On September 05 2014 20:09 SinO[Ob] wrote: Finally a good region lock rule!
Like that we will still have the MMA/MC/Stardust in EU and Polt/some axiom guys? in NA. Without having a R016 full of korean. Finally this nonsense is over!
Now having GSL waaaaaaaay more points for ppl particpating in(Like RO8 2 on 3 times can go to blizzcon right away). And we will have a reasonnable Blizzcon.
2015 More forigners In the front scene! Finally those guy will have the impression to fight for something they can achieve (without having to train 3 years like a robot!) Players with personnality plz!
First, Yoda, Golden, Forgg, Sacsri, and jjakji all live in Europe too. And I think Hyun might be in Germany atm? Or at least he was living there at some point cause I believe he tweeted something about getting a visa there so he might switch.
On September 05 2014 19:07 sharkie wrote: If you want examples open up your local newspaper and read stories about sports you have never ever heard before. I read them a lot where athletes have their residence in China or Vietnam just to live out their dream.
Don't blame me for forgetting their names
Actually, the analogy applied correctly to this scenario is non-koreans moving to Korea to become the best they can be (like Jinro/Idra/Haypro/TLO in early SC2)... not getting hand outs from Blizzard
Wait, the GSL wasn't always region locked with its offline qualifiers? Its funny how it was way easier for a Korean to get a Blizzard sponsored flight to NA to compete in WCS than it was for a NA player to get to get one to Korea. I guess its reasonable to expect players from NA to play on the KR server and then try out in Korea after spending a couple grand on fights.
But now that the tables are turned, everyone is super grump because the one way Blizzard Tran-Pacific Taxi service has come to an end.
On September 05 2014 20:17 SuperHofmann wrote: If Blizzard continue with region lock GSL could have the double points of WCS AM/EU. top3 WCS is like top16 or top8 in GSL comparing the level
More like triple or quadruple the points, with the money to go with it. Korea is now, easily, going to be about ten times harder than any other region. The rewards should reflect that.
On September 05 2014 10:03 Pent217 wrote: Polt's probably pretty happy with this decision, basically just handing him the WCS AM titles for the next year
Well, there'd still be Major, Scarlett and Violet.
More like triple or quadruple the points, with the money to go with it. Korea is now, easily, going to be about ten times harder than any other region. The rewards should reflect that.
Well that would push Foreigners again to move over to Korea, which would also help keeping up with their level, since not a lot of Players were doing this before.
Lots of people are saying, "oh Korea will be fine they just need a few more OSL/MSLs or maybe a SPOTV League".
Problem is the chances of OSL or MSL returning is extremely low, as is a SPOTV league. They probably won't happen in 2015. If they do then great the Korean scene might be saved but if they don't, which is overwhelmingly likely, then Koreans (particularly those not on KeSPA teams) are completely fucked and we will have fan favourites retiring left, right and centre.
I can't see how that will be anything but terrible for the scene?
On September 05 2014 19:07 sharkie wrote: If you want examples open up your local newspaper and read stories about sports you have never ever heard before. I read them a lot where athletes have their residence in China or Vietnam just to live out their dream.
Don't blame me for forgetting their names
Actually, the analogy applied correctly to this scenario is non-koreans moving to Korea to become the best they can be (like Jinro/Idra/Haypro/TLO in early SC2)... not getting hand outs from Blizzard
Wait, the GSL wasn't always region locked with its offline qualifiers? Its funny how it was way easier for a Korean to get a Blizzard sponsored flight to NA to compete in WCS than it was for a NA player to get to get one to Korea. I guess its reasonable to expect players from NA to play on the KR server and then try out in Korea after spending a couple grand on fights.
But now that the tables are turned, everyone is super grump because the one way Blizzard Tran-Pacific Taxi service has come to an end.
Are you forgetting the efforts GOM put in to try and bridge the gap between NAEU and KR?
