That match just was just confusing to me and I am still trying to figure out how I feel about it.
On March 15 2014 10:18 for_the_swarm wrote: i dont get it. Even if the players could hear the casters, the koreans barely understand english. And if it was the crowd cheering during the proxy, was Naniwa planning on proxying every single game like WCS? why not finish the series and lose your chance at 100k$ ?
It's not about understanding casters. It's hearing the audience and their reactions. If it's in the beginning of the game and you can suddenly hear the crowd excited, when usually nothing's supposed to be happening, there's something up — leading you to check for hidden stuff, or something. It's common enough. Hell, some players have even said they've intentionally not looked for something after they've heard the audience get excited, for fear of appearing to be cheating by acting on that knowledge.
It's a similar situation in Dota 2. Alliance, having pulled some crazy and unexpected level 1 Roshans (the first one at the Dreamhack lan — the only one at a lan to date), have said in recent interviews that they refrain from using similar tactics at lans nowadays due to a suddenly excited crowd tipping their opponents off.
Soundproofing is a real problem in situations where the reactions of an audience can tip you off to something happening.
except its already been proven on reddit that polt scouts that position in all his tvp's and if you even watch the clip he queued the scv to go that way before the audience gave any loud OOOHHH and it still doesnt excuse him to forfeit 2+ games because of that. soundproofing is a real issue but in this game the outcome would have been the same regardless
The funny part is that we didn't cheer FOR THE PROXY, but LOL fans aside went frenzy on the first blood - and Naniwa thought it gave it away... lol (indeed)
On March 15 2014 08:22 DreamTheaterFan wrote: How would Hyun winning vs herO be a ''massive upset''? I know herO is very good, but so is Hyun...
Hyun admits his ZvP is bad, he must have improved alot, he is know more for his ZvZ I feel, but yeh its not exactly the biggest upset ever...
Aye, if that's a 'massive' upset, then there is no such thing as just an upset. I wonder what kind of words we need to use to describe an upset of say, random NA Zerg defeating herO. Titanic? Gargantuan? Galactic? Ziltoidian?
It's what people do though, this hyperbole. It's everywhere. You have one guy play one good game and people run around saying he's "sick good". I remember back in SlayerS days, Jinro called Taeja "sick good". That's probably the only time i've heard the phrase used justifiably. Now it just means grandmaster level or something and a massive upset is just someone losing a game to someone they shouldn't.
On March 15 2014 08:22 DreamTheaterFan wrote: How would Hyun winning vs herO be a ''massive upset''? I know herO is very good, but so is Hyun...
Hyun admits his ZvP is bad, he must have improved alot, he is know more for his ZvZ I feel, but yeh its not exactly the biggest upset ever...
Aye, if that's a 'massive' upset, then there is no such thing as just an upset. I wonder what kind of words we need to use to describe an upset of say, random NA Zerg defeating herO. Titanic? Gargantuan? Galactic? Ziltoidian?
It's what people do though, this hyperbole. It's everywhere. You have one guy play one good game and people run around saying he's "sick good". I remember back in SlayerS days, Jinro called Taeja "sick good". That's probably the only time i've heard the phrase used justifiably. Now it just means grandmaster level or something and a massive upset is just someone losing a game to someone they shouldn't.
On March 15 2014 16:34 pieroog wrote: The funny part is that we didn't cheer FOR THE PROXY, but LOL fans aside went frenzy on the first blood - and Naniwa thought it gave it away... lol (indeed)
On March 15 2014 13:42 r691175002 wrote: Honestly I feel sorry for Naniwa. I can't imagine how his birthday could be any shittier.
I'm not trying to defend the guy, but I'm not sure anyone deserves to have such a horrifically bad day.
He didnt't have it, he made it. Let's summarize what happened. He got a free trip, he took the spot of another player even though he had no intention of playing properly. He lied about a issue to throw the tournaments integrity into question and then he runs away. What is it he doesn't deserve? For people to think that was stupid? To get booed at?
