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Surely everyone here knows that foreign SC2 is not in good shape. The days of foreigners, or even the single best foreigner, being able to compete regularly with Koreans are long gone; these days, the world outside of Korea is lucky to get a single representative at Blizzcon, with a points format tilted towards the foreign weekend tournaments that are supposed to favor them. Of course, everyone has an opinion on how to fix this.
The magic word for many seems to be "infrastructure". And it's true - even if it isn't what it used to be, the top SC2 teams in Korea have a potent infrastructure for maximizing success. Teamhouses, coaches, and practice partners, all based in Seoul, not to mention long winning traditions. By contrast, foreign teams often seem like little more than loose collections of friends, or players that share sponsors but little else. The few teamhouses available have results that could be charitably called "mixed", and coaches seem practically unknown. The difference in infrastructure is clear, and it's not hard to see how this leads to very different results.
So how does WCS fit into this? Blizzard probably had multiple reasons for creating WCS, including just maintaining high-level SC2 events outside of Korea with the end of MLG, IPL, etc. But a large part of the narrative of the creation of WCS, at least from many community figures, is that it would provide an incentive to grow the foreign scene. With a big-money tournament that was (at least in theory) exclusive to non-Korean players, they would have an incentive and some motivation to practice harder, play better, and get to the level where they could compete with the true best in the world.
So how has that actually worked out? WCS is, essentially, a single-elimination tournament. You keep winning, or you go home and wait a couple months for the next event. This seems to run counter-intuitive to the idea of creating a real impetus for long-term improvement - only the best of the best will actually have a tournament to compete in for most of the year, and the same applies to the big-money prizes that supposedly provide motivation. It also goes against the idea of getting sponsorship, the real fuel for Korean infrastructure. Why pay big bucks to sponsor a team when a few bad results means no one will be seeing your logo anywhere? Also, the short-term nature of WCS encourages the same practices of living apart that are common to foreign SC2 - live at home, fly to the event, and fly back. The same could be said for its individualistic nature.
Let's take a step back and look at Korea - what is and has for a long time the real core of Starcraft in Korea? It's not the GSL, not the SSL, and it wasn't even the OSL or MSL. It's Proleague - the event that lasts for months, provides a reason for players to team up and practice together. It provides weekly exposure for the big Korean companies that fund the whole thing, and weekly games for the top players that compete in it - not to mention opportunites for the underdogs to prove themselves. Although I was not a BW fan, it is difficult to look at the Starcraft infrastructure in Korea and see it as inspired by anything other than Proleague and the OGN and MBC team leagues that preceded it.
There have been foreign team leagues before - IPTL, SC2L, and even the recent Shoutcraft stuff I guess (was that actually a league?) While fun at times, these have had obvious flaws. They were all online, of course, and casted from replays even, which is understandable but limits them in terms of being big events. More importantly, it was obvious that most teams never took them completely seriously - they were secondary events to the big individual events. In order for a hypothetical foreign Proleague to be anything like, well, Proleague, it would need to be the main event, and it would need to be live and in-person.
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So, here's my proposal. Whereas, for the improvement and betterment of non-Korean SC2 players and the community in general, etc etc etc, it should create a foreign version of Proleague in lieu of WCS. It would be held in two specific locations, one in the US and one in Europe. Teams would be based at one or the other and chiefly play within their own region, with perhaps occasional trips to the other region (think something like how interleague baseball used to work, if you know anything about that). After determining one champion in each region, they would meet in a grand final to determine the best foreign SC2 team of all. The beauty of it would be, there wouldn't need to be a region lock - any Korean players that wanted to compete would need to live and play full-time in that region (unless they wanted to commute weekly) and be fully assimilated. Other details about the format could come later, including the funding model - it could be a wide distribution of prize money, or even direct funding to teams more like what Riot does.
Now, obviously, in order to be viable, this would need significant funding from Blizzard, probably a lot more than WCS. No one outside of Blizzard knows exactly how much they care about SC2 continuing on as a viable eSport, or how much money they're willing to spend to make it happen. But if they do care, and they do want it to be viable outside of Korea, I think this is probably the only way. It would provide an incentive for real teams, for training, for the "infrastructure" everyone is talking about. It would draw fans and improve players. It would ensure that top-level professional SC2 is a thing for a long time to come.
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tl;dr kill WCS, make foreign Proleague, SC2 becomes not ded gaem
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1. There is 0% chance of getting all the players to live in one country, let alone one city. The only way this would be remotely possible is if teams paid A LOT of players (far more than currently play full-time) a ridiculous amount of money (far more salary than any foreign progamer is paid right now).
2. Even if this was feasible, or done online, most teams barely even have enough players because foreign SC2 has not developed around team leagues at all.
3. If this happened, foreigners would still get destroyed by top Koreans.
4. Prime could move to America and have a shot at winning! :D
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Blizzard chopped off the head of the foreign community when they didn't region lock WCS season 2. Koreans took over everything.
You don't develop homegrown talent by importing it. You develop it by making it a viable profession and supporting up and coming players. By seconding all the second rate Koreans to Europe and America, it totally washed away the up and coming local scenes, particularly in America.
Imagine if Korea opened up a basketball league intending to build up homegrown talent, but allowed NBA players to make the same salary they do in the States over in Korea. We all know the Korean League would fill up with second rate NBA players and there would be no Koreans in the league.