On September 05 2014 10:03 Pent217 wrote: Polt's probably pretty happy with this decision, basically just handing him the WCS AM titles for the next year
Well, there'd still be Major, Scarlett and Violet.
More like triple or quadruple the points, with the money to go with it. Korea is now, easily, going to be about ten times harder than any other region. The rewards should reflect that.
Well that would push Foreigners again to move over to Korea, which would also help keeping up with their level, since not a lot of Players were doing this before.
Experience says that this is not a good move if you only want to live for ~3 months in KR. Exceptions are Naniwa, Scarlett and Grubby. Idra, Stephano, Sjow, Thorzain etc were very terrible after KR, something like top8 foreigner into top32 foreigner. Foreigner who lived for a longer time like Jinro, HuK etc is a different story.
On September 05 2014 20:33 Crot4le wrote: Lots of people are saying, "oh Korea will be fine they just need a few more OSL/MSLs or maybe a SPOTV League".
Problem is the chances of OSL or MSL returning is extremely low, as is a SPOTV league. They probably won't happen in 2015. If they do then great the Korean scene might be saved but if they don't, which is overwhelmingly likely, then Koreans (particularly those not on KeSPA teams) are completely fucked and we will have fan favourites retiring left, right and centre.
I can't see how that will be anything but terrible for the scene?
Why would it be terrible? Basically only people this will somehow influence are the Koreans that play WCS NA/EU from Korea and the only time they spend on EU/NA ladder (and in EU/NA countries) is when they are there for 1 weekend of Ro8 onwards. To be quite honest - fuck them. They do not bring anything to other regions, they just come and go, they do nothing for any of the scenes, be it KR, EU or NA.
People like HerO (hell, he is even competing in SPL!), Taeja (I heard he said he will retire after Blizzcon?), Pigbaby, even Axiom players and Jaedong, etc.
While people like jjakji, Sacsri, Stardust, MC, Yoda, First, Polt, Violet, Hyun - these will all be untouched, still competing in their respective WCS regions while still playing with foreigners a lot (don't forget these people also play in their regions online qualifiers for everything, IEMs, Red Bull etc) and improving the level of foreigner skill (look at EU, I believe people like Snute, Bunny, Harstem etc would not be AS good as they are if they wouldn't play with MC/jjakji/ForGG etc on daily basis).
And don't forget about Taiwanese Koreans, check, Leenock, San etc - they will probably still be able to compete in Taiwanese qualifiers for NA if they wish.
There will not be THAT many Koreans that will move back, I believe. Mostly Koreans on foreign teams without gaming houses - and yes, in my opinion, if you spend 6-7 weeks out of 8 week WCS season in Korea (depending on how many other foreign tournaments are going on), you should also compete in Korea. Otherwise this doesn't make any sense.
On September 05 2014 19:07 sharkie wrote: If you want examples open up your local newspaper and read stories about sports you have never ever heard before. I read them a lot where athletes have their residence in China or Vietnam just to live out their dream.
Don't blame me for forgetting their names
Actually, the analogy applied correctly to this scenario is non-koreans moving to Korea to become the best they can be (like Jinro/Idra/Haypro/TLO in early SC2)... not getting hand outs from Blizzard
Wait, the GSL wasn't always region locked with its offline qualifiers? Its funny how it was way easier for a Korean to get a Blizzard sponsored flight to NA to compete in WCS than it was for a NA player to get to get one to Korea. I guess its reasonable to expect players from NA to play on the KR server and then try out in Korea after spending a couple grand on fights.
But now that the tables are turned, everyone is super grump because the one way Blizzard Tran-Pacific Taxi service has come to an end.
Maybe now they can use the money from plane tickets to sponsor a new league in Korea.
On September 05 2014 15:54 iamcaustic wrote: Fantastic news all around. It's about time there was real regional lock. For the people thinking this is a bad thing, let me explain why it's actually important; let's look at Korea to explain.