If the most horrific day of anyones life is the day they act as a spoiled child throwing a fit and get called out on it, their life is not that bad.
Could just see the first and the last BO5 of the day, but these were really outstanding ones. The winner takes all format seems to work in regard to the drama and the quality of the matches. That Naniwa story really annoys me the most and I concur with most of statements that this kid needs help. I wonder what he thinks real life would be...
Hyun lost vs hero was the biggest upset here. I expected a easy 3-0 for hyun, but well we know how sc2 is. 80% happens with "own goal", as Hyun did here 3x times.
DK needs to realize that "own goal" is pretty bad and frustating to watch, "catch up" is far better and entertaining.
On March 15 2014 19:47 Dingodile wrote: Hyun lost vs hero was the biggest upset here. I expected a easy 3-0 for hyun
What? herO is better than HyuN...
well without mutas it looked very likely a 3-0. He threw all his 3 games as i said three "own goal". My opinion is that mutas are very bad except in a scenario where you can build 50mutas at once.
Great games and unfortunate drama, definitely a memorable day of any recent tournament for good and bad reasons. Not the hype or intensity I think we were looking for but I guess on to day three!!
Who say Sc2 is dead ? We never had so many good tournaments, high level play, tight Top scene, even some emotional twist! The only complain we can have is about the foreigner scene clearly falling appart. But that was kind of expected as the proleague is another level. Let's just enjoy what we got.
On March 15 2014 10:18 for_the_swarm wrote: i dont get it. Even if the players could hear the casters, the koreans barely understand english. And if it was the crowd cheering during the proxy, was Naniwa planning on proxying every single game like WCS? why not finish the series and lose your chance at 100k$ ?
It's not about understanding casters. It's hearing the audience and their reactions. If it's in the beginning of the game and you can suddenly hear the crowd excited, when usually nothing's supposed to be happening, there's something up — leading you to check for hidden stuff, or something. It's common enough. Hell, some players have even said they've intentionally not looked for something after they've heard the audience get excited, for fear of appearing to be cheating by acting on that knowledge.
It's a similar situation in Dota 2. Alliance, having pulled some crazy and unexpected level 1 Roshans (the first one at the Dreamhack lan — the only one at a lan to date), have said in recent interviews that they refrain from using similar tactics at lans nowadays due to a suddenly excited crowd tipping their opponents off.
Soundproofing is a real problem in situations where the reactions of an audience can tip you off to something happening.
except its already been proven on reddit that polt scouts that position in all his tvp's and if you even watch the clip he queued the scv to go that way before the audience gave any loud OOOHHH and it still doesnt excuse him to forfeit 2+ games because of that. soundproofing is a real issue but in this game the outcome would have been the same regardless
Well we can't know that for sure, but I'm inclined to believe that it's more likely that Polt would have scouted it regardless. It's not terribly important to me though, unless I'm absolutely certain. Even then, when judging the actions of another the more important matter is the perspective of the people involved. Here's the perspective of Naniwa:
Now we can of course doubt his sincerity, but I would argue that if anything he has shown throughout his career to be sincere to the point of disregarding his own best, much like he has now. So given his perspective, how would we describe his actions? I would say he tired of putting up with what he would probably look at as appalling, game-breaking conditions. Under normal circumstances, maybe he would endure it and play out the series, but here he is on his birthday (it might matter to him) and potentially last day of his SC2 career, and as he is proxying his gateway he can (allegedly) hear the casters commentate his actions. Knowing Polt speaks pretty good English, and probably understands it better than he speaks it, Naniwa is reasonably safe to assume that Polt also hears it and knows what is going on. This makes me wonder what his thought-process was when he was doing the proxy, if he was then able to hear the casters already or already being able to assess that if they spoke up a little bit he would hear it clearly. Maybe he refused to change his game-plan after realizing he could hear the casters (it is the first game after all, and he likely already planned out the series vs Polt). That's certainly a respectable position to take. It's all speculation though, but all that means is we can't judge him on the basis "what if he just wanted to be a douche?".
