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Kim Phan: "We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft."
While the show is going on people behind the scenes are already planning ahead, thinking about the near and far future, adapting to any challenges that might come up. One of the people primarily responsible for the direction of the esports side of SC2 is Kim Phan. She is responsible for managing the monstrous eSport machinery of Blizzard Entertainment, a beast not easily tamed or satisfied, as new tastes and flavours fall in and out of trend and new challenges arise daily.
We were able to spend some time with Kim Phan at the WCS Circuit: Winter Championship in Katowice, Poland, to talk about one great part of this machinery: the World Championship Series.
TL.net: What would you say are the biggest positive and the biggest negative points about the new WCS system and what was your thought process behind this radical system change between 2015 and 2016?
Kim Phan: Well, first of all we took a look at all the years and what people liked and the StarCraft community is so amazing—from the players, to the influencers, just everyone involved is very vocal about StarCraft and is very passionate about it, so we hear a lot of feedback—and it’s great to be able to receive so many thoughts and a lot of that is taken into account, when we make changes.
For 2016 we knew it was going to be the Legacy of the Void launch year and that was a great opportunity for us to think about how we continue growing StarCraft eSports, especially as new players come in to try Legacy of the Void, and the games changes as well with different units that are added. That was almost like another chance to say: Hey, what does the StarCraft landscape look like in terms of competitive play, what is the meta? And I think we wanted to make changes, which would allow more people to compete and enter the system. So how were we able to improve that?
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. You know, Korea has just always been a very dominant and fierce country when it comes to eSports—they’re just so, so good. And there probably aren’t enough tournaments out there to really accommodate all their skill. So what we saw was not enough growth in other regions, because there weren’t enough moments where we saw—for example in Krakow last year for the Season 3 finals—a moment that was like ‘wow, this is amazing, look at the Polish crowd cheer on MaNa in the finals and there is Lilbow as well’ and it’s just so great to see that energy and to see local heroes shine and these players played really, really well, they took out Hydra and Polt. So how do you cultivate that? I think that influenced a lot of our changes and that is why we decided to go the route of two different ranking systems.
One reason is: How do we grow pro players and give them the chance to shine and to show they truly are skilled? It’s wonderful to see all the best players of the world play and not just Korea—certainly the best of the best in StarCraft is in Korea, no doubt about it—, but there is a best of the best in StarCraft all over the world as well and we wanted to be able to put a spotlight on that, and I think that influenced our changes significantly. And at the same time we want people to realize that Korea is the best and we didn’t do a good job previously of promoting the tournaments in Korea, because it’s in a different time zone, in the west it’s really hard to follow—and those are the things we wanted to do better for Korea to really put a spotlight on ‘this is where the best players are, if you want to compete with the best, this is the place to go’. So WCS Korea is still open to everybody, is still a global tournament, but the reality of 'doing really well' is competing against the big bosses again and again. We want to rebroadcast it, talk about the stories more, tell people more about the players. Because if you have it mixed together it’s harder to follow the story. So you can’t really follow the stories of the other local heroes, because they’re not getting a chance to rise. It’s just too much to cover to keep it clear.
These are probably the biggest reasons behind these changes and we thought with Legacy of the Void was a great opportunity to do a change like that. What else did we consider? We could have made not a lot of changes at all, but then it probably would’ve taken longer to get players inspired to compete.
TL.net: Did you ever discuss going back to the system you had in 2012, with the regional and national championships? People really loved that. There is this famous picture of Stephano with the French flag in hand, being cheered on by the crowd…
Kim Phan: Yes, we did consider so many options and this was one of the things we considered as well. But—as you mentioned drastic changes before—we thought going back to a system from 2012 would have been too drastic. Also in order to put together 2012 we had to get a lot of events from all over the world together and from the feedback we got about this it was really hard to follow. It was great for the people who followed their own region and got to see their own heroes, but to follow the stories from across the world was really difficult for a lot of people. So that was something we were mindful of. How can we make the stories easy to follow? So the system now—although it seems like it has two different stories—provides one story here. So you are still able to see Stephano do his flag waving, like Lilbow did now. So I think we have a little bit of a mix of both now, because our Championships will be at live events, so we have more of those moments, but they all have to compete against each other to see who is the best.
TL.net: Do you then think that the one event we have had so far—DreamHack in Leipzig—was a promising start to the new system, or is it too early to really tell?
Kim Phan: We have seen the positive changes we intended happening, and as this is the second event we are going to continue to see more results, so yes it’s a little early to say, but we are already seeing positive things. That I am really excited about.
TL.net: So did you hear a lot of good things from the community? What are these positive signals you get?
