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Mute City2363 Posts
On April 09 2015 15:51 WonnaPlay wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2015 03:16 Thax wrote:On April 09 2015 00:28 WonnaPlay wrote:On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote:While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues. The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story  but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches. While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ; So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC). I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?" I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it. edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point) I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly). Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider. @Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general. There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying. That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues. You're missing the point, the basketball argument was just an example. Lets just say "National team" in any sport. Someone who has been living for a long time in a country, might be eligible for the National team. However, a good player who decided to live in country X, to play for that national team, just because getting on the national team is too hard in his/her own country. That's a different story.. Now view WCS AM, WCS EU, WCS China, WCS KR as "National team" (just look at WCS2012) and read the argument again.
I suggest you look a bit harder, there are examples everywhere in sport, especially football.
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On April 09 2015 16:24 thecrazymunchkin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2015 15:51 WonnaPlay wrote:On April 09 2015 03:16 Thax wrote:On April 09 2015 00:28 WonnaPlay wrote:On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote:While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues. The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches. While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ; So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC). I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?" I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it. edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point) I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly). Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider. @Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general. There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying. That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues. You're missing the point, the basketball argument was just an example. Lets just say "National team" in any sport. Someone who has been living for a long time in a country, might be eligible for the National team. However, a good player who decided to live in country X, to play for that national team, just because getting on the national team is too hard in his/her own country. That's a different story.. Now view WCS AM, WCS EU, WCS China, WCS KR as "National team" (just look at WCS2012) and read the argument again. I suggest you look a bit harder, there are examples everywhere in sport, especially football.
I'm more than aware that people who have been living in country X for a couple of years will alot of the time come out for said country.
Football players like those in the Dutch, German(Boateng etc.),French national teams, are all players who have lived/live in that country for years. Even their parents might be German or French.
"Examples everywhere" - I'm not arguing this point, I'm just asking whether it is good for a sport or not?
For me, I lost interest in things like football years ago, ever since my "favorite team" started consisting completely of African players.
Not that I have anything against African players, but I just can't relate to the team at all anymore. The same was kind of happening in SC2. Whenever all foreigners (or read: your own country/favorites) fall, it gets less interesting for alot of people.
(I loved this finals for the games, but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting. Eventhough Polt is probably the most non-korean of all).
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Mute City2363 Posts
On April 09 2015 16:57 WonnaPlay wrote:
but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting.
The fact that the Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past two years means that most people disagree with you there
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On April 09 2015 17:46 thecrazymunchkin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2015 16:57 WonnaPlay wrote:
but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting. The fact that the Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past two years means that most people disagree with you there
It's very hard to discuss with you, if you keep taking 1 little point of the argument and counter it with an argument like this.
Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past 2 years, because e-sports in general is getting bigger and bigger. The growth of things like Counter-Strike:GO have been huge the past year(s).
Sc2 has a huge and devoted community, however the community is not growing "as fast" as the others.
Numerous factors have a role in this, and I'm stating that for newcomers, it is less interesting if they only see Koreans, who'm don't speak English at all (thats why I don't dislike either Polt,Hydra or ForGG).
When I watched CS:GO with a friend of mine a couple of weeks back (he never seen e-sports, but he heard alot from me on SC2 over the last years and he used to play a bit CS1.6 years ago).
He was immediately completely hyped. He rooted for one of the teams (NiP vs LDLC; he rooted for NiP), just because he liked the Swedish style and he hates French people. He was on the edge of his chair and ever since he's been bugging me on when the next big tournament is.
If this was SC2 and I showed him an Korean vs Korean finals, he wouldn't have picked a team, he wouldn't care who won and he wouldn't know what was happening in the game. THATS the difference.
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Mute City2363 Posts
On April 09 2015 17:59 WonnaPlay wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2015 17:46 thecrazymunchkin wrote:On April 09 2015 16:57 WonnaPlay wrote:
but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting. The fact that the Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past two years means that most people disagree with you there It's very hard to discuss with you, if you keep taking 1 little point of the argument and counter it with an argument like this. Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past 2 years, because e-sports in general is getting bigger and bigger. The growth of things like Counter-Strike:GO have been huge the past year(s). Sc2 has a huge and devoted community, however the community is not growing "as fast" as the others. Numerous factors have a role in this, and I'm stating that for newcomers, it is less interesting if they only see Koreans, who'm don't speak English at all (thats why I don't dislike either Polt,Hydra or ForGG). When I watched CS:GO with a friend of mine a couple of weeks back (he never seen e-sports, but he heard alot from me on SC2 over the last years and he used to play a bit CS1.6 years ago). He was immediately completely hyped. He rooted for one of the teams (NiP vs LDLC; he rooted for NiP), just because he liked the Swedish style and he hates French people. He was on the edge of his chair and ever since he's been bugging me on when the next big tournament is. If this was SC2 and I showed him an Korean vs Korean finals, he wouldn't have picked a team, he wouldn't care who won and he wouldn't know what was happening in the game. THATS the difference.
