The biggest unfairness is that the "Korean" scene is open to everybody without residency requirement (even though no foreigner except State has enough balls to actually try it anymore, since all those who tried in the past pretty much failed (with some rare exceptions)) but the "everybody's but Korea's" scene is not open to everybody.
This is pretty much success bashing. It's like "Damn, Korea has a good scene (even though it's slowly going down) and their players are doing well has a result, let's NOT reward them for it or learn from it for the other countries, nha instead we'll tell them to go play with themselves and leave us alone so we can feel like we are good, even though we are not".
Shame. But hey, it's still early, mabe every other IEM/DH will be the Global kind (but I doubt it since Blizzard made it not worth-it to host those).
On December 23 2015 05:32 Noocta wrote: Well, this year is probably going to be interesting for many reasons. I really wonder if it was the tournaments organizers that pushed Blizzard into this kind of anti Korea locking ( lets be real, that's what it is )
I highly doubt it. Some people have been asking for it with WCS and they've slowly moved towards it. If this was just in the WCS system and we'd still be guaranteed to have many IEMs and DHs without region locking I don't think the outcry would be anything like this.
On December 23 2015 09:03 Growiel wrote: The biggest unfairness is that the "Korean" scene is open to everybody without residency requirement (even though no foreigner except State has enough balls to actually try it anymore, since all those who tried in the past pretty much failed (with some rare exceptions)) but the "everybody's but Korea's" scene is not open to everybody.
This is pretty much success bashing. It's like "Damn, Korea has a good scene (even though it's slowly going down) and their players are doing well has a result, let's NOT reward them for it or learn from it for the other countries, nha instead we'll tell them to go play with themselves and leave us alone so we can feel like we are good, even though we are not".
Shame. But hey, it's still early, mabe every other IEM/DH will be the Global kind (but I doubt it since Blizzard made it not worth-it to host those).
I agree with every argument about supporting Korean scene. They should receive more from Blizzard's side, maybe people overestimate KeSPA's ability in management and giving opportunities to lesser players.
Residency requirement is not in Korea's region, because almost no foreigner will try it since possible non-Korean infrastructure, motivation and support was rolled over by Korean dominance. Literally, to go there you are making a decision with your own money and no guarantee of any support there. I would argue if it's about "balls". I admire what State does and support him fully. But look, to be considered a decent foreigner, you have to beat few KeSPA Koreans in a tournament often having no means to have practice on their level. If there was a good opportunity back in the day to practice with Koreans regularly, it would be used. It was, by some. Others weren't considered "worth it" to practice with Koreans. What if KeSPA was offering opportunities like that? It's questionable for me if ladder itself is the only way to get better. Koreans have coaches, strict routine, team support and stuff. Some players that mostly play on AM servers don't play on KR for some reason.
I imagine what foreign Brood War scene would look like if there were open gates everywhere and Koreans weren't held tight by KeSPA and let go over other countries? Why didn't that happen? So many talent from Korea was lost because of the competition they had on their own, it could flourish somewhere else.
Nobody states that foreigners are better or even equal to Koreans. This system is just an equalized form of opportunities for both regions, with questionable support left for the better one, where progaming is fully acceptable in society. Korea will be forever the source of best players. But it shouldn't be a source of most players.
On December 23 2015 09:26 Dodgin wrote: Still can't believe our scene has come to this, everyone in the world except Korean players are now allowed to go to Dreamhack events.
Until the last minute of TB's monologue I thought I was alone on that.. What will happen when the current top koreans retire, after the inevitable devastation of the up-and-coming korean pro scene? We keep joking about the "daed gaem", but Blizz might have just provided the death blow with the 2016 WCS rules..
As long as Blizzard keeps the money flowing, the scene will keep trucking on. It might even become more competitive on the world stage when the Korean scene is starved of new talent (lower skill gap). The skill level at the very top will probably go down, but that probably won't matter at that point.
If you're a top player in Korea it sucks, you get less opportunities but you're so good you'll probably be fine. It's unlikely you'll make Blizzcon but you'll survive. If you're an up and comer however, you have no chance to shine because there's nothing you can play apart from the Olimoleague because in GSL and SSL qualifiers you'll probably be out in the first round and at that point you'll probably question the point of dong it.
The B-tier Koreans arguably get screwed the most by the new system. Take Heart who recently retired in 2014 he made the Ro4 and the finals of WCS AM. In 2015 he struggled to make Code S and SSL Challenger because the level of competition was so high. At least he got support from his team to go to foreign events to try and earn some money. That can't happen in 2015. So B-tier Koreans can't go abroad to supplement their income and will get knocked out early and then have nothing to play. This just encourages lots of retirements and that is the saddest thing of all.
On December 23 2015 16:44 calh wrote: As long as Blizzard keeps the money flowing, the scene will keep trucking on. It might even become more competitive on the world stage when the Korean scene is starved of new talent (lower skill gap). The skill level at the very top will probably go down, but that probably won't matter at that point.
Instead of improving the foreigners we fuck over the Koreans and lower their skill... What a nice way to balance the skill gap....
We've basically switched from fucking over foreign players to fucking over korean players, if you can't support that then I suggest you stop supporting the events that do this. It definitely sucks for those players and for the fans of the KR scene.
The shitty thing is that foreign players weren't being fucked over because of tournament policies, it was because they were worse players. Now we have affirmative action to reverse the roles.
In the long run hopefully something good can come from this.
So, if I want to compete in DH i must pay trip to my own, pay dh ticket 50 euros and enter woth 88 others? Is blizzard insane? I wonder if they will fill half of 96 spots...
On December 23 2015 22:03 ZeRoX_TV wrote: So, if I want to compete in DH i must pay trip to my own, pay dh ticket 50 euros and enter woth 88 others? Is blizzard insane? I wonder if they will fill half of 96 spots...
How different this is than last DreamHacks? You didn't have to pay for the trip on your own? Unless you were able to grab achievements early in SC2 and receive team support? Not mentioning the ticket, I can't find any information on tickets, probably there were none. There is a significant difference still, no Koreans from their own super-competitive environment taking the top spots arguably "for free" making room for foreign scene.
On December 23 2015 22:03 ZeRoX_TV wrote: So, if I want to compete in DH i must pay trip to my own, pay dh ticket 50 euros and enter woth 88 others? Is blizzard insane? I wonder if they will fill half of 96 spots...
Nothing new. Other tournaments do the same, maybe the 96 spots is the exception.