Kim Phan: Yes, we get a lot of feedback from the community, we continue to do so—of course a big thanks to the teamliquid community and just the StarCraft community as a whole for always telling us what they’re thinking. We are seeing a lot of incoming players rising, and I think that’s exciting, fresh blood is always good, and you are seeing some surprises with Legacy of the Void being so different, people love playing it, so I heard a lot of positive feedback about the game and how it affected eSports.
TL.net: Initially the community didn’t react so well to the WCS changes. Were you afraid that you would create a rift between the regions, or between the so-called casual fan camp and the so-called elitist fan camp, which would stay for a long time?
Kim Phan: I think every time you introduce change it takes a while for people to form a decision about it. And I will admit we changed WCS year after year, it’s always been different and the community has been very patient in letting us try things and giving feedback. So I can see why it may be challenging when you are really invested into one format and then another change happens. But we really want to do it right and create a system that can continue and be easy to follow, and so we continue to make improvements. And I think we just expect there to be different voices. We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft and what’s best for the players.
TL.net: Many in the community are looking forward to the WCS Global Events, where Foreigners will compete against Koreans, which is a rare occasion now in the new system. But many are worried, because we haven’t heard any real announcements about these events so far. Is there anything you can say about this? Will Blizzard give more incentives to organizers to organize these events?
Kim Phan: I am trying to think about what I can say… I do know that there is one event being planned, that hasn’t been announced yet. So I shouldn’t say anything until it’s actually announced, as I don’t know what changes might be happening. But I do think those moments will become very, very special and that’s what I am really excited about. On the flip side of course people say ‘how is that competition going to look like though, when they haven’t played against each other for a while now?’. I don’t remember the year, but one time at IPL they did ‘Korea vs the World’, do you remember that one?
TL.net: Yeah.
Kim Phan: That was the one where Stephano like…
TL.net: …where Stephano almost all-killed Korea.
Kim Phan: Yeah, where Stephano almost all-killed them. So I am excited about this. That event gives me hope, that as the skill level of the western players get better and better and better, that’s going to be cool to see. And what else was it? Nation Wars?
TL.net: Yeah, Nation Wars. MarineLorD’s moment of triumph.
Kim Phan: Oh my goodness, Nation Wars, MarineLorD was insane, so him taking out the whole Korean team was really cool to see. So France won Nation Wars against Korea, which gives me a lot excitement and hope for more moments like that.
TL.net: As you know the teamliquid-community is especially interested in the Korean scene, following it religiously. Recently there have been worries about the shrinking talent pool in Korea—our very own stuchiu wrote an article about this on ESPN that really blew up and opened a huge discussion inside the community. Are there plans from Blizzard to step in and help out the grassroots scene there and also abroad?
Kim Phan: We will continue to support Korean eSports, we know that that’s where the talent is—and you kind of hit it right there I think, you can’t stop players from retiring, it’s always going to happen. StarCraft is a lot about speed and APM and if you don’t play a lot you’re going to fall behind very quickly. So how do you get the next group of people coming in? We’ve been working with organizers in Korea to build more grassroots tournaments and to help growing that talent. There are things we are already doing, a lot of it behind the scenes which people might not realize as well. The point is something I agree with and we’re working towards improving things.
TL.net: Since Proleague is so beloved all over the world, have there been discussions about setting up an official Blizzard team league? Is that something that might come up in the future?
Kim Phan: We also love Proleague, we think it’s awesome. And we’ve thought about it. There need to be more teams outside of Korea however in order to build a league. So yeah, we did think about it. But the nature of StarCraft 2 being a 1on1 game and the infrastructure outside of Korea making it harder for teams to practice together is a bigger challenge. So the question is how to grow these things, so you can have enough teams on an even playing field.
TL.net: Thank you very much for your time, we wish you the best in the future, please try to show good systems and we will cheer for you!
I really do hope they start to do more grassroots stuff in Korea.
I was watching a drama recently where they had a scene that took place in a PC Bang in 1999 and everyone was playing StarCraft. Made me kinda sad when I think about going there now and it's all League and other random games.
Its nice to see these little things that show that Blizzard really does care Thanks for taking the time to interview her (TripleM), and thanks to Kim Pham for taking the time to talk to the community. Long Live Starcraft!
I really do hope they fund more grassroots in Korea, it is the heart of Starcraft where the most dedicated players emerge from and if goes under then the future of Starcraft as a professional event would be in serious jeopardy
I know KeSPA is actually doing some amateur SCII league and it's casted by Canata and he post the games in his channel. It's really nice of Blizzard to show us that they cares, sometimes it's all that matters
"...We’ve been working with organizers in Korea to build more grassroots tournaments and to help growing that talent. There are things we are already doing, a lot of it behind the scenes which people might not realize as well..."