Now the other entity being judged in this thread seems to be the crowd. But come on people, a base level of empathy and experience being in a crowd should enable you to understand the situation and realize that of course the crowd would react like that. You just need to calm down and think for a moment. With Redeye, Kaelaris and ToD voicing their disappointment (quite reasonably so), the air is equally full of disappointment. When Naniwa walks out, a character who "a lot" (it's hard to quantify) of people already despise, of course they boo.
All this drama... To me the only drama is, if the soundproofing is this bad in the scene in general, why is there no continually ongoing discussion about this until it is resolved? Why are players not constantly complaining about it? Sure the discussions pop up when something happens, but to use a Swedish reference I'd say we need to go "Uppdrag Granskning" (i.e. real investigative journalism) on this matter. Unless this actually isn't an issue, we should have something like a Blizzard-led soundproofing organization who send observers to any (big) tournament that gives WCS points, and if the soundproofing is lacking then primarily they try to resolve it and if that's not possible then no WCS points are awarded from that tournament. It would suck in the short-term for players, but in the long-term tournaments would have to adjust. I mean, either this or something similar has to happen.
[QUOTE]On March 15 2014 23:43 Bogeyman wrote: [QUOTE]On March 15 2014 15:13 DaftFunk wrote: [QUOTE]On March 15 2014 15:03 sumsaR wrote: [QUOTE]On March 15 2014 10:18 for_the_swarm wrote:
All this drama... To me the only drama is, if the soundproofing is this bad in the scene in general, why is there no continually ongoing discussion about this until it is resolved? Why are players not constantly complaining about it?[/QUOTE]
You wanna take a stab in the dark as to why there is no upror about it? Maybe because there is not a problem? According to the producers they asked every other player, and everyone including the LOL players said there was no problem. So is it Naniwa lying or everyone else?
On March 16 2014 00:07 Zeze wrote: You wanna take a stab in the dark as to why there is no upror about it? Maybe because there is not a problem? According to the producers they asked every other player, and everyone including the LOL players said there was no problem. So is it Naniwa lying or everyone else?
Hey that may well be the case. I'd really like to know for sure though.
I wouldn't call Revival's gg "painstaking." I mean, he didn't look down at his keyboard and carefully search out the "enter" and "g" keys before typing.
Now the other entity being judged in this thread seems to be the crowd. But come on people, a base level of empathy and experience being in a crowd should enable you to understand the situation and realize that of course the crowd would react like that. You just need to calm down and think for a moment. With Redeye, Kaelaris and ToD voicing their disappointment (quite reasonably so), the air is equally full of disappointment. When Naniwa walks out, a character who "a lot" (it's hard to quantify) of people already despise, of course they boo.
....despise? we were cheering for him like mad - I was there man, EVERYBODY clapped when he entered the stage. BUT when he walked away, wasting a lot time and NOT EVEN SAY "GOODBYE" ... what he's done when some people started to boo? He yawned.
A big disrespect toward your opponent, IEM and the several-thousand-people there - if you ask me. Even in GSL they have such problems - isn't too good for him either?
And if you check my previous post - the sound was from LOL (first blood)
Now the other entity being judged in this thread seems to be the crowd. But come on people, a base level of empathy and experience being in a crowd should enable you to understand the situation and realize that of course the crowd would react like that. You just need to calm down and think for a moment. With Redeye, Kaelaris and ToD voicing their disappointment (quite reasonably so), the air is equally full of disappointment. When Naniwa walks out, a character who "a lot" (it's hard to quantify) of people already despise, of course they boo.
....despise? we were cheering for him like mad - I was there man, EVERYBODY clapped when he entered the stage. BUT when he walked away, wasting a lot time and NOT EVEN SAY "GOODBYE" ... what he's done when some people started to boo? He yawned.
A big disrespect toward your opponent, IEM and the several-thousand-people there - if you ask me. Even in GSL they have such problems - isn't too good for him either?