You build and develop talent by building an infrastructure and investing in players from that region, make it a viable profession, attract good coaches, invest in teams ect... you don't build the region by importing players and then giving them big money.
At this point, it doesn't really matter though because the game isn't as fun as it was. There are a litany of game design mistakes that need to be fixed in order for SC2 to become as fun as it was, and retake the E-Sports throne. But Blizzard with David Kim has no ability to understand even basic game design.
It is really sad. League of Legends game designers do blogs where they explain game design, and if you read them you'll realize how badly SC2 is doing:
http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417
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I mean the obvious problem is that in Korean, all the players and the games can all be held in and around one city. Its easy for fans to come regularly and its convenient for the player to both play in the games and to practice with their teams when the games are not going on. In the foreign scene this doesn't work that well. America and Europe are gigantic compared to Korea in terms of land mass, and it would be difficult to encourage players to move to around the same city. As such it would be difficult to actually copy the infrastructure and format of proleague as it exists in korea
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make the game good first before talking about these stuff
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Far too expensive for what SC2 is worth, and probably far too difficult mustering the teams. You might not have noticed, but almost ever team has a roster much lower than what is required for a proper teamleague.
Proleague works in Korea because it's progamer density is so ridiculously high and it's a carryover from the Broodwar days. Can't be done outside of there.
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"develop home-grown talent"... there was none to begin with
I have no idea why people dislike it so much that Koreans are good at this game and the rest of the world is not. :/
for sure though, one of the big flaws of the foreign scene is that people don't root for teams, they root for players
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I guess what you could do is create a league in a european city and an american city and somehow make it attractive enough for people serious about their gaming to move there.
In my opinion if a player is unwilling to relocate to pursue a career as a pro he isn't all that serious about it. It's just important that the reward is adequate.
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Back when there still were foreign teams like TL and EG with stars on their roster, I preferred IPTL e.g. even to proleague now. But foreign Sc 2 died a slow death and now when I look at WCS I hardly care for any player. It's probably a mixture of dwindling popularity of the game, lack of support for the foreign scene and a saturation of the market with Korean content. I don't know how you could realistically reverse that trend.
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On October 18 2015 16:15 B.I.G. wrote:
I guess what you could do is create a league in a european city and an american city and somehow make it attractive enough for people serious about their gaming to move there.
In my opinion if a player is unwilling to relocate to pursue a career as a pro he isn't all that serious about it. It's just important that the reward is adequate. That's pretty much exactly what I was trying to say.
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On October 18 2015 16:21 Daswollvieh wrote:
Back when there still were foreign teams like TL and EG with stars on their roster, I preferred IPTL e.g. even to proleague now. But foreign Sc 2 died a slow death and now when I look at WCS I hardly care for any player. It's probably a mixture of dwindling popularity of the game, lack of support for the foreign scene and a saturation of the market with Korean content. I don't know how you could realistically reverse that trend.
welcome to bw. this is the deja vu in terms of you guys going off on wcs and the where's the foreigners whine when it comes to leagues. there were plenty of leagues for them and did that change anything? no.
we can look at all the what ifs however it won't change anything.
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On October 18 2015 16:07 Incognoto wrote:
"develop home-grown talent"... there was none to begin with
I have no idea why people dislike it so much that Koreans are good at this game and the rest of the world is not. :/
for sure though, one of the big flaws of the foreign scene is that people don't root for teams, they root for players
Yeah, sorry, we all forgot that SC2 is a gene in the human genome. How could have been so blind to the fact that at the start of BW and WoL there were foreigners fighting for top spots in leagues? Blind to the fact that they were actually part korean that is! HAH!~!
GOT EM BOYS
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On October 18 2015 15:13 BronzeKnee wrote:Blizzard chopped off the head of the foreign community when they didn't region lock WCS season 2. Koreans took over everything. You don't develop homegrown talent by importing it. You develop it by making it a viable profession and supporting up and coming players. By seconding all the second rate Koreans to Europe and America, it totally washed away the up and coming local scenes, particularly in America. Imagine if Korea opened up a basketball league intending to build up homegrown talent, but allowed NBA players to make the same salary they do in the States over in Korea. We all know the Korean League would fill up with second rate NBA players and there would be no Koreans in the league. You build and develop talent by building an infrastructure and investing in players from that region, make it a viable profession, attract good coaches, invest in teams ect... you don't build the region by importing players and then giving them big money. At this point, it doesn't really matter though because the game isn't as fun as it was. There are a litany of game design mistakes that need to be fixed in order for SC2 to become as fun as it was, and retake the E-Sports throne. But Blizzard with David Kim has no ability to understand even basic game design. It is really sad. League of Legends game designers do blogs where they explain game design, and if you read them you'll realize how badly SC2 is doing: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417
That's a good post. There is a reason WCS season 2 was so popular and it only went downhill from there. Sure, the game got a little stale but the main reason was the fact that foreign-only WCS was so much more hype.
