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If you are going to argue about racism in this thread, just don't. It is a pointless argument that merits no valuable discussion whatsoever. If people truly feel so strongly about it, then take it to PMs. Do not muck up this thread with racism arguments. |
On March 08 2016 00:34 kimaphan wrote:
To address the comments about Blizzard abandoning Korea and not caring about Korean players. We are still greatly supporting Korea and continue to invest significantly in GSL, SSL, and Proleague. They still exist today because of Blizzard's involvement and can still be enjoyed and appreciated by everyone.
The changes to WCS was to create a second system that can help support the rest of the regions and all of the players that don't have the same infrastructure as Korea. What is best for StarCraft does not mean what is only best for Korean players or only foreign players. It's trying to balance both.
The intention is not to have only one global event in the year but potentially others. We are still working on this with other partners.
Regarding the WCS 2012 system, it was changed because of the feedback from the community. Not only was it hard to follow, but people were not interested in watching it. The community as a whole was not watching or following all of the regional events. The interest was not there until the global finals.
The same happened with WCS as more and more Korean players who were not well-known entered the system. People were not interested in watching Korean players who had it easier or weren't the very best of the best (because the very best were competing in GSL/SSL). Foreign players also lost interest in competing and participation was dropping.
-Why didn't you learn from the French experience? All seems to point to the fact that progress in national scenes is first achieved through nationwide events (like Underdogs for the French scene), NOT through creating a false "top-level" for the players ie a huge tournament where players win 6K$ for winning one single Bo5 (do you realize that sum is 4 times the minimal salary in France? Jesus)? Why not invest money into national scenes instead of an artificial high-level tournament? Then those players could confront with Koreans at the traditional "open to all" events like DH or IEM, and their level of play would be better.
-Assuming your new system is the good one, why name it "WORLD Championship Series"? Why WORLD if there's not Korea? Isn't Korea part of the world? Do you deny the legitimacy of Korean citizens to have the same rights as every other citizens?
-Assuming your new system is the good one, what exactly is the reasoning behind the idea of giving 6K$ to Ro16 finishers and 0$ to the Ro32 finishers instead of, say, 4K5$ and 1K5$? Do you feel you are actually helping the scene when a player trains one month for a single Bo5 and comes back home with nothing?
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
Probably will result in double post, but since Kim is reading this.
I have a suggestion for the next year, Kim>
I can understand why, what. You can understand our rage 
So, my suggestion - how about you will cut off Koreans based on their ELO ranking(or something else). This way people who are not in GSL/S2SL and are not playing in PL(Parting, Patience, BuyN(I am naming non PL example) can qualify for those events.
Let's say you have to be lower than the top24 in Korean ranking(or even lower, it's example), then you can go and compete in foreigner events. This way we Korea can send there players who will be probably better, but we all know KeSPA players are worse abroad so that can level the field. Rating would be based on their GSL, S2SL and Proleague performance + their abroad perofmance(thus winning DQ for the next several events). I know this is complicated, this is not easy to do, but it could be a solution "in the middle".
Just for your thoughts, now I have a hope you reading it  (and if you are like me, forgetting it :D)
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United States43 Posts
On March 08 2016 01:41 Musicus wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 01:19 kimaphan wrote:On March 08 2016 00:59 Silvana wrote:On March 08 2016 00:55 JeffKim wrote:On March 08 2016 00:51 lichter wrote:
I admire how Kim answers so calmly despite a lot of these posts. Not like she can answer any other way, if we're being honest. I don't see why she has reasons to react badly because I don't think we are being that bad at expressing our discontent with the interview (except the "omg foreigner welfare" shitposts which at this point we should all ignore). It's just that sometimes we can't make a post sound positive or friendly when the message we are trying to convey is "I am not satisfied with what you are doing". It would be helpful to know what you think we should do that would make everyone satisfied. Hi Kim, thanks for listening and replying to us. I've been following esports since wc3 and loved your content and casts back then! First of all I am all for region locking and giving foreigners and local players more chances, I think the system does this well! We already have great storylines thanks to DH and IEM Katowice. But can you tell us why you didn't just continue with WCS Premiere Season 1,2,3 with studio events and a big season final at a nice venue? Those were the easiest to follow by far. You could've let IEM/DH untouched and they would be our global events, where Korean players earn Korean WCS points and foreigners their foreign WCS points for the 8/8 split at BlizzCon. If those had gotten extra prize money from Blizzard (possible since the money went from 1,6M to 2M), the hype around DHs and IEM would be really big, since we have the Foreigner vs Korean storyline back. Was this solution ever discusses and if yes why did it not become reality? Because now it just feels like we lost the WCS Premiere League and IEM/DH got "stolen" from the scene and are now region locked. Many were looking forward to an IEM WC where the winners of the previous IEMs would compete. In regards to the Korean scene, it just feels like they have too few opportunites to play in. 4 big qualifiers a year is not enough. A player like Parting or Jaedong and many others who are not on a Proleague team and didn't quaulify for/went out early in GSL/SSL might not be seen competing offline of 6 months? That's not cool, would you agree? My last question is if the WCS Spring and Winter Championship will be standalone events, because I think that's a lot better. Not having a crowd at day 1 and day 2 of Katowice was kind of disappointing! Thank for your time and all the hard work. Hopefully WCS can become something everybody can enjoy in the future .