And if you check my previous post - the sound was from LOL (first blood)
Well, I guess I wasn't being clear enough. I meant "a lot" of people in general despise him, and so there was a high likelihood of there being some in the crowd as well. And it's also just the fact that "a lot" of people view him that way, it makes it easier for everyone else to adopt a similar attitude. The booing may well not even have anything to do with that though, it's also quite reasonable that people were just disappointed, as they still had hopes that he might do well or at least show good games or whatever each and everyone wanted out of it, so of course they were disappointed when they didn't get that. I'm not sure if my message is coming through clearly enough, but I hope you get what I'm saying.
I didn't know he yawned at the crowd when they booed him, but it seems like a pretty likely reaction from him. He must have been in a pretty shitty mood already, so of course the booing would stir up some emotions. It seems like a dickish thing to do, but I always (almost) find a way to look at the flip-side of things. The crowd is mocking him, so he's mocking them back. Seems reasonable (though not necessarily very mature).
And just because other people put up with something doesn't mean one specific individual also has to. He's not necessarily thinking of himself as better than anyone else, maybe he just can't stand it regardless of what other people do or think of it.
Lastly, you're speaking of the crowd going wild and making a lot of noise over first blood in LoL. Is this the thing that Naniwa thought made Polt check for proxies? Polt might have thought the same, so where the sound came from is still irrelevant. And again, even so it doesn't even have to be a matter of the crowd making noise. Naniwa said he and Polt both could hear the casters themselves, and they spoke quite clearly about the proxy as it was going on, way before Polt sent the scout. These things don't mean anything certain, so I'm not saying "Polt heard the casters and therefore sent the scout". As I said earlier, I don't even think it changed his play (but it might have, I don't know). But you can't deny Naniwa the right to take a stance against these conditions. I too wish he could do it with more style, but I somehow respect the bluntness of his actions. If I wanted to, I could do the exact same thing, only I would do it looking like the victim, being apologetic and polite, remorseful. But would I be any better than Naniwa? I don't think so. And I certainly don't think Naniwa would be a better person if he suppressed his true feelings just to be less controversial. He would be easier to deal with though.
On March 15 2014 10:18 for_the_swarm wrote: i dont get it. Even if the players could hear the casters, the koreans barely understand english. And if it was the crowd cheering during the proxy, was Naniwa planning on proxying every single game like WCS? why not finish the series and lose your chance at 100k$ ?
It's not about understanding casters. It's hearing the audience and their reactions. If it's in the beginning of the game and you can suddenly hear the crowd excited, when usually nothing's supposed to be happening, there's something up — leading you to check for hidden stuff, or something. It's common enough. Hell, some players have even said they've intentionally not looked for something after they've heard the audience get excited, for fear of appearing to be cheating by acting on that knowledge.
It's a similar situation in Dota 2. Alliance, having pulled some crazy and unexpected level 1 Roshans (the first one at the Dreamhack lan — the only one at a lan to date), have said in recent interviews that they refrain from using similar tactics at lans nowadays due to a suddenly excited crowd tipping their opponents off.
Soundproofing is a real problem in situations where the reactions of an audience can tip you off to something happening.
except its already been proven on reddit that polt scouts that position in all his tvp's and if you even watch the clip he queued the scv to go that way before the audience gave any loud OOOHHH and it still doesnt excuse him to forfeit 2+ games because of that. soundproofing is a real issue but in this game the outcome would have been the same regardless
Well we can't know that for sure, but I'm inclined to believe that it's more likely that Polt would have scouted it regardless. It's not terribly important to me though, unless I'm absolutely certain. Even then, when judging the actions of another the more important matter is the perspective of the people involved. Here's the perspective of Naniwa: https://twitter.com/NaNiwaSC2/statuses/444651159488593920 Now we can of course doubt his sincerity, but I would argue that if anything he has shown throughout his career to be sincere to the point of disregarding his own best, much like he has now. So given his perspective, how would we describe his actions? I would say he tired of putting up with what he would probably look at as appalling, game-breaking conditions. Under normal circumstances, maybe he would endure it and play out the series, but here he is on his birthday (it might matter to him) and potentially last day of his SC2 career, and as he is proxying his gateway he can (allegedly) hear the casters commentate his actions. Knowing Polt speaks pretty good English, and probably understands it better than he speaks it, Naniwa is reasonably safe to assume that Polt also hears it and knows what is going on. This makes me wonder what his thought-process was when he was doing the proxy, if he was then able to hear the casters already or already being able to assess that if they spoke up a little bit he would hear it clearly. Maybe he refused to change his game-plan after realizing he could hear the casters (it is the first game after all, and he likely already planned out the series vs Polt). That's certainly a respectable position to take. It's all speculation though, but all that means is we can't judge him on the basis "what if he just wanted to be a douche?".