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On October 18 2015 16:37 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2015 16:21 Daswollvieh wrote:
Back when there still were foreign teams like TL and EG with stars on their roster, I preferred IPTL e.g. even to proleague now. But foreign Sc 2 died a slow death and now when I look at WCS I hardly care for any player. It's probably a mixture of dwindling popularity of the game, lack of support for the foreign scene and a saturation of the market with Korean content. I don't know how you could realistically reverse that trend. welcome to bw. this is the deja vu in terms of you guys going off on wcs and the where's the foreigners whine when it comes to leagues. there were plenty of leagues for them and did that change anything? no. we can look at all the what ifs however it won't change anything.
I have literally no idea what you are talking about. Who is "you guys", what's the connection to bw?
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Long run tournaments have been never good for foreign players. Team leagues shows the opposite. I am fine with WCS removal and they do ~4x weekends tournaments in EU and 4x in US (Tier1 prizepool) per year. Blizzcon gets own qualifiers. Players need more independences.
Longrun tournaments can have big negative influence to players, when you attend many weekend tournaments.
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I think it is a good idea if it can be implemented somehow. I think people had doubts when they made the first league of starcraft in korea but it came out great ;
At least the fact that foreigners do not have the coaches seems to be a serious handicap.
I love supporting foreigners against koreans but yeah, most of the best games have koreans in them.
I even saw a tournament where two terrans were in the same group: one korean and one non korean.
Non korean lost to the other races and complained live about terran weak race. Korean swept the group.
I love this game and I hope LOTV will revive it and make from it what brood war did for korea.
But I have no faith ! And Blizzard seems to shy away from the company that made the best RTS-s of my life
because they do not make enough money with it. I think they are still pissed off that they could not cache more
from Kespa for Brood war even though Kespa made their game famous, created the amazing legacy that we
have : Boxer, Bisu, Jae Dong , Flash and others and at the same time is in part responsible for the money they
made at the beginning with starcaft 2 . But when money are more important than passion things do not improve.
Sorry for the long post.. I'm venting.
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On October 18 2015 15:13 BronzeKnee wrote:Blizzard chopped off the head of the foreign community when they didn't region lock WCS season 2. Koreans took over everything. You don't develop homegrown talent by importing it. You develop it by making it a viable profession and supporting up and coming players. By seconding all the second rate Koreans to Europe and America, it totally washed away the up and coming local scenes, particularly in America. Imagine if Korea opened up a basketball league intending to build up homegrown talent, but allowed NBA players to make the same salary they do in the States over in Korea. We all know the Korean League would fill up with second rate NBA players and there would be no Koreans in the league. You build and develop talent by building an infrastructure and investing in players from that region, make it a viable profession, attract good coaches, invest in teams ect... you don't build the region by importing players and then giving them big money. At this point, it doesn't really matter though because the game isn't as fun as it was. There are a litany of game design mistakes that need to be fixed in order for SC2 to become as fun as it was, and retake the E-Sports throne. But Blizzard with David Kim has no ability to understand even basic game design. It is really sad. League of Legends game designers do blogs where they explain game design, and if you read them you'll realize how badly SC2 is doing: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417
I never liked the idea of region lock, to be honest. WCS season 3 was region locked, and, sure, as a result there were more foreign players around, but the level of play also took a nosedive. The broadcasting schedule became a lot less intuitive, and because of NASL's bankruptcy Blizzard and ESL were forced to put NASL's casters into the casting lineup as well even though Apollo, Kaelaris and Tod were doing a more than fine enough job on their own. These three elements were the main reasons I basically did not watch any WCS this year, whereas in 2014 I watched almost every game.
I also don't see why Blizzard would have to pay for teams and coaches themselves. Unlike Riot Games, Blizzard's income is not dependent on one single game. World of Warcraft is still lucrative for them (despite the dwindling number of players it is still the most played MMORPG by a large margin); they've got Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and now Overwatch coming up. I would not be surprised if Blizzard will be relieved once LOTV is released because that means that they can finally devote their attention to franchises that actually do have a future.
As much as I like Starcraft 2, 2015 has not been good for it. It's been pushed off the main stage in favour of League of Legends, Dota 2 and Counter Strike for most large events, viewer numbers have dropped significantly and the hype for LOTV seems to be all but nonexistent. On top of that many popular players have retired, are planning to, or try their luck at other games, crowd favourite casters are leaving the scene and are never heard of again (does anyone know what happened to RedEye, TotalBiscuit, Husky, Day9, Gretorp, MrBitter and so on), and foreign teams that were once feared (TeamLiquid, EvilGeniuses) now barely have players in WCS RO32 anymore, and seemingly don't bother with SC2 much anymore to begin with. It's still too early to call starcraft 2 a dead game, but it is clearly no longer a crowd favourite.
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Yeah there's a big issue with foreignland, that is that foreignland is wide and large. But there's one solution : to hell with Foreign ProLeague, let's make a French ProLeague !
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On October 18 2015 18:24 OtherWorld wrote:
Yeah there's a big issue with foreignland, that is that foreignland is wide and large. But there's one solution : to hell with Foreign ProLeague, let's make a French ProLeague !
viva la revolution!
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On October 18 2015 14:50 bduddy wrote:
Now, obviously, in order to be viable, this would need significant funding from Blizzard, probably a lot more than WCS. No one outside of Blizzard knows exactly how much they care about SC2 continuing on as a viable eSport, or how much money they're willing to spend to make it happen. But if they do care, and they do want it to be viable outside of Korea, I think this is probably the only way. It would provide an incentive for real teams, for training, for the "infrastructure" everyone is talking about. It would draw fans and improve players. It would ensure that top-level professional SC2 is a thing for a long time to come.