Hello Musicus,
I can't answer this question without going into detail and sharing information that is not for me to share. What I can say is that we work in very close collaboration with all of the partners when changes are made to WCS, GSL, and SSL.
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United States43 Posts
On March 08 2016 01:27 JeffKim wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 01:19 kimaphan wrote:On March 08 2016 00:59 Silvana wrote:On March 08 2016 00:55 JeffKim wrote:On March 08 2016 00:51 lichter wrote:
I admire how Kim answers so calmly despite a lot of these posts. Not like she can answer any other way, if we're being honest. I don't see why she has reasons to react badly because I don't think we are being that bad at expressing our discontent with the interview (except the "omg foreigner welfare" shitposts which at this point we should all ignore). It's just that sometimes we can't make a post sound positive or friendly when the message we are trying to convey is "I am not satisfied with what you are doing". It would be helpful to know what you think we should do that would make everyone satisfied. Hi Kim, first off although I disagree with some of your responses and philosophies regarding e-sports in general, I have to give due respect for taking the time to connect with players/community members. I think SC2 really needs that, and I think it's something that it has lacked in the past, so please let the people at Blizzard know to definitely engage as much as they can as it is appreciated. Secondly I have a quick question: You said this above -- Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 01:11 kimaphan wrote:
The Korean players who competed in WCS were not training, practicing, or playing on the same servers as the rest of the players in NA and EU.
...
We've introduced rules and ladder requirements, but they can be difficult to enforce and not enough to encourage all competitors to consistently play and train on the same servers. Yet here: http://wcs.battle.net/sc2/en/articles/2016-starcraft-ii-world-championship-seriesWe can observe the following: Show nested quote +The WCS Korea Standings, open to all players globally, represent the most competitive StarCraft II tournament system, where the very best of the best players will go head to head. The vast majority of the league play in this system will take place in Korea, where the highest number of professional StarCraft II teams and players live, train, and compete. Show nested quote +Any non-citizen player will be required to compete regularly on the local ladder, and will have other guidelines to fulfill. Show nested quote +We’re working with our partners to encourage the development of skilled players all across the globe, through travel support, prizing, and by exposing players to international and local competition. Now, I'm ALL FOR equality opportunity, engaging with other regions than your own, etc., but do you think restricting access so that Player A from Region A should only be able to compete in Region A, Player B from Region B should only be able to compete in Region B, etc.? I see this both appropriate from an architectural standpoint as well as logical for the quelling of region differences as well as scheduled play quotas. Then, at the end, the top X from each region compete at a large tournament. Like other games that adapt this -- I'm sure you know it more than I do, as you have vast experience with tournament structuring. I think at some point, eligibility to compete regardless of "fair play" needs to have restrictions to prune and efficiently progress. What say you?
Hi JeffKim, thanks for your support! I'm not sure I understand the question you're asking me.