Now the other entity being judged in this thread seems to be the crowd. But come on people, a base level of empathy and experience being in a crowd should enable you to understand the situation and realize that of course the crowd would react like that. You just need to calm down and think for a moment. With Redeye, Kaelaris and ToD voicing their disappointment (quite reasonably so), the air is equally full of disappointment. When Naniwa walks out, a character who "a lot" (it's hard to quantify) of people already despise, of course they boo.
All this drama... To me the only drama is, if the soundproofing is this bad in the scene in general, why is there no continually ongoing discussion about this until it is resolved? Why are players not constantly complaining about it? Sure the discussions pop up when something happens, but to use a Swedish reference I'd say we need to go "Uppdrag Granskning" (i.e. real investigative journalism) on this matter. Unless this actually isn't an issue, we should have something like a Blizzard-led soundproofing organization who send observers to any (big) tournament that gives WCS points, and if the soundproofing is lacking then primarily they try to resolve it and if that's not possible then no WCS points are awarded from that tournament. It would suck in the short-term for players, but in the long-term tournaments would have to adjust. I mean, either this or something similar has to happen.
You can't do much about it? So why is there a need for a continually ongoing discussion to fix something you can't fix. IEM wants to sell as many live tickets as possible. Spodek has a maximum capacity of 11,500. In order to not have the crowd distract the players you'd basically have to move them in the basement or off the property to have complete silence. This would pose the problem that when you go to a live event you have an expectation to actually see the players live in front of you. Would you bother going if you only saw the players on tv screens as they played in a different area? You'd just stay home like everyone else? I really don't think there is more to it than this to discuss at this point or even bother discussing further at all.
On March 15 2014 10:18 for_the_swarm wrote: i dont get it. Even if the players could hear the casters, the koreans barely understand english. And if it was the crowd cheering during the proxy, was Naniwa planning on proxying every single game like WCS? why not finish the series and lose your chance at 100k$ ?
It's not about understanding casters. It's hearing the audience and their reactions. If it's in the beginning of the game and you can suddenly hear the crowd excited, when usually nothing's supposed to be happening, there's something up — leading you to check for hidden stuff, or something. It's common enough. Hell, some players have even said they've intentionally not looked for something after they've heard the audience get excited, for fear of appearing to be cheating by acting on that knowledge.
It's a similar situation in Dota 2. Alliance, having pulled some crazy and unexpected level 1 Roshans (the first one at the Dreamhack lan — the only one at a lan to date), have said in recent interviews that they refrain from using similar tactics at lans nowadays due to a suddenly excited crowd tipping their opponents off.