I like the idea but THIs make no sense at all. Why ask blizzard when we know they're not that stupid and wont go for it.
Suscriptions(us), partnership, fee coming from the teams are better options.
For example, SK telecom T1 is sponsored by SK telecom. Visibility is the key for a sponsor. Everyone here knows that there is a korean airline company named Jin air.
If there is a lot of people that are going to watch it, you can ask money for rights to broadcast, like in every sport no ?
On October 18 2015 15:11 ZAiNs wrote:
3. If this happened, foreigners would still get destroyed by top Koreans.
4. Prime could move to America and have a shot at winning! :D
So no koreans allowed ?
edit: do we have to create the same Proleague right now ? with players metting each other ? Gaming houses? etc ? Why some people wants to go for the best when we dont even have the player to make a foreigner proleague interesting ?
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Easier said than done. To make this work you'd have to have a few actual good gaming houses with all expenses paid in centralised locations in America/Europe and start paying a fine salary so people actually lived there. Aka an amount of money that will never happen.
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On October 18 2015 16:44 -Kyo- wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2015 16:07 Incognoto wrote:
"develop home-grown talent"... there was none to begin with
I have no idea why people dislike it so much that Koreans are good at this game and the rest of the world is not. :/
for sure though, one of the big flaws of the foreign scene is that people don't root for teams, they root for players Yeah, sorry, we all forgot that SC2 is a gene in the human genome. How could have been so blind to the fact that at the start of BW and WoL there were foreigners fighting for top spots in leagues? Blind to the fact that they were actually part korean that is! HAH!~! GOT EM BOYS
Yeah, those foreigners deserve praise for their mettle.
Today's foreigners just don't even compare with top Koreans, however. The past is the past.
It's not the lack of competitions for foreigners to partake in. There are more foreign events than Korean events. Why are Koreans so much better? Work ethic and a cutting-edge Korean metagame.
WCS was an attempt to cut out Koreans from the scene, and now the gap is even more pronounced than before.
Really I would say it comes down to lack of proper practice. No foreign team has the facilities that Korean counter-parts do, nor the Korean ladder. Nor do foreigners practice as much, I would say. Lack of coaching doesn't help. Lack of structured practice, etc.
There's a reason the gap is there, it has nothing to do with genomes, it's that Koreans have a better environment to become good and they also have the mettle to take full advantage of that environment. They have proper recognition for what they do as well in Korea, whereas professional gaming in Occidental countries is a niche within a niche. Pro gaming is probably a niche in Korea as well, but one with far more recognition than what we have here.
When you look at it, it kind of makes sense that foreigners just aren't as good. WCS won't really help that, at least not to the degree everyone would like it to. WCS did a good job of killing off Koreigners though, such as all of Axiom for starters.
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On October 18 2015 19:08 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2015 16:44 -Kyo- wrote:On October 18 2015 16:07 Incognoto wrote:
"develop home-grown talent"... there was none to begin with
I have no idea why people dislike it so much that Koreans are good at this game and the rest of the world is not. :/
for sure though, one of the big flaws of the foreign scene is that people don't root for teams, they root for players Yeah, sorry, we all forgot that SC2 is a gene in the human genome. How could have been so blind to the fact that at the start of BW and WoL there were foreigners fighting for top spots in leagues? Blind to the fact that they were actually part korean that is! HAH!~! GOT EM BOYS Really I would say it comes down to lack of proper practice. No foreign team has the facilities that Korean counter-parts do, nor the Korean ladder. Nor do foreigners practice as much, I would say. Lack of coaching doesn't help. Lack of structured practice, etc. There's a reason the gap is there, it has nothing to do with genomes, it's that Koreans have a better environment to become good and they also have the mettle to take full advantage of that environment. They have proper recognition for what they do as well in Korea, whereas professional gaming in Occidental countries is a niche within a niche. Pro gaming is probably a niche in Korea as well, but one with far more recognition than what we have here. When you look at it, it kind of makes sense that foreigners just aren't as good. WCS won't really help that, at least not to the degree everyone would like it to. WCS did a good job of killing off Koreigners though, such as all of Axiom for starters.
I think people see that, but I think people just want more viewership/engagement from the Western scene. Western SC2 players aren't marketable, the skill the work ethic, the infrastructure, that that comes to play. But from a business/viewership standpoint, I think people want a league where the best foreigners can play versus eachother.
I think that was a huge part of the LCS and why they're exclusive, the business and viewership is easy if you only have to worry about the Koreans once or twice a year.
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as totalbiscuit would say, i'm not an industry insider and don't know what goes on behind the scenes. so i could be way off base. but for all this convoluted debate about region locks and infrastructure and ethics, isn't the problem basically that there aren't enough sponsors or enough money to create a foreign environment for SC to rival the environment in korea?
seriously, someone correct me if this is wrong. but the way entertainment works is there has to be money in it, and esports as a business is entertainment for audiences. doesn't priority #1 have to be somehow marketing this game to larger audiences and proving to sponsors that they should give a shit what kind of training infrastructure exists outside korea?
is that not 95% of the entire issue at hand?