Quite a lot I hope because so far...
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.
On March 07 2016 17:17 AKAvg wrote: "...We’ve been working with organizers in Korea to build more grassroots tournaments and to help growing that talent. There are things we are already doing, a lot of it behind the scenes which people might not realize as well..."
Quite a lot I hope because so far...
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.
I agree and disagree. I think that unless all the foreigners moved to Korea and trained in team houses, they probably wouldn't be as good as Koreans.
That being said, there a number if examples of both Koreans and foreigners living at home and beating top Koreans without that Korean environment.
Besides, look at 2013/2014, I mean, we really didn't see that many foreigners going toe to toe with Koreans. I think Blizzard is correct in trying this for a year and then assessing where the competitive scene is at after Blizzcon.
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
How ironic would it be if more foreign players, like Lilbow, go to Blizzcon after practicing only, like, 2 games.
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
How ironic would it be if more foreign players, like Lilbow, go to Blizzcon after practicing only, like, 2 games.
I am still waiting for the win he was training for This Karma thing is gorgeous
And the first part - yeah, "we fucked the best players, but we are doing what's best for the players" - I think that's just a pure PR meaningless talk. What is she supposed to say? We fucked Koreans, we applied racist rule, we haven't released book rules yet, but ... we are doing the best for players. Do you want to buy Nova campaign?
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
How ironic would it be if more foreign players, like Lilbow, go to Blizzcon after practicing only, like, 2 games.
I am still waiting for the win he was training for This Karma thing is gorgeous
And the first part - yeah, "we fucked the best players, but we are doing what's best for the players" - I think that's just a pure PR meaningless talk. What is she supposed to say? We fucked Koreans, we applied racist rule, we haven't released book rules yet, but ... we are doing the best for players. Do you want to buy Nova campaign?
Agreed. I shouldn't be reading so deeply into the empty PR talk.
We also love Proleague, we think it’s awesome. And we’ve thought about it. There need to be more teams outside of Korea however in order to build a league.
Dafuq? There's more pro teams outside of Korea than in Korea. A lot more.
You can maybe say foreign Proleague isn't realistic because foreign SC2 doesn't all come together in one city like in Korea, but saying there have to be more teams is just... strange.
We also love Proleague, we think it’s awesome. And we’ve thought about it. There need to be more teams outside of Korea however in order to build a league.
Dafuq? There's more pro teams outside of Korea than in Korea. A lot more.
You can maybe say foreign Proleague isn't realistic because foreign SC2 doesn't all come together in one city like in Korea, but saying there have to be more teams is just... strange.
What would you say are the biggest positive and the biggest negative points about the new WCS system? "- Blaaa blaaa blaaa, everything is great, it is an opportunity, it is exciting, blaaa blaaa blaaaa."
A bullshit PR talk without a single reasonable answer. Actually no. There is one good and interesting answer - they are preparing 1 (ONE) global event. Well, everybody expected that there will be at least the ONE event. Unfortunately, it seems, there will be really only ONE event.
"you can’t stop players from retiring"
She is a really, really nice lady. And I really, really don't like her.
We also love Proleague, we think it’s awesome. And we’ve thought about it. There need to be more teams outside of Korea however in order to build a league.
Dafuq? There's more pro teams outside of Korea than in Korea. A lot more.
You can maybe say foreign Proleague isn't realistic because foreign SC2 doesn't all come together in one city like in Korea, but saying there have to be more teams is just... strange.
You need teams with the right amount of infrastructure and logistics to actually keep up with a long-running league, and in the best case these teams should be more or less even in skill and player numbers, so it makes for a competitive tournament.
So yes, there are more teams outside of Korea than in Korea, but the number of teams fullfilling the requirements for such a league is quite small I think.
We also love Proleague, we think it’s awesome. And we’ve thought about it. There need to be more teams outside of Korea however in order to build a league.
Dafuq? There's more pro teams outside of Korea than in Korea. A lot more.
You can maybe say foreign Proleague isn't realistic because foreign SC2 doesn't all come together in one city like in Korea, but saying there have to be more teams is just... strange.
You need teams with the right amount of infrastructure and logistics to actually keep up with a long-running league, and in the best case these teams should be more or less even in skill and player numbers, so it makes for a competitive tournament.
So yes, there are more teams outside of Korea than in Korea, but the number of teams fullfilling the requirements for such a league is quite small I think.
I think he mentioned EG being late, not caring about training on specific maps and other interesting stuff. But I may be wrong, it was a long time
Beyond everything that's happened, this interview doesn't say shit that we didn't already know. I'm glad to see more life in the foreign scene but it still doesn't stack up anywhere close to what Korea offers. It was interesting watching some players I've never seen at IEM, but I personally didn't stick around for any games other than Major vs Snute cause it simply wasn't fun to watch not-top tier play.
On March 07 2016 18:13 Diabolique wrote: What would you say are the biggest positive and the biggest negative points about the new WCS system? "- Blaaa blaaa blaaa, everything is great, it is an opportunity, it is exciting, blaaa blaaa blaaaa."
A bullshit PR talk without a single reasonable answer. Actually no. There is one good and interesting answer - they are preparing 1 (ONE) global event. Well, everybody expected that there will be at least the ONE event. Unfortunately, it seems, there will be really only ONE event.
"you can’t stop players from retiring"
She is a really, really nice lady. And I really, really don't like her.
It’s wonderful to see all the best players of the world play and not just Korea—certainly the best of the best in StarCraft is in Korea, no doubt about it—, but there is a best of the best in StarCraft all over the world as well and we wanted to be able to put a spotlight on that
Reading this part I can't help but think of some dystopian world where the IAAF would create an Athleticism World Championship where Black people would be excluded under the justification that "it's wonderful to see all the best athletes of the world run and not just the Black ones". That's such a shameful reasoning from Blizzard and I don't believe their PR stance of "oh yeah this year is so awesome much positive feedback much viewers" will last very long in the face of reality. (notice, while we're at it, that she's excluding Korea from "the world" in her sentence)
On March 07 2016 18:34 BisuDagger wrote: What I got from this is we need to region lock France too. Why so good France!?!
Legacy from Stepahano , success breeds success prehaps ?
If there is to a successful foreigner scene then its needs a campus in one location where teams can locate their teamhouses. This save on infrastructure costs and transportation costs as well. The trouble is Blizz cant set all this up without cooperation of the teams, and this is why the foreigner scene is destined to fail no matter what happens.
Korea has this in place already, which is why Blizzard should be focusing on them imho. Sinking money into the foreigner scene is just throwing money away, the teams are short termist and so are many of the players. Root and Teamliquid are the only 2 that seem dedicated to SC2 from what i can see.
It’s wonderful to see all the best players of the world play and not just Korea—certainly the best of the best in StarCraft is in Korea, no doubt about it—, but there is a best of the best in StarCraft all over the world as well and we wanted to be able to put a spotlight on that
Reading this part I can't help but think of some dystopian world where the IAAF would create an Athleticism World Championship where Black people would be excluded under the justification that "it's wonderful to see all the best athletes of the world run and not just the Black ones". That's such a shameful reasoning from Blizzard and I don't believe their PR stance of "oh yeah this year is so awesome much positive feedback much viewers" will last very long in the face of reality. (notice, while we're at it, that she's excluding Korea from "the world" in her sentence)
Actually all big foreign celebrities are not vocally against this. When was the last time some SC2 celebrity stand against Blizzard and said they are doing bad work and their system is shit? All important people are supporting WCS because it's keeping them more alive
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
Pretty much all the sponsors and viewers come from countries outside of Korea, a sponsor needs to see some benefit from the money they put into supporting teams and players, that is hard when all the players they sponsors never make it far into a big tournament.
What are the Korean players going to do if Starcraft 2 is dead in two years? Do you see a magical solution in the near future where suddenly we get thousands of viewers if we just keep making enough big weekend tournaments for them to get money from? If Korea had a bunch of tournaments where foreigner players could fly in for a weekend then that would be different, but the GSL pretty much requires you to live in Korea in order to compete, why can't we have some of the same requirements for foreign tournaments?
We can argue about whether Blizzard chose the best model for this WCS, but if the choice is between the game dying a slow death within a few years and nobody is able to make money from it, or we choose to boost the foreign scene where all the viewers and sponsors are, and hurt the Korean scene while doing it. Then i am going to choose the last option because at least there is a chance that it brings new life into the game.
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
Pretty much all the sponsors and viewers come from countries outside of Korea, a sponsor needs to see some benefit from the money they put into supporting teams and players, that is hard when all the players they sponsors never make it far into a big tournament.
What are the Korean players going to do if Starcraft 2 is dead in two years? Do you see a magical solution in the near future where suddenly we get thousands of viewers if we just keep making enough big weekend tournaments for them to get money from? If Korea had a bunch of tournaments where foreigner players could fly in for a weekend then that would be different, but the GSL pretty much requires you to live in Korea in order to compete, why can't we have some of the same requirements for foreign tournaments?