But that's a different argument entirely. In CS, the fact that there are teams that your friend can identify with is due to the fact that all the best teams in the world are European. There's always going to be a large national focus to storylines because the very nature of a team-based game that hinges on communication means that the majority of the teams come from the same country. That's simply not an issue in Starcraft.
What you're arguing essentially is that NiP - LDLC/Envy was a good match as an introduction to newer players because of the nationalities involved; what I'd argue is that it was a good match because they're 2 of the 3 best teams in the world.
I think that there are more than enough people in the scene who do care about the Korean players (Proleague in particular is helping out a lot with this). It's still early to tell if this new incarnation of WCS is going to be better than the last, but I'll say for sure that the playoffs would have been a hell of a lot duller if the Koreans weren't there.
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On April 09 2015 18:12 thecrazymunchkin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2015 17:59 WonnaPlay wrote:On April 09 2015 17:46 thecrazymunchkin wrote:On April 09 2015 16:57 WonnaPlay wrote:
but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting. The fact that the Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past two years means that most people disagree with you there It's very hard to discuss with you, if you keep taking 1 little point of the argument and counter it with an argument like this. Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past 2 years, because e-sports in general is getting bigger and bigger. The growth of things like Counter-Strike:GO have been huge the past year(s). Sc2 has a huge and devoted community, however the community is not growing "as fast" as the others. Numerous factors have a role in this, and I'm stating that for newcomers, it is less interesting if they only see Koreans, who'm don't speak English at all (thats why I don't dislike either Polt,Hydra or ForGG). When I watched CS:GO with a friend of mine a couple of weeks back (he never seen e-sports, but he heard alot from me on SC2 over the last years and he used to play a bit CS1.6 years ago). He was immediately completely hyped. He rooted for one of the teams (NiP vs LDLC; he rooted for NiP), just because he liked the Swedish style and he hates French people. He was on the edge of his chair and ever since he's been bugging me on when the next big tournament is. If this was SC2 and I showed him an Korean vs Korean finals, he wouldn't have picked a team, he wouldn't care who won and he wouldn't know what was happening in the game. THATS the difference. But that's a different argument entirely. In CS, the fact that there are teams that your friend can identify with is due to the fact that all the best teams in the world are European. There's always going to be a large national focus to storylines because the very nature of a team-based game that hinges on communication means that the majority of the teams come from the same country. That's simply not an issue in Starcraft. What you're arguing essentially is that NiP - LDLC/Envy was a good match as an introduction to newer players because of the nationalities involved; what I'd argue is that it was a good match because they're 2 of the 3 best teams in the world. I think that there are more than enough people in the scene who do care about the Korean players (Proleague in particular is helping out a lot with this). It's still early to tell if this new incarnation of WCS is going to be better than the last, but I'll say for sure that the playoffs would have been a hell of a lot duller if the Koreans weren't there.
The bolded part is actually a very good point. Whenever I show people SC matches, they tend to get more excited if they can identify with someone/something. Some friends used to cheer for NaNiWa, just because he wasn't Korean. I told them that Naniwa was actually kind of a dick, but they don't care about that. They would hype the 1 non-korean that was in the tournament, just in case of rooting for the underdog. Rooting for a random korean underdog vs a korean upperdog isn't that exciting for them, because both koreans are 'koreans'.
For me as an SC2 player, I have no trouble identifying myself with Koreans, because they're just so good and all playstyles are different. So Koreans in a tournament are fun to watch for me, just because I can learn from it and i love the awesome matches. External viewers are much more likely to prefer storylines over good games.
True, the match that I showed was a very good introduction match (I showed him the DH:Winter finals). The same goes for SC.
I can "turn over" more people to SC with a "HuK vs Bunny" match, than compared to a Squirtle vs MVP finals(I can't even believe I'm saying this, because that finals was the most brutal thing I ever watched).
It is indeed too early to tell, and while I agree that enough of the people in the scene care about the korean players, I can't help but feel that it is somewhat bad for the growth (look at how the AM scene just completely evaporated).
IMHO; the changes to WCS this year are really good step forward, but I still feel that it is not enough. WCS used to be "per country"(needed to be citizen from country X to participate in country X), it got changed into region, through that it changed "region" to "anywhere from the world, as long as you're here or there on that time".
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On April 09 2015 15:51 WonnaPlay wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2015 03:16 Thax wrote:On April 09 2015 00:28 WonnaPlay wrote:On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote:While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues. The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches. While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ; So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC). I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?" I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it. edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point) I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly). Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider. @Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general. There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying. That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues. You're missing the point, the basketball argument was just an example. Lets just say "National team" in any sport. Someone who has been living for a long time in a country, might be eligible for the National team. However, a good player who decided to live in country X, to play for that national team, just because getting on the national team is too hard in his/her own country. That's a different story.. Now view WCS AM, WCS EU, WCS China, WCS KR as "National team" (just look at WCS2012) and read the argument again.
But the WCS' *aren't* like national teams. That argument just doesn't hold up. StarCraft is more comparable to tennis where WCS/GSL/... are the Grandslams.
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Game 5 and 6 has been awesome. back and forth! after that hydra seemed to struggle especially in the last game he took really bad fights but it was also kinda strange map wise for zerg... gratz to polt amazing finals!
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EPT