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Of course you are completely right, but because Korea is all located in Seoul, and they have a local audience to market to, it is actually viable commercially (and even that might be questionable). To introduce this in the foreign scene is sadly completely unrealistic. At this point very few teams even field a serious lineup. Not only would Blizzard have to set up a Proleague itself it would also have to give incentive to teams to invest into salaries.
Internally our players and staff had been playing around with the thought of suggesting to Blizzard to turn Challenger into an online League. For example two groups of 16 or four groups of 8 and the higher you finish the further you get placed into the playoff bracket. This would be many times better for players to stay motivated over time. Currently whenever a player loses in WCS motivation is gone for the next few months. Just a thought.
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I still think that it's not WCS' and Blizzard's duty to develop the scene, we just need more local tournaments, and the World Championship Series it's not meant to be (or shouldn't be) a local tourney.
Though I agree on that I'd like to see a kind-of-foreign-Proleague, even if all online with only the grand finals offline.
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The only thing to ask is "is it viable?" Because if it is, there is no way it can actually harm. Proleague is one of the most interesting and improving leagues out there. For KR teams, Proleague comes before individual leagues. It seems it is not so in Foreign ones. However, NA is a really big country, and transportation systems are kinda hard to come by. EU might be more viable since there are a lot of trains? Kinda tentative on that opinion since idk much about EU. Will continue translating. Fighting!
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Simply put
1) more viewers -> 2) more money -> 3)more viable career path -> 4)more competition -> 1) more viewers -> 2) more money -> etc etc.
It's a circle and you really have to start at step 1. I guess you could start at 2 if someone would be crazy enough to really sink a shit ton of money in there but I don't see that happening. In the end it seems that the money in the gaming industry is made by those who make games, and those who can gather a crowd of loyal followers (such as youtube streamers). Companies try their best to lock down the o so fickle early teens to late twenties crowd by things such as GSL, Proleague and whatever equivalent other games have but the crowds are young, attention spans are short, and very few games succeed in being relevant for more than 5 years. Good luck building a scene around that.
Why would anyone dedicate years of their live to competing within a scene where maybe the top 1% (but probably less) can actually make enough money to even so much as break even? Until that moment has actually arrived you will see what we have now: a few very passionate people that make due with what they have (like juggle a job and a gaming career) or some kids that are willing to bunk up in some kind of dorm room until their mid twenties and spam play games 24/7 until they realize that this really isn't going anywhere (lots of them I'm sure but just do it because they love it).
TL;DR: We are expecting an incredible level of dedication and self sacrifice from the players we love to watch but we have practically nothing to give them in return.
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Interesting to see ppl saying as if there were no provinces in SK except Seoul.
I think there`re no big difference between SK pro-aspirants moving to Seoul from Busan and foreigners moving to a place where their team-house is located, in a sense of leaving home.
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On October 19 2015 00:04 B.I.G. wrote:
Simply put
1) more viewers -> 2) more money -> 3)more viable career path -> 4)more competition -> 1) more viewers -> 2) more money -> etc etc.
It's a circle and you really have to start at step 1. I guess you could start at 2 if someone would be crazy enough to really sink a shit ton of money in there but I don't see that happening. In the end it seems that the money in the gaming industry is made by those who make games, and those who can gather a crowd of loyal followers (such as youtube streamers). Companies try their best to lock down the o so fickle early teens to late twenties crowd by things such as GSL, Proleague and whatever equivalent other games have but the crowds are young, attention spans are short, and very few games succeed in being relevant for more than 5 years. Good luck building a scene around that.
Why would anyone dedicate years of their live to competing within a scene where maybe the top 1% (but probably less) can actually make enough money to even so much as break even? Until that moment has actually arrived you will see what we have now: a few very passionate people that make due with what they have (like juggle a job and a gaming career) or some kids that are willing to bunk up in some kind of dorm room until their mid twenties and spam play games 24/7 until they realize that this really isn't going anywhere (lots of them I'm sure but just do it because they love it).
TL;DR: We are expecting an incredible level of dedication and self sacrifice from the players we love to watch but we have practically nothing to give them in return.
this is what i was trying to say in my post, basically. i feel like a lot of fans are in mass denial about the fact that foreign starcraft just has an interest problem. that's not to say "ded gaem", it's just an unavoidable fact that starcraft isn't football or league of legends or MMA or something with a massive fanbase that makes the scene attractive as a full career commitment. the intense, angry debating about region locks and foreigner skill just seems secondary to the issue of financial viability...
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Mentioned already before in the thread, but if they couldn't pull off NASL... when the bandwagon of hype was super large, don't see how they'd pull off something now.
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On October 18 2015 21:51 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
Of course you are completely right, but because Korea is all located in Seoul, and they have a local audience to market to, it is actually viable commercially (and even that might be questionable). To introduce this in the foreign scene is sadly completely unrealistic. At this point very few teams even field a serious lineup. Not only would Blizzard have to set up a Proleague itself it would also have to give incentive to teams to invest into salaries.
Internally our players and staff had been playing around with the thought of suggesting to Blizzard to turn Challenger into an online League. For example two groups of 16 or four groups of 8 and the higher you finish the further you get placed into the playoff bracket. This would be many times better for players to stay motivated over time. Currently whenever a player loses in WCS motivation is gone for the next few months. Just a thought.