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On March 08 2016 02:06 kimaphan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 01:41 Musicus wrote:On March 08 2016 01:19 kimaphan wrote:On March 08 2016 00:59 Silvana wrote:On March 08 2016 00:55 JeffKim wrote:On March 08 2016 00:51 lichter wrote:
I admire how Kim answers so calmly despite a lot of these posts. Not like she can answer any other way, if we're being honest. I don't see why she has reasons to react badly because I don't think we are being that bad at expressing our discontent with the interview (except the "omg foreigner welfare" shitposts which at this point we should all ignore). It's just that sometimes we can't make a post sound positive or friendly when the message we are trying to convey is "I am not satisfied with what you are doing". It would be helpful to know what you think we should do that would make everyone satisfied. Hi Kim, thanks for listening and replying to us. I've been following esports since wc3 and loved your content and casts back then! First of all I am all for region locking and giving foreigners and local players more chances, I think the system does this well! We already have great storylines thanks to DH and IEM Katowice. But can you tell us why you didn't just continue with WCS Premiere Season 1,2,3 with studio events and a big season final at a nice venue? Those were the easiest to follow by far. You could've let IEM/DH untouched and they would be our global events, where Korean players earn Korean WCS points and foreigners their foreign WCS points for the 8/8 split at BlizzCon. If those had gotten extra prize money from Blizzard (possible since the money went from 1,6M to 2M), the hype around DHs and IEM would be really big, since we have the Foreigner vs Korean storyline back. Was this solution ever discusses and if yes why did it not become reality? Because now it just feels like we lost the WCS Premiere League and IEM/DH got "stolen" from the scene and are now region locked. Many were looking forward to an IEM WC where the winners of the previous IEMs would compete. In regards to the Korean scene, it just feels like they have too few opportunites to play in. 4 big qualifiers a year is not enough. A player like Parting or Jaedong and many others who are not on a Proleague team and didn't quaulify for/went out early in GSL/SSL might not be seen competing offline of 6 months? That's not cool, would you agree? My last question is if the WCS Spring and Winter Championship will be standalone events, because I think that's a lot better. Not having a crowd at day 1 and day 2 of Katowice was kind of disappointing! Thank for your time and all the hard work. Hopefully WCS can become something everybody can enjoy in the future . Hello Musicus, I can't answer this question without going into detail and sharing information that is not for me to share. What I can say is that we worked in very close collaboration with all of the partners for WCS, GSL, and SSL.
Thanks for the answer, that's okay!
Keep up the good work .
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@Kim Phan: I know you mentioned you're trying to create more grassroots support in Korea but have you put any thought into encouraging some of your large event partners to simply run some global events in Korea?
I think something like an IEM or Dreamhack: Seoul as a global event would be something fairly unique since most korean tournaments have very different formats than the "weekend tournament" most foreign events have. These kind of events also allow up and coming koreans to cause upsets and make a name for themselves as we've seen it happen in foreign events.
Thanks for all the hard work you do!
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On March 08 2016 00:41 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 00:34 kimaphan wrote:
To address the comments about Blizzard abandoning Korea and not caring about Korean players. We are still greatly supporting Korea and continue to invest significantly in GSL, SSL, and Proleague. They still exist today because of Blizzard's involvement and can still be enjoyed and appreciated by everyone.
The changes to WCS was to create a second system that can help support the rest of the regions and all of the players that don't have the same infrastructure as Korea. What is best for StarCraft does not mean what is only best for Korean players or only foreign players. It's trying to balance both.
The intention is not to have only one global event in the year but potentially others. We are still working on this with other partners.
Regarding the WCS 2012 system, it was changed because of the feedback from the community. Not only was it hard to follow, but people were not interested in watching it. The community as a whole was not watching or following all of the regional events. The interest was not there until the global finals.
The same happened with WCS as more and more Korean players who were not well-known entered the system. People were not interested in watching Korean players who had it easier or weren't the very best of the best (because the very best were competing in GSL/SSL). Foreign players also lost interest in competing and participation was dropping.
Good answer, thanks for that! I assume most tournament organizers aren't interested in the global events because it's harder for them to actually produce one (requirements). I will be honest, i am a big 'korean sc2 elitist', that doesn't mean that i cannot see that some form of region locking was necessary though! But one thing i cannot understand, why only 2 seasons of GSL/SSL? The money surely could have been spread out over 6 tournaments instead of 4. It's such a shame that korean players who fail to qualify for GSL/SSL season one have to basically wait half a year and only have proleague (if they actually are part of kespa) This is basically my biggest complaint about the korean changes for wcs 2016 tbh, i hope you guys at blizzard will discuss this and maybe change it for next year (assuming there will be a next year, which we all hope for )
Exactly. I think, most of us are OK to have more foreigners at BlizzCon, even the 8 will be OK. Let it be the Olympic games instead of World Championship. You will anyway have the top 4 getting there ... But WHY CREATE 2 GSL and SSL per year with LOTS of money instead of 4 GSL and SSL per year with half the money??? And please, do not steal the IEMs, those were great international tournaments, we could have been looking for for months in addition to BlizzCon. Just that now, the tournament calendar seems to be extremely ... weak.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
Just a side note - we all can see that the negative attitude isn't that negative yet. All what was needed - some posts from Kim Love the fact how this thread become rage-less in seconds
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I skimmed the article and what I read was a bunch of bollocks about how it's a good thing that Korea is discriminated against, and that overall feedback is very positive with the way Blizzard does things these days. Some sort of nice fantasy world this person loves in, what the hell.