Soundproofing is a real problem in situations where the reactions of an audience can tip you off to something happening.
except its already been proven on reddit that polt scouts that position in all his tvp's and if you even watch the clip he queued the scv to go that way before the audience gave any loud OOOHHH and it still doesnt excuse him to forfeit 2+ games because of that. soundproofing is a real issue but in this game the outcome would have been the same regardless
Well we can't know that for sure, but I'm inclined to believe that it's more likely that Polt would have scouted it regardless. It's not terribly important to me though, unless I'm absolutely certain. Even then, when judging the actions of another the more important matter is the perspective of the people involved. Here's the perspective of Naniwa: https://twitter.com/NaNiwaSC2/statuses/444651159488593920 Now we can of course doubt his sincerity, but I would argue that if anything he has shown throughout his career to be sincere to the point of disregarding his own best, much like he has now. So given his perspective, how would we describe his actions? I would say he tired of putting up with what he would probably look at as appalling, game-breaking conditions. Under normal circumstances, maybe he would endure it and play out the series, but here he is on his birthday (it might matter to him) and potentially last day of his SC2 career, and as he is proxying his gateway he can (allegedly) hear the casters commentate his actions. Knowing Polt speaks pretty good English, and probably understands it better than he speaks it, Naniwa is reasonably safe to assume that Polt also hears it and knows what is going on. This makes me wonder what his thought-process was when he was doing the proxy, if he was then able to hear the casters already or already being able to assess that if they spoke up a little bit he would hear it clearly. Maybe he refused to change his game-plan after realizing he could hear the casters (it is the first game after all, and he likely already planned out the series vs Polt). That's certainly a respectable position to take. It's all speculation though, but all that means is we can't judge him on the basis "what if he just wanted to be a douche?".
Now the other entity being judged in this thread seems to be the crowd. But come on people, a base level of empathy and experience being in a crowd should enable you to understand the situation and realize that of course the crowd would react like that. You just need to calm down and think for a moment. With Redeye, Kaelaris and ToD voicing their disappointment (quite reasonably so), the air is equally full of disappointment. When Naniwa walks out, a character who "a lot" (it's hard to quantify) of people already despise, of course they boo.
All this drama... To me the only drama is, if the soundproofing is this bad in the scene in general, why is there no continually ongoing discussion about this until it is resolved? Why are players not constantly complaining about it? Sure the discussions pop up when something happens, but to use a Swedish reference I'd say we need to go "Uppdrag Granskning" (i.e. real investigative journalism) on this matter. Unless this actually isn't an issue, we should have something like a Blizzard-led soundproofing organization who send observers to any (big) tournament that gives WCS points, and if the soundproofing is lacking then primarily they try to resolve it and if that's not possible then no WCS points are awarded from that tournament. It would suck in the short-term for players, but in the long-term tournaments would have to adjust. I mean, either this or something similar has to happen.
You can't do much about it? So why is there a need for a continually ongoing discussion to fix something you can't fix. IEM wants to sell as many live tickets as possible. Spodek has a maximum capacity of 11,500. In order to not have the crowd distract the players you'd basically have to move them in the basement or off the property to have complete silence. This would pose the problem that when you go to a live event you have an expectation to actually see the players live in front of you. Would you bother going if you only saw the players on tv screens as they played in a different area? You'd just stay home like everyone else? I really don't think there is more to it than this to discuss at this point or even bother discussing further at all.
On March 15 2014 10:18 for_the_swarm wrote: i dont get it. Even if the players could hear the casters, the koreans barely understand english. And if it was the crowd cheering during the proxy, was Naniwa planning on proxying every single game like WCS? why not finish the series and lose your chance at 100k$ ?
It's not about understanding casters. It's hearing the audience and their reactions. If it's in the beginning of the game and you can suddenly hear the crowd excited, when usually nothing's supposed to be happening, there's something up — leading you to check for hidden stuff, or something. It's common enough. Hell, some players have even said they've intentionally not looked for something after they've heard the audience get excited, for fear of appearing to be cheating by acting on that knowledge.
It's a similar situation in Dota 2. Alliance, having pulled some crazy and unexpected level 1 Roshans (the first one at the Dreamhack lan — the only one at a lan to date), have said in recent interviews that they refrain from using similar tactics at lans nowadays due to a suddenly excited crowd tipping their opponents off.