Koreans are known as being the best SC2 players, and for good reason. The reason they dominate the scene, however, is not due to some genetic trait, but rather cash flow and infrastructure. Players and teams are actually able to invest more of their time into being good at the game, and can afford coaching salaries and such.
Thinking WCS region lock magically reduces skill requirements for players is ludicrous; their training regime to win will still involve playing against Koreans (probably a lot of KR server, for example). The best foreigners don't win against Koreans because they face Koreans in tournaments once in a while, they win because they can beat those Koreans on ladder and in practice. What actually happens with region lock is that the tournament prize money gets infused into the local scene, rather than all the cash getting outsourced to Korea to further finance their dominance. Home-grown infrastructure is necessary if we ever want non-Koreans to be relevant at the highest level of play, and region lock is a step in the right direction to make it happen.
A simple economics example would be protectionism. Let's take the Korean auto market for example; when companies like Kia were just getting started, Korea put tariffs on imported vehicles to give the local underdogs a fighting chance to build up their infrastructure. Nowadays, Kia ships vehicles across the globe. Without that protectionism, everyone would have just bought Hondas and such. In the same way, we want to give Western teams a chance to build themselves up and get the infrastructure going, so that in the future they can compete at the highest level around the world on their own two feet.
Yeah and protectionism doesn't work...that's the whole point.
On September 05 2014 20:55 lichter wrote: $10 says blizz announces something that renders all the arguments in this thread irrelevant
You mean like cancelling the proposed region-lock changes? Sign me up.
more likely they announce something more middle of the road that doesn't screw koreans too much while making them work harder to stay in the easier zones. most of the people arguing in this thread have extremist opinions and blizz isnt really the type to do anything extreme.
On September 05 2014 20:55 lichter wrote: $10 says blizz announces something that renders all the arguments in this thread irrelevant
You mean like cancelling the proposed region-lock changes? Sign me up.
more likely they announce something more middle of the road that doesn't screw koreans too much while making them work harder to stay in the easier zones. most of the people arguing in this thread have extremist opinions and blizz isnt really the type to do anything extreme.
I think that's all we need/want. We do want Koreans in NA/EU, but we want them to stay there. We want them to play all the other competitions there, we want them to play that ladder. At least I think that's what most of the people want, not to get rid of them, but for them to also give something back to the scene of their choice.
On September 05 2014 17:38 kimaphan wrote: Hi TL.net!
As much as I would like to address all of your questions and concerns, the reality is we're still finalizing the details of WCS 2015 with our partners. We wanted to share the more important changes immediately so players can start planning for next year. More information on the residency rules and requirements will be communicated to the impacted players directly and will also be updated in our official handbook for 2015.
It's safe to say that the changes in progress will have an impact on the points distribution, which is currently being assessed. We will be sharing a comprehensive WCS 2015 announcement later this year. Please stay tuned!
Thank you for your continued support and feedback. We really appreciate the StarCraft II community <3
.kim
Look forward to hearing what else is planned! Thanks
On September 05 2014 09:58 Fionn wrote: The year is 2018.
Polt is a 52-time WCS America champion.
hahaha! Well, if they have a good qualifier system this could be really awesome and a sick time for some players to break through. It also means that EVERYONE is going to have to bring their A game. I wish that there were some sort of ladder tie in because it would improve the NA ladder, we'll have to wait and see what the actual impact is.
On September 05 2014 19:35 Squat wrote: Step one complete, good job. Now we just need to make Korea reward players proportionally to the difficulty of the region(which will now increase eve further).
while i don't agree that any region should have more of a prize pool than any other, if they do bump prizes (including if they do bump korean prize money more than na/eu), they need to do so in not such a top-heavy joke of a manner - all that'd happen is they'd increase the first place money to ONE HUNDRED MILLION WON or some other headline-grabbing figure, and leave anyone that isn't in the top 4 with fuck all, which is kind of the reason why bad koreans went bumhunting overseas in the first place
EPT
