EPTBlizzard Reportedly Radically Overhauling WCS - Page 33
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boxerfred
Germany8360 Posts
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Timelog
Netherlands57 Posts
On December 14 2015 16:39 munitqua wrote: In my opinion what the SC2 scene really needs is more prize money. When you compare the prize money of LoL, Dota or Counterstrike, SC2 prize money is peanuts. Just look at the WCS Finals, a measly $100K for the winner even though we know Blizzard can afford a lot more than that. Ehm, in LoL World Championship 2015 the finalists for $1.000.000,- in price money, which, if we divide it by per person share, is only 40ish percent more then the price money herO got, namely: 1.000.000 / 7 = $142.857,10 source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Legends_World_Championship Also, Counterstrike, according to the wiki at least, has ~the same price pool as StarCraft 2. When you then take into account that that also has to be divided by the players in the team, individual price pools are also lower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DreamHack_Open_Cluj-Napoca_2015 (last major) Dota is the "strange duck" (dutch saying). As the price pool of the 2015 international was mostly realized by the community. An interactive compendium was again announced, being released in May 2015, with purchases of the compendium going towards the tournament's prize pool. By June, the prize pool had passed the previous year's total of $11 million, overtaking it as the largest eSports prize pool in history, and with 60 days of funding remaining. Valve anticipated that the total would exceed $15 million by the time of the tournament, a target which was reached in July. Purchasers who reach a high enough level with their compendium were sent a replica International trophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_2015Having said all that. An increase in price pool might help towards increasing the incentive for foreigners to practice more, and harder, and for that I would think the Dota system might also work for Sc2. This would keeps the costs at ~ the same level as they are now for Blizzard, while increasing the price pool for bigger tournaments. Also I think that TotalBiscuit is totally right about how to increase the quality of foreign ladders, and with that of foreign games by hosting monthly tournaments which are global, so foreigners have more Koreans on their ladders to practice with. (podcast on first page) In the end I do like a more region locked WCS, I generally watch tournaments for entertaining games, not for the best execution. I could care less whether the entertaining games come from Koreans or from foreigners, but I personally generally feel like the more entertaining games come from foreigners that vs eachother. A good example of such a match us Serral vs MarineLord in the NationWars yesterday, an amazing, long and close game, definitely not highest level, but certainly the most entertaining LotV game I have seen so far. | ||
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huller20
United States112 Posts
Reducing the number of Koreans to make foreigners feel good about themselves is detrimental to the viewer. I for one watch it for the quality of the play, not the race of the player. It is akin to lowering the bar so students perform better and rejoice in their success. Great...now you're the tallest amongst the pygmies...rejoice... Don't get me wrong, I would love to see a foreigner succeed and overcome the challenges. After all, Koreans are not superior people and if they win, they deserve to. The only argument for this would be to cultivate foreign talent...but at what cost? It's downright shocking that people are in favor of such prejudice at such scale. It is no wonder psychopaths like Trump have an ear in this country. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
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AzBozz
Germany518 Posts
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Vindicare605
United States16096 Posts
On December 14 2015 19:47 huller20 wrote: I have to say, I am shocked at some of the responses. Lets not kid ourselves, what Blizzard is doing is practically imposing a form of institutionalized racism. The idea is frankly disgusting. Reducing the number of Koreans to make foreigners feel good about themselves is detrimental to the viewer. I for one watch it for the quality of the play, not the race of the player. It is akin to lowering the bar so students perform better and rejoice in their success. Great...now you're the tallest amongst the pygmies...rejoice... Don't get me wrong, I would love to see a foreigner succeed and overcome the challenges. After all, Koreans are not superior people and if they win, they deserve to. The only argument for this would be to cultivate foreign talent...but at what cost? It's downright shocking that people are in favor of such prejudice at such scale. It is no wonder psychopaths like Trump have an ear in this country. For some reason, there's a good amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the race card with this issue. People use the "hometown heroes" argument as if it somehow means something different than "I want to see someone that isn't Asian win." It's the same logic people used whenever Sen would be involved in "best foreigner" debates, people would never mention him because he was Taiwanese which was too close to Korean for people to distinguish him or give him any of the "foreigner hope" love. I happen to think that most of the people on TL are intelligent and logical nerds, but for some reason so many just don't get why their desire to see more Western players just because they're western is based in prejudice. I don't understand it, and at this point I've stopped trying. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On December 14 2015 20:44 Vindicare605 wrote: For some reason, there's a good amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the race card with this issue. People use the "hometown heroes" argument as if it somehow means something different than "I want to see someone that isn't Asian win." It's the same logic people used whenever Sen would be involved in "best foreigner" debates, people would never mention him because he was Taiwanese which was too close to Korean for people to distinguish him or give him any of the "foreigner hope" love. I happen to think that most of the people on TL are intelligent and logical nerds, but for some reason so many just don't get why their desire to see more Western players just because they're western is based in prejudice. I don't understand it, and at this point I've stopped trying. Local heroes. But not from Australia(Hi there, Iaguz and Pig) or from New Zealand(Petraues(I hope I wrote his name properly)). These players are FUBAR.(and some others) So I guess they change it to SNAFU and will release some rule that this applies only to Koreans and it's not about racism!!  Otherwise everyone who's not from Europe or NA is FUBAR. That's the foreigner scene, if you are not a white person from northern hemisphere no one cares | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On December 14 2015 20:44 Vindicare605 wrote: For some reason, there's a good amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the race card with this issue. People use the "hometown heroes" argument as if it somehow means something different than "I want to see someone that isn't Asian win." It's the same logic people used whenever Sen would be involved in "best foreigner" debates, people would never mention him because he was Taiwanese which was too close to Korean for people to distinguish him or give him any of the "foreigner hope" love. I happen to think that most of the people on TL are intelligent and logical nerds, but for some reason so many just don't get why their desire to see more Western players just because they're western is based in prejudice. I don't understand it, and at this point I've stopped trying. Just to clarify - you may already understand but someone else could fail to notice the distinction - this is prejudice, but it may have nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture. Cultures have unique traits that we internalize and relate to. Watching a great athlete becomes more than "just" watching a great physical performance, you may begin to look up to this athlete as a role model, you may be inspired by their presence. It's not that westerners look like you, it's that they carry themselves like you + are champions. I can understand the appeal. It is prejudice, but not necessarily malevolent or mean-spirited, or, in most situations, harmful at all. What I don't understand is how this translates into the argument that if Blizzard just kicks out those last 4 pesky Koreans and bans the rest of them from IEM, the foreign scene will magically unfuck itself. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16096 Posts
On December 14 2015 20:55 deacon.frost wrote: Local heroes. But not from Australia(Hi there, Iaguz and Pig) or from New Zealand(Petraues(I hope I wrote his name properly)). These players are FUBAR.(and some others) So I guess they change it to SNAFU and will release some rule that this applies only to Koreans and it's not about racism!! Otherwise everyone who's not from Europe or NA is FUBAR. That's the foreigner scene, if you are not a white person from northern hemisphere no one cares I think everyone kind of knows that the Oceanic players are just caught in the crossfire and are collateral damage in this whole thing, which is yet another reason why the entire idea is stupid. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16096 Posts
On December 14 2015 20:57 pure.Wasted wrote: Just to clarify - you may already understand but someone else could fail to notice the distinction - this is prejudice, but it may have nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture. Cultures have unique traits that we internalize and relate to. Watching a great athlete becomes more than "just" watching a great physical performance, you may begin to look up to this athlete as a role model, you may be inspired by their presence. It's not that westerners look like you, it's that they carry themselves like you + are champions. I can understand the appeal. It is prejudice, but not necessarily malevolent or mean-spirited, or, in most situations, harmful at all. What I don't understand is how this translates into the argument that if Blizzard just kicks out those last 4 pesky Koreans and bans the rest of them from IEM, the foreign scene will magically unfuck itself. I personally don't care that someone identifies more with an athlete because he can relate to him more than someone who comes from somewhere a lot different. I get it, I understand it even if I don't share that same point of view. Where this prejudice becomes a problem for me is when people start banning people from playing in tournaments based on where they're coming from. Now you're letting your prejudice dictate competition, now you're being a dick. The fact that this won't actually do anything to help the foreign scene in the long run other than throw some charity money at a few already popular western players is of secondary importance to me to the idea that you're discriminating based on race and nationality. Then there's the whole OTHER argument about the foreign scene regarding invitational tournaments awarding WCS points. What the fuck is that about? Players that are already popular get flown out to way more tournaments than small time ladder heroes and don't even need to play qualifiers to make it in? How is that fostering legit competition in the foreign scene? How is that raising the level of competition? There's so much wrong with the foreign scene that has nothing to do with Koreans for region locking to ever fix. | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