:/ Very discouraging skim.
Rest assured, I will take the time to read it carefully and give some more well-informed feedback on this interview. However, from the little I've read, this person is anti-Korean. e.g.
The thing that we saw in 2015 was that it was very difficult for a professional player to really stand out and to get noticed in a system where there were a lot of players from Korea in this space.
Because Korean players are evil for some reason? They aren't professional? What? ****** this shit and ***** this set up which penalizes Korean players for no other reason that they're good at the game.
Sorry, end rant here. Will now read the article more carefully.
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Well, Kim has guts :-) To face the beast, which is the TL community :-)
But it is good to know, she reads the ideas here.
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On March 08 2016 02:22 Diabolique wrote:
Well, Kim has guts :-) To face the beast, which is the TL community :-)
But it is good to know, she reads the ideas here.
I agree, the internet is a savage place and there is no way she can please everyone, especially one as divided as this. But it is nice to see a Blizzard representative post once in a while, just to keep in touch with the community
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On March 08 2016 02:22 Diabolique wrote:
Well, Kim has guts :-) To face the beast, which is the TL community :-)
But it is good to know, she reads the ideas here.
Well the first thing that was answered is "I can't answer this question" and the second thing which she answered was "I don't understand this question".
Nonetheless, the fact that she's posting here at all is a good sign. I just hope that actual listening and communication takes place.
I am particularly interested in hearing the rationale behind creating big, false tournaments (everyone except for Korean is welcome) instead of leaving the big tournaments actually open and hosting smaller, region-locked tournaments. Right now, IEM is a fake joke. It's disgusting to watch an event which specifically makes sure that the best aren't allowed to participate just because they're the best.
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On March 08 2016 02:22 Diabolique wrote:
Well, Kim has guts :-) To face the beast, which is the TL community :-)
But it is good to know, she reads the ideas here.
She does have guts and I appreciate the effort she's making. I still haven't seen an answer that's not PR Bullshit but I understand she might not be able to reveal things
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On March 08 2016 02:30 showstealer1829 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 02:22 Diabolique wrote:
Well, Kim has guts :-) To face the beast, which is the TL community :-)
But it is good to know, she reads the ideas here. She does have guts and I appreciate the effort she's making. I still haven't seen an answer that's not PR Bullshit but I understand she might not be able to reveal things
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think she'll really take the time to give actual answers to what's being said in this thread.
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thank you for the interview and reading TL
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United States43 Posts
On March 08 2016 02:10 feardragon wrote:
@Kim Phan: I know you mentioned you're trying to create more grassroots support in Korea but have you put any thought into encouraging some of your large event partners to simply run some global events in Korea?
I think something like an IEM or Dreamhack: Seoul as a global event would be something fairly unique since most korean tournaments have very different formats than the "weekend tournament" most foreign events have. These kind of events also allow up and coming koreans to cause upsets and make a name for themselves as we've seen it happen in foreign events.
Thanks for all the hard work you do!
Yes, it's something we're working on.
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On March 08 2016 02:06 kimaphan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 01:41 Musicus wrote:On March 08 2016 01:19 kimaphan wrote:On March 08 2016 00:59 Silvana wrote:On March 08 2016 00:55 JeffKim wrote:On March 08 2016 00:51 lichter wrote:
I admire how Kim answers so calmly despite a lot of these posts. Not like she can answer any other way, if we're being honest. I don't see why she has reasons to react badly because I don't think we are being that bad at expressing our discontent with the interview (except the "omg foreigner welfare" shitposts which at this point we should all ignore). It's just that sometimes we can't make a post sound positive or friendly when the message we are trying to convey is "I am not satisfied with what you are doing". It would be helpful to know what you think we should do that would make everyone satisfied. Hi Kim, thanks for listening and replying to us. I've been following esports since wc3 and loved your content and casts back then! First of all I am all for region locking and giving foreigners and local players more chances, I think the system does this well! We already have great storylines thanks to DH and IEM Katowice. But can you tell us why you didn't just continue with WCS Premiere Season 1,2,3 with studio events and a big season final at a nice venue? Those were the easiest to follow by far. You could've let IEM/DH untouched and they would be our global events, where Korean players earn Korean WCS points and foreigners their foreign WCS points for the 8/8 split at BlizzCon. If those had gotten extra prize money from Blizzard (possible since the money went from 1,6M to 2M), the hype around DHs and IEM would be really big, since we have the Foreigner vs Korean storyline back. Was this solution ever discusses and if yes why did it not become reality? Because now it just feels like we lost the WCS Premiere League and IEM/DH got "stolen" from the scene and are now region locked. Many were looking forward to an IEM WC where the winners of the previous IEMs would compete. In regards to the Korean scene, it just feels like they have too few opportunites to play in. 4 big qualifiers a year is not enough. A player like Parting or Jaedong and many others who are not on a Proleague team and didn't quaulify for/went out early in GSL/SSL might not be seen competing offline of 6 months? That's not cool, would you agree? My last question is if the WCS Spring and Winter Championship will be standalone events, because I think that's a lot better. Not having a crowd at day 1 and day 2 of Katowice was kind of disappointing! Thank for your time and all the hard work. Hopefully WCS can become something everybody can enjoy in the future . Hello Musicus, I can't answer this question without going into detail and sharing information that is not for me to share. What I can say is that we work in very close collaboration with all of the partners when changes are made to WCS, GSL, and SSL.