Soundproofing is a real problem in situations where the reactions of an audience can tip you off to something happening.
except its already been proven on reddit that polt scouts that position in all his tvp's and if you even watch the clip he queued the scv to go that way before the audience gave any loud OOOHHH and it still doesnt excuse him to forfeit 2+ games because of that. soundproofing is a real issue but in this game the outcome would have been the same regardless
Well we can't know that for sure, but I'm inclined to believe that it's more likely that Polt would have scouted it regardless. It's not terribly important to me though, unless I'm absolutely certain. Even then, when judging the actions of another the more important matter is the perspective of the people involved. Here's the perspective of Naniwa: https://twitter.com/NaNiwaSC2/statuses/444651159488593920 Now we can of course doubt his sincerity, but I would argue that if anything he has shown throughout his career to be sincere to the point of disregarding his own best, much like he has now. So given his perspective, how would we describe his actions? I would say he tired of putting up with what he would probably look at as appalling, game-breaking conditions. Under normal circumstances, maybe he would endure it and play out the series, but here he is on his birthday (it might matter to him) and potentially last day of his SC2 career, and as he is proxying his gateway he can (allegedly) hear the casters commentate his actions. Knowing Polt speaks pretty good English, and probably understands it better than he speaks it, Naniwa is reasonably safe to assume that Polt also hears it and knows what is going on. This makes me wonder what his thought-process was when he was doing the proxy, if he was then able to hear the casters already or already being able to assess that if they spoke up a little bit he would hear it clearly. Maybe he refused to change his game-plan after realizing he could hear the casters (it is the first game after all, and he likely already planned out the series vs Polt). That's certainly a respectable position to take. It's all speculation though, but all that means is we can't judge him on the basis "what if he just wanted to be a douche?".
Now the other entity being judged in this thread seems to be the crowd. But come on people, a base level of empathy and experience being in a crowd should enable you to understand the situation and realize that of course the crowd would react like that. You just need to calm down and think for a moment. With Redeye, Kaelaris and ToD voicing their disappointment (quite reasonably so), the air is equally full of disappointment. When Naniwa walks out, a character who "a lot" (it's hard to quantify) of people already despise, of course they boo.
All this drama... To me the only drama is, if the soundproofing is this bad in the scene in general, why is there no continually ongoing discussion about this until it is resolved? Why are players not constantly complaining about it? Sure the discussions pop up when something happens, but to use a Swedish reference I'd say we need to go "Uppdrag Granskning" (i.e. real investigative journalism) on this matter. Unless this actually isn't an issue, we should have something like a Blizzard-led soundproofing organization who send observers to any (big) tournament that gives WCS points, and if the soundproofing is lacking then primarily they try to resolve it and if that's not possible then no WCS points are awarded from that tournament. It would suck in the short-term for players, but in the long-term tournaments would have to adjust. I mean, either this or something similar has to happen.
You can't do much about it? So why is there a need for a continually ongoing discussion to fix something you can't fix. IEM wants to sell as many live tickets as possible. Spodek has a maximum capacity of 11,500. In order to not have the crowd distract the players you'd basically have to move them in the basement or off the property to have complete silence. This would pose the problem that when you go to a live event you have an expectation to actually see the players live in front of you. Would you bother going if you only saw the players on tv screens as they played in a different area? You'd just stay home like everyone else? I really don't think there is more to it than this to discuss at this point or even bother discussing further at all.
You're welcome to disagree with me all you want but the fact still is you can't do much to control audience noise outside of punishing the audience in one form or the other. Imagine being in centurylink field without hearing protection. Progamers have it good in comparison. You can throw all the money and ideas you want it at this. When you start adding more audience everything you did can and will go down the toilet at some point. It's kinda funny you want me to go back and reread a thread I posted in when it was relevant. I'm stating the same things here I stated there.
This thread has already been solved anyway a page or so ago. Polt scouts that position out of habit (see: many many games). So it's completely plausible if he heard the audience or not he would still check to see if anything was going on in that part of the map. So I wouldn't take Naniwa's rage quit as a sign Polt got an unfair advantage from the audience.