Hahaha, not bloody likely. The gut feeling isn't necessarily wrong, but the things it's being used to justify certainly are. | ||
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kajtarp
Hungary485 Posts
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Sissors
1395 Posts
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Vindicare605
United States16096 Posts
On December 14 2015 21:23 Sissors wrote: Do I really need to start listing all other tournaments for normal sports for example which have region limits? That you are not in favour of it, fine. However playing the racism card is just sad. I care about 3 sports. NBA Basketball, Tennis and NHL Hockey. None have region lock outs. NBA players are the best in the world and they come from all over the world, that's what makes it so much fun to watch. The fact that the vast majority of them are American is just due to the fact the game originated here and is so engrained in our inner city youth culture. BTW two of my favorite active players Pau Gasol and Dirk Nowitski are Spanish and German respectively while one of my favorites of all time, Steve Nash is Canadian. Not to mention that the NHL, and Major League Baseball don't have region limits either. The best players are scouted and drafted from all around the world. So your argument has absolutely no meaning to me. If the main sports I watch can go on without region lockouts of any kind and be massively successful then I see no reason whatsoever why Starcraft should be different. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On December 14 2015 21:29 Vindicare605 wrote: I care about 3 sports. NBA Basketball, Tennis and NHL Hockey. None have region lock outs. NBA players are the best in the world and they come from all over the world, that's what makes it so much fun to watch. The fact that the vast majority of them are American is just due to the fact the game originated here and is so engrained in our inner city youth culture. BTW two of my favorite active players Pau Gasol and Dirk Nowitski are Spanish and German respectively while one of my favorites of all time, Steve Nash is Canadian. Not to mention that the NHL, and Major League Baseball don't have region limits either. The best players are scouted and drafted from all around the world. So your argument has absolutely no meaning to me. If the main sports I watch can go on without region lockouts of any kind and be massively successful then I see no reason whatsoever why Starcraft should be different. Wat? How can you fail to notice the all of NBA, NHL and MLB are physically played over the whole year on the US/Canadian soil and thus they by definition require all of the players to be able to legally present there, which is not possible without an athlete or working visa, making the requirements the same as what is proposed here? I am certainly against any region locking, but this argument is just ridiculously wrong. | ||
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aQuaSC
717 Posts
That's so difficult topic, making WCS work as expected and not to make bigger differences between Koreans and non-Koreans. It's obvious that Koreans as a society have visible social acceptance for playing games for a living and the rest of the world does not, so it's normal that non-Koreans treat this game exclusively as a temporary thing, not getting the 100% of it, as they probably will when they get a "real" job. Probably. I don't want to insult or underestimate someone's dedication, but is any pro all about the game? Like all about it? As long as StarCraft II is mechanically demanding, the difference will stay and can only be fought by people that could sacrifice their future careers they want to have after they "retire". There have to be players, coaches and all around e-sport supporters, working together to create a solid foundation for growth of the community and producing good players, making them rise up the ranks. The "West" is all about individualism - tell me, does anyone outside of Korea think of e-sport as something else than just playing? If someone is, I think it's like one in a thousand people. Well, from what I've seen in Korea, there are tons of people committed to it's background. The "West" is all about achievements, being cool, being famous, earning a lot and all that. The "West" is riddled with people trying to make money out of it, and I don't blame them, since you have to make a living and I admire their commitment, as it's hard to make money out of something that doesn't have any social acceptance. Hence the occasional scams too... When the players' careers don't work out, people just lose interest, move on and give more space to Koreans. It will remain a part-time "job" for many years to come, I believe. I'll be happy if it turns out differently. Again, it's obvious that non-Koreans think about what they want to