Yeah the whole "Bo5 or GTFO" is pretty harsh, particularly since seeding means people who make a breakout Challenger run are immediately shut down. I dunno how you'd do it for all regions seeing as SEA, Taiwan and China only have 8 slots between them. but changing up how Challenger works has my support.
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On October 19 2015 01:46 BEARDiaguz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2015 21:51 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
Of course you are completely right, but because Korea is all located in Seoul, and they have a local audience to market to, it is actually viable commercially (and even that might be questionable). To introduce this in the foreign scene is sadly completely unrealistic. At this point very few teams even field a serious lineup. Not only would Blizzard have to set up a Proleague itself it would also have to give incentive to teams to invest into salaries.
Internally our players and staff had been playing around with the thought of suggesting to Blizzard to turn Challenger into an online League. For example two groups of 16 or four groups of 8 and the higher you finish the further you get placed into the playoff bracket. This would be many times better for players to stay motivated over time. Currently whenever a player loses in WCS motivation is gone for the next few months. Just a thought. Yeah the whole "Bo5 or GTFO" is pretty harsh, particularly since seeding means people who make a breakout Challenger run are immediately shut down. I dunno how you'd do it for all regions seeing as SEA, Taiwan and China only have 8 slots between them. but changing up how Challenger works has my support.
Bo5 or group phase for challenger still leads to the same issue : If you don't win in challenger you have almost no tournament to play for months.
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You have to make compromises and most teams won't be able to field a bo5 lineup. Maybe if we reduce the format to 1 person per team and make PL a big bracket with groups and stuff it would work
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Good luck getting people to show up for a teamleague.
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On October 18 2015 21:51 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
Internally our players and staff had been playing around with the thought of suggesting to Blizzard to turn Challenger into an online League. For example two groups of 16 or four groups of 8 and the higher you finish the further you get placed into the playoff bracket. This would be many times better for players to stay motivated over time. Currently whenever a player loses in WCS motivation is gone for the next few months. Just a thought.
Anything is better than Bo5. Maybe I am wrong but both examples seem to have less punishment than the 4man group (Top32 and Top16), which is not nice I think. I think 4man group is the best for Challenger too.
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why not just crowd-fund a lite (read online) version of proleague
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Without having read every post. I think the OP is right. Look at WC3L in the past. It was the most prestigous, most followed WC3 league. Online with offline Finals. It was great, eventhough Twitch didnt exist and generally the coverage was mostly via shoutcast. WaaaghTV and text. Teams took it very serious and even a lot of players gave it a higher priority than individual tournaments (besides the really big ones of course). Just make it financially viable for teams and players like the LOL leagues with guaranteed salaries and stuff.
I would prefer it A LOT to the current WCS system
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Just by the way, ( not wanting to make a thread for a single question) when can we expect to get
news about WCS 2016? I do not remember the date last year, so sorry for the inconvenience guys.
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On October 19 2015 05:07 IceBerrY wrote:
Just by the way, ( not wanting to make a thread for a single question) when can we expect to get
news about WCS 2016? I do not remember the date last year, so sorry for the inconvenience guys.
Probably at Blizzcon during the 'Future of SC2' panel.
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On October 19 2015 06:22 ZAiNs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2015 05:07 IceBerrY wrote:
Just by the way, ( not wanting to make a thread for a single question) when can we expect to get
news about WCS 2016? I do not remember the date last year, so sorry for the inconvenience guys. Probably at Blizzcon during the 'Future of SC2' panel.
My bet is on December or Early 2016. They don't talk about the future of WCS. I think that panel is going to be mostly about the game itself. but we'll see I guess.
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I agree with this. The issue is that foreign fans are too widely dispersed to make a good offline event and the numbers don't seem to there for online events, since there's something exciting about seeing the face and reaction of the players. If someone can come up with a good solution for this and make it work though, it could be fantastic.
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china have already the team league named Starcraft League
i think.yes,EU and NA also need one,even global League.
it will help sc2 be more prosperity and funny
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Please. No.
Proleague killed any interest whatsoever in the Korean scene for me. For the little amount of SC2 I still watch I'd prefer it if they could keep their hands off it, thanks.
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On October 19 2015 11:47 -Celestial- wrote:
Please. No.
Proleague killed any interest whatsoever in the Korean scene for me. For the little amount of SC2 I still watch I'd prefer it if they could keep their hands off it, thanks.
What? How? whats it taking away?
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I think today's news actually emphasizes the need for Blizzard to make real investment into SC2 in general, and thus a new model. If Korea can't even support 8 functioning teams, how can we expect the foreign scene to grow without money from above?
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On October 19 2015 13:34 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2015 11:47 -Celestial- wrote:
Please. No.
Proleague killed any interest whatsoever in the Korean scene for me. For the little amount of SC2 I still watch I'd prefer it if they could keep their hands off it, thanks. What? How? whats it taking away?
It killed the GSTL. Which, after WCS turned the GSL into something really wonky and much less frequent, was pretty much the only thing I had any interest left in.
Proleague and WCS between them basically killed my interest in SC2. I only occasionally watch anymore.