Now the other entity being judged in this thread seems to be the crowd. But come on people, a base level of empathy and experience being in a crowd should enable you to understand the situation and realize that of course the crowd would react like that. You just need to calm down and think for a moment. With Redeye, Kaelaris and ToD voicing their disappointment (quite reasonably so), the air is equally full of disappointment. When Naniwa walks out, a character who "a lot" (it's hard to quantify) of people already despise, of course they boo.
....despise? we were cheering for him like mad - I was there man, EVERYBODY clapped when he entered the stage. BUT when he walked away, wasting a lot time and NOT EVEN SAY "GOODBYE" ... what he's done when some people started to boo? He yawned.
A big disrespect toward your opponent, IEM and the several-thousand-people there - if you ask me. Even in GSL they have such problems - isn't too good for him either?
And if you check my previous post - the sound was from LOL (first blood)
Well, I guess I wasn't being clear enough. I meant "a lot" of people in general despise him, and so there was a high likelihood of there being some in the crowd as well. And it's also just the fact that "a lot" of people view him that way, it makes it easier for everyone else to adopt a similar attitude. The booing may well not even have anything to do with that though, it's also quite reasonable that people were just disappointed, as they still had hopes that he might do well or at least show good games or whatever each and everyone wanted out of it, so of course they were disappointed when they didn't get that. I'm not sure if my message is coming through clearly enough, but I hope you get what I'm saying.
I didn't know he yawned at the crowd when they booed him, but it seems like a pretty likely reaction from him. He must have been in a pretty shitty mood already, so of course the booing would stir up some emotions. It seems like a dickish thing to do, but I always (almost) find a way to look at the flip-side of things. The crowd is mocking him, so he's mocking them back. Seems reasonable (though not necessarily very mature).
And just because other people put up with something doesn't mean one specific individual also has to. He's not necessarily thinking of himself as better than anyone else, maybe he just can't stand it regardless of what other people do or think of it.
Well I do agree with you on many levels, but still this is a huge tournament, with a huge prize in front of huge audience. And since this dude is a PRO I'm entitled to require a professional behaviour from him, especially sitting 10m away and seeing details. He admitted he hadn't played so much recently, he admitted he doesn't care as much as before. If I was him - I'd forfeit earlier and "give" my place to someone that does care and works hard to achieve more.
I understand the issue and nerves, but I think it is impossible to 100% isolate the sound since my chair was trembling from the power of the sound, his booth would resonate as well, "basement placement" isn't an option to me Imho - he chose to forfeit this way instead of being 3-0'ed.
I still love Naniwa's as a player, but after that "exhibition" of childish behaviour and disrespect to his fans - I'm afraid I don't like him any more as a whole package. And that's on him. And yes, I felt very disappointed.
On March 17 2014 00:40 veilchen wrote: Soundproof + Signs in the audience Problems:
Show the games on the screen time-displaced.
About 2-3 mins would probably be enough to resolve the 'cheering crowd' and 'friend sits in the audience and gives hints to the player' problem.
And 3 mins wouldn't hurt the crowd at all.#
I'm a genius,
Tense battle on the screen, suddenly in the booth one player jumps up and down celebrating, going out of his booth. Match still running on the screen for 3 minutes. Well, a bit of a downer ^^ Otherwise this would work ok I guess.
EPT
[A]NaNiwa's disinterest in StarCraft 2 was well known before the tournament, and few expected the Swedish Protoss player to put up more than token resistance against TvP specialist 
CMStorm_Polt in their Ro16 match. However, things quickly took a dramatic turn once Polt scouted out Naniwa's proxy-gateway all-in in game one (VOD). Complaints about soundproofing lead to a quick GG from NaNiwa, and eventually resulted in a sudden, mid-series forfeiture (details here). The internet was soon abuzz with discussion over NaNiwa's action, and the shadow of his forfeiture lingered over the rest of the proceedings.![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Waxangel/iem/wc2014/ro16bracket_2.png)
Roccat.HyuN very nearly scored a massive upset over 
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/N9mIJdS.jpg)