do after they stop playing differently than Koreans, who are seemingly all about here and now. I won't even delve into the topic of their famous work ethic. I'll be glad to get corrected, but to me Korea seems to be competitive society, raised in a way that people want to contribute, unlike "the West", who want "to be the best". I don't know if it's that stupid of an idea to get region locks again. The first WCS (or BWC if you like) was very, very enjoyable, despite lower skill level with the absence of Koreans among others until the finals. And was hopeful to other players, with all the regional qualifiers. It was memorable. And all the discussion we have today is about here and now, while in Korea it took over a decade for e-sports to become something more than a curiosity. Maybe we should support the region lock, grow our communities from the bottom and stop looking up to Korea? Slowly applying their ideas to get the infrastructure going? No idea, honestly. I don't blame people not wanting to contribute their careers to something they don't love, just "enjoy". It would be nice if people could just wait for Blizzard's official stance, instead of shouting "das rasist"... really? They didn't even say anything. And forcing politics to this topic makes my brain go numb...  EDIT: typo | ||
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Dingodile
4136 Posts
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On December 14 2015 21:34 opisska wrote: Wat? How can you fail to notice the all of NBA, NHL and MLB are physically played over the whole year on the US/Canadian soil and thus they by definition require all of the players to be able to legally present there, which is not possible without an athlete or working visa, making the requirements the same as what is proposed here? I am certainly against any region locking, but this argument is just ridiculously wrong. You're comparing getting an athlete visa as a pro basketball player to getting an athlete visa as a pro SC2 player. One of those things is not like the other. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16096 Posts
On December 14 2015 21:34 opisska wrote: Wat? How can you fail to notice the all of NBA, NHL and MLB are physically played over the whole year on the US/Canadian soil and thus they by definition require all of the players to be able to legally present there, which is not possible without an athlete or working visa, making the requirements the same as what is proposed here? I am certainly against any region locking, but this argument is just ridiculously wrong. Glad you asked that. MLB. NHL and NBA are all league based tournaments that rely on a single long regular season played in front of live audiences at various cities around the US and Canada. Because of this, the players need to be physically present with their team for the entirety of the league and thus require visas to play. It's a logisitcal necessity brought on by how the game is played and how the tournament is organized. Now let's look at Tennis. Tennis logistically functions almost exactly the same way that WCS does. It's based around relatively short tournaments that play off of each other. There are premier and non-premier events and players can pick and choose which ones they want to compete in or they can try and compete in as many as they can. The way that WCS is set up mirrors the way Tennis is played, not Basketball, Hockey or Baseball. WCS isn't based around a roaming single league season that is played offline on an almost nightly basis. WCS doesn't have teams that need to take busses or planes to different cities almost every night to be able to play. WCS is like Tennis. Tennis doesn't have region limits. It simply has the big tournaments and it has qualifiers. Anyone can compete and it's one on one that holds the big prestige. There are 3 main Open tournaments, Australian, French and US where ANYONE can fly in and play. Athlete performance at these open tournaments impact their seeding to Wimbledon which is the Blizzcon of Tennis. Tennis is the model Starcraft should follow, because it's the one that makes the most sense for how the game is played. | ||
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aQuaSC
717 Posts
On December 12 2015 21:36 NarutO wrote: You need a team, financial support and most important of all: I guess most are not comfortable with giving up their life to move into a foreign country. You could say the same about any non-Korean player wanting to think of being skillwise equal to Korean ones. Not mentioning "natural talent" people. Is any pro comfortable with giving up their life to become "as good as Koreans"? You could possibly count them with a single digit. On December 14 2015 21:47 Vindicare605 wrote: WCS is like Tennis. Tennis doesn't have region limits. It simply has the big tournaments and it has qualifiers. Anyone can compete and it's one on one that holds the big prestige. There are 3 main Open tournaments, Australian, French and US where ANYONE can fly in and play. Athlete performance at these open tournaments impact their seeding to Wimbledon which is the Blizzcon of Tennis. Tennis is the model Starcraft should follow, because it's the one that makes the most sense for how the game is played. The already known tennis analogy you brought up is probably one of the best systems we can consider. Except in tennis there is no vocal community feeling left out because they are not up to par with Radwańska, Williams, Djokovic or Agassi as they are playing in their own backyard and for free. | ||
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