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On October 19 2015 22:28 -Celestial- wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2015 13:34 lestye wrote:On October 19 2015 11:47 -Celestial- wrote:
Please. No.
Proleague killed any interest whatsoever in the Korean scene for me. For the little amount of SC2 I still watch I'd prefer it if they could keep their hands off it, thanks. What? How? whats it taking away? It killed the GSTL. Which, after WCS turned the GSL into something really wonky and much less frequent, was pretty much the only thing I had any interest left in.
Not sure if I understand how proleague affected any of those...
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On October 19 2015 22:28 -Celestial- wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2015 13:34 lestye wrote:On October 19 2015 11:47 -Celestial- wrote:
Please. No.
Proleague killed any interest whatsoever in the Korean scene for me. For the little amount of SC2 I still watch I'd prefer it if they could keep their hands off it, thanks. What? How? whats it taking away? It killed the GSTL. Which, after WCS turned the GSL into something really wonky and much less frequent, was pretty much the only thing I had any interest left in. Proleague and WCS between them basically killed my interest in SC2. I only occasionally watch anymore.
That's not because of Proleague itself, it's because the Korean non-KeSPA teams keep dying (and GOM). In 2013 there was both GSTL and Proleague, for example.
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On October 19 2015 22:31 WrathSCII wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2015 22:28 -Celestial- wrote:On October 19 2015 13:34 lestye wrote:On October 19 2015 11:47 -Celestial- wrote:
Please. No.
Proleague killed any interest whatsoever in the Korean scene for me. For the little amount of SC2 I still watch I'd prefer it if they could keep their hands off it, thanks. What? How? whats it taking away? It killed the GSTL. Which, after WCS turned the GSL into something really wonky and much less frequent, was pretty much the only thing I had any interest left in. Not sure if I understand how proleague affected any of those...
When proleague switched fully to SC2, a couple of the teams that competed in GSTL switched over to compete in Proleague, leaving not enough teams for GSTL (other teams like SlayerS were disbanding over internal conflicts at that time too). GOM eventually canceled GSTL, but competition in the team league space from Proleague was a factor. That's about as much as I remember, I'm sure someone else can explain more clearly.
I'm also a bit nostalgic for the old high-frequency GSL tournaments.
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On October 19 2015 22:48 fenrysk wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2015 22:31 WrathSCII wrote:On October 19 2015 22:28 -Celestial- wrote:On October 19 2015 13:34 lestye wrote:On October 19 2015 11:47 -Celestial- wrote:
Please. No.
Proleague killed any interest whatsoever in the Korean scene for me. For the little amount of SC2 I still watch I'd prefer it if they could keep their hands off it, thanks. What? How? whats it taking away? It killed the GSTL. Which, after WCS turned the GSL into something really wonky and much less frequent, was pretty much the only thing I had any interest left in. Not sure if I understand how proleague affected any of those... When proleague switched fully to SC2, a couple of the teams that competed in GSTL switched over to compete in Proleague, leaving not enough teams for GSTL (other teams like SlayerS were disbanding over internal conflicts at that time too). GOM eventually canceled GSTL, but competition in the team league space from Proleague was a factor. That's about as much as I remember, I'm sure someone else can explain more clearly. I'm also a bit nostalgic for the old high-frequency GSL tournaments.
Yeah, but that was inevitable. ESF was a joke compared to Kespa and didn't do enough for the teams. Proleague was on actual TV was way better for exposure for Koreans.
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On October 19 2015 22:48 fenrysk wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2015 22:31 WrathSCII wrote:On October 19 2015 22:28 -Celestial- wrote:On October 19 2015 13:34 lestye wrote:On October 19 2015 11:47 -Celestial- wrote:
Please. No.
Proleague killed any interest whatsoever in the Korean scene for me. For the little amount of SC2 I still watch I'd prefer it if they could keep their hands off it, thanks. What? How? whats it taking away? It killed the GSTL. Which, after WCS turned the GSL into something really wonky and much less frequent, was pretty much the only thing I had any interest left in. Not sure if I understand how proleague affected any of those... When proleague switched fully to SC2, a couple of the teams that competed in GSTL switched over to compete in Proleague, leaving not enough teams for GSTL (other teams like SlayerS were disbanding over internal conflicts at that time too). GOM eventually canceled GSTL, but competition in the team league space from Proleague was a factor. That's about as much as I remember, I'm sure someone else can explain more clearly. I'm also a bit nostalgic for the old high-frequency GSL tournaments.
Pretty much this.
Proleague and the WCS were the absolute worst things to ever happen to SC2 viewing. Simultaneously murdering the GSTL and nuking the regular GSL competition to a scant handful of tournaments which were now no longer "the big thing" but merely a lead up to the WCS finals.
On October 19 2015 22:38 Elentos wrote:...it's because the Korean non-KeSPA teams keep dying (and GOM). In 2013 there was both GSTL and Proleague, for example.
Because of Proleague.
And 2013 was the last year I actually regularly watched SC2 week-on-week. Proleague is basically unwatchable for me, the format is awful.
Anyway, no, the foreign scene absolutely does not need a Proleague to come along and do what it did to the Korean scene.