We can argue about whether Blizzard chose the best model for this WCS, but if the choice is between the game dying a slow death within a few years and nobody is able to make money from it, or we choose to boost the foreign scene where all the viewers and sponsors are, and hurt the Korean scene while doing it. Then i am going to choose the last option because at least there is a chance that it brings new life into the game.
Boosting foreign scene = canceling a long term league and using for WCS established tournaments. Sure, that's SO HUGE BOOST!!!
It's just PR seriously, right now sc2 is in a delicate position, I suppose the next community feedback should give more insight about where the game is headed.
And by the way I think Blizz is more anxious to please the korean pros than the rest of the community. A game should be designed for the playerbase, by balanced for the top levels. LOTV is designed for viewership of korean tournaments, and balanced accordingly.
I guess it gives us as much info as you'd expect from Blizzard .
Questions I'd like to have answered but you probably couldn't ask:
Was Blizzard forced to come up with this new system last minute, since ESL no longer wanted to produce WCS Premiere as a studio event?
If not, why not just region lock WCS Premiere, have the studio events just like last year and keep IEM/DH they way they always were. Support them with the extra money WCS has this year and have every IEM/DH be a global event.
Why was the WCS Winter Championship not a standalone event? We basically lost the real IEM Katowice World Championship event, where the previous Champions and runner-ups would've been invited to, due to this. Will the other Championships be a standalone event, and will we have a crowd for day 1 and day 2?
Does Blizzard admit that Korean players (Parting, Jaedong for example) who aren't on a Proleague team and didn't qualify or went out early in SSL/GSL are in a very tough spot? The new system does not provide enough tournaments for them to play in, we don't see much of them for half a year. Rumor/Kenzi says Fantasy retired because of this.
More questions pop up, but they aren't for Bunny .
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
Pretty much all the sponsors and viewers come from countries outside of Korea, a sponsor needs to see some benefit from the money they put into supporting teams and players, that is hard when all the players they sponsors never make it far into a big tournament.
I know, right? Foreigners were not skilled enough to "make it far into a big tournament" because players from South Korea were knocking them out left and right, so let's dumb down the competition by implementing a region-lock and keep the best of the best players away. That way, foreigners can "make it far into a big tournament" and secure spots that they otherwise would not deserve. That is basically the logic that you are agreeing to.
while I don't agree with what they are doing, I think the scene is improving, but whether it is because of the game or the new WCS, it's hard to tell. But it's good to just sit back and enjoy sc2
On March 07 2016 18:34 BisuDagger wrote: What I got from this is we need to region lock France too. Why so good France!?!
I know you have your tongue in cheek here, but the answer to this question is actually interesting and it is O'GamingTV. Their underdogs tournament kept the french scene alive, got players used to competition and pressure and allowed unknown players to emerge.
It shows that giving a training ground to non elite player make them slowly grow in skill and able to compete with top world players.
Every country should have their underdogs tournament.
NB: I don't think OGTV could have done this without the massive success of their LoL channel, but the fact that they don't focus on the big revenue but on all the games they have passion for is just great
it's funny that all these positive feedbacks make for shitty views in WCS and good one for GSL. nothing about the 33% less content in Kr ? about the lack of rules 3+ months into the system ?
it's not her fault that we dont hear any info. She is like every delegatee does. We all know that delegatees know nothing because their bosses dont tell any key-informations and we only want to hear the key-informations.
On March 07 2016 17:17 AKAvg wrote: "...We’ve been working with organizers in Korea to build more grassroots tournaments and to help growing that talent. There are things we are already doing, a lot of it behind the scenes which people might not realize as well..."
Quite a lot I hope because so far...
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.
I agree and disagree. I think that unless all the foreigners moved to Korea and trained in team houses, they probably wouldn't be as good as Koreans.
That being said, there a number if examples of both Koreans and foreigners living at home and beating top Koreans without that Korean environment.
Besides, look at 2013/2014, I mean, we really didn't see that many foreigners going toe to toe with Koreans. I think Blizzard is correct in trying this for a year and then assessing where the competitive scene is at after Blizzcon.
If i am not mistaken, there was not a single foreign win in a premier (maybe not even in a major) and usually top16 was just korean vs korean. Thats not a sustainable environment.
Proplayers today want safety, want a chance to earn money. I mean would you sacrifice school if you have no chance to win money, even if you are the most talented player outside of korea?
On March 07 2016 18:13 Diabolique wrote: What would you say are the biggest positive and the biggest negative points about the new WCS system? "- Blaaa blaaa blaaa, everything is great, it is an opportunity, it is exciting, blaaa blaaa blaaaa."
A bullshit