"Very close collaboration" sounds like IEM and DH wanted their tournaments region-locked
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On March 08 2016 01:11 kimaphan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2016 17:17 AKAvg wrote:
I find interesting that she admits that Korea is the best is and wishes/hopes/prays that foreign players becomes as good as they are somehow/someway.
I truly believe you can't be among the best if you don't train and compete with the best and I hardly think shutting most Koreans out helps with that. A shame, really. This was inherently one of the problems with the WCS system last year. The Korean players who competed in WCS were not training, practicing, or playing on the same servers as the rest of the players in NA and EU. This was frustrating for foreign players and one of the biggest complaint that we heard from them during our player and influencer summit. We've introduced rules and ladder requirements, but they can be difficult to enforce and not enough to encourage all competitors to consistently play and train on the same servers.
But they have been in 2014.
Golden, Patience, MMA, Jjakji, (Sacsri), Stardust, MC, Hyun, Yoda, First and ForGG have all been staying in Europe and played in Europe on the EU Server. Yes they traveled alot to dreamhacks, IEMs and so on or even took EU Qualifier Spots, but they have been here, in Europe, helping the development as you cannot not play on Kr Server from Europe (without super bad 300+ ping)
Then you changed it to WCS 2015 and all these players outside of ForGG had to leave Europe. And now you say you want to force the koreans not only to fly over to EU and pick up a weekend trophy, but stay in the region and play there... a system you didnt want one year ago anymore. You send the koreans out of Europe, back to korea and now there are complains koreans dont train on the same servers and just fly over for the weekend events.
Personally thats for me completly not understandable.
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On March 08 2016 02:29 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 02:22 Diabolique wrote:
Well, Kim has guts :-) To face the beast, which is the TL community :-)
But it is good to know, she reads the ideas here. Well the first thing that was answered is "I can't answer this question" and the second thing which she answered was "I don't understand this question". Nonetheless, the fact that she's posting here at all is a good sign. I just hope that actual listening and communication takes place. I am particularly interested in hearing the rationale behind creating big, false tournaments (everyone except for Korean is welcome) instead of leaving the big tournaments actually open and hosting smaller, region-locked tournaments. Right now, IEM is a fake joke. It's disgusting to watch an event which specifically makes sure that the best aren't allowed to participate just because they're the best.
I think, she said in the asnwers here already more than in the interview. The interview WAS a PR thing, therefore they must understand our disappointment. When they asked "what were the negatives and what were the positives, you see?", we expected to hear about some positives, they see and were interested in what they understand as the main negatives. Instead of an answer, here monologue was as if this question has not been asked at all.
Even when she writes here in the forum "I can not give the answer to this, this is something that can not be published", that is already an answer, which I can understand. It could be e.g. something that IEM / DH could have been considering to skip SC2 completely and the only way to keep SC2 there was to transform them into the WCS2015 kind of events with giving all the money into it. That might be an info that cannot be published and then, the actions could be understood. I still only believe, having twice as many GSLs and SSLs with half the money would be better for the Korean scene.
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On March 08 2016 02:10 feardragon wrote:
@Kim Phan: I know you mentioned you're trying to create more grassroots support in Korea but have you put any thought into encouraging some of your large event partners to simply run some global events in Korea?
I think something like an IEM or Dreamhack: Seoul as a global event would be something fairly unique since most korean tournaments have very different formats than the "weekend tournament" most foreign events have. These kind of events also allow up and coming koreans to cause upsets and make a name for themselves as we've seen it happen in foreign events.
Thanks for all the hard work you do!
Pretty sure we will have an IEM in Korea  .
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/503826-why-dont-we-see-dreamhack-seoul
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EPT