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I can't believe you just said that. You're a huge fan of GSTL, but hated Proleague. The whole point of OP was to make a team league for SC2 in the west. In this hypothetical, we could have the GSTL format. We could use the LCS format. Who cares because we don't even have a teamleague at this point.
Anyway, no, the foreign scene absolutely does not need a Proleague to come along and do what it did to the Korean scene.
Proleague is way bigger in Korea than GSTL ever was. It may have decreased your personal interest in the Korean scene, but it was a net gain for the scene overall.
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On October 20 2015 04:01 lestye wrote:
I can't believe you just said that. You're a huge fan of GSTL, but hated Proleague. The whole point of OP was to make a team league for SC2 in the west. In this hypothetical, we could have the GSTL format. We could use the LCS format. Who cares because we don't even have a teamleague at this point.
The OP is titled "Foreign SC2 doesn't need WCS, it needs a Proleague". Not "Foreign SC2 needs a team league". Its pretty clear to see where he's going with it.
And actually no I didn't "hate" Proleague. I never have, not really. I was just totally disinterested. Didn't like the production style, didn't like the format. So I didn't watch it. My dislike comes from the IMPACT both WCS and Proleague have had on the scene, not the tournaments themselves.
Proleague is way bigger in Korea than GSTL ever was. It may have decreased your personal interest in the Korean scene, but it was a net gain for the scene overall.
Perhaps. But its not actually my job to judge which is a better business strategy. Rather I was a paying customer supporting the scene who put money in because I wanted to see it keep going and now I'm not. And the reason for that is entirely because Proleague and the WCS have taken it in a direction that I dislike. And honestly I find it to be a rather regressive direction. From the more international focus of GOM back to Korea-first.
Frankly this "what you like is WRONG" thing is quite...well...I don't think I want to continue discussion anymore. So have a nice day, I'm out of this thread now.
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On October 20 2015 04:45 -Celestial- wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2015 04:01 lestye wrote:
I can't believe you just said that. You're a huge fan of GSTL, but hated Proleague. The whole point of OP was to make a team league for SC2 in the west. In this hypothetical, we could have the GSTL format. We could use the LCS format. Who cares because we don't even have a teamleague at this point. The OP is titled "Foreign SC2 doesn't need WCS, it needs a Proleague". Not "Foreign SC2 needs a team league". Its pretty clear to see where he's going with it. And actually no I didn't "hate" Proleague. I never have, not really. I was just totally disinterested. Didn't like the production style, didn't like the format. So I didn't watch it. My dislike comes from the IMPACT both WCS and Proleague have had on the scene, not the tournaments themselves. Show nested quote +Proleague is way bigger in Korea than GSTL ever was. It may have decreased your personal interest in the Korean scene, but it was a net gain for the scene overall. Perhaps. But its not actually my job to judge which is a better business strategy. Rather I was a paying customer supporting the scene who put money in because I wanted to see it keep going and now I'm not. And the reason for that is entirely because Proleague and the WCS have taken it in a direction that I dislike. And honestly I find it to be a rather regressive direction. From the more international focus of GOM back to Korea-first. Frankly this "what you like is WRONG" thing is quite...well...I don't think I want to continue discussion anymore. So have a nice day, I'm out of this thread now.
Umm context? He did specifically say Proleague, but the entire point of this thread was for an off-line teamleague. That's what his entire thread basically says.
It has nothing to do with "your opinion is WRONG" more like your reasoning behind your objection is incredibly short-sighted to what OP thinks is the right direction for foreign sc2. Obviously the product style and the format would be completely open and not constrained to actual proleague. OP didn't flaunt the format or the production.
OP wanted a long running team league that's not single elimination for the EU/NA.
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How many American teams are there? ROOT....and?
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@Celestial: I liked GSTL as much as the next guy, and I'm no fan of KeSPA. But what does any of that have to do with anything foreign? There's nothing here to kill - certainly nothing that deserves to be mentioned in the same paragraph as GSTL.
@Nazgul and others: Yes, this would obviously require a large amount of direct investment from Blizzard. My argument is that, if foreign SC2 is to be sustainable and produce strong players, that's completely necessary at this point. Whether that is something that makes financial sense for Blizzard, or whether they want to or will do it, is not a question I can answer.
The idea is that it would be enough money to encourage not just existing teams to set up shop in LA or wherever, but to encourage new teams to form. LoL has already proven that if you build it, they will come, in both the US and Europe.
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On October 18 2015 21:51 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
Of course you are completely right, but because Korea is all located in Seoul, and they have a local audience to market to, it is actually viable commercially (and even that might be questionable). To introduce this in the foreign scene is sadly completely unrealistic. At this point very few teams even field a serious lineup. Not only would Blizzard have to set up a Proleague itself it would also have to give incentive to teams to invest into salaries.
Internally our players and staff had been playing around with the thought of suggesting to Blizzard to turn Challenger into an online League. For example two groups of 16 or four groups of 8 and the higher you finish the further you get placed into the playoff bracket. This would be many times better for players to stay motivated over time. Currently whenever a player loses in WCS motivation is gone for the next few months. Just a thought.
Agree with pretty much everything you said. One of the things I loved about MLG was how Pool play determined how high up you were in the championship bracket. I think this will add a lot more interest and flavor into challenger league.
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There is no foreign sc2. Foreigners just get raped.
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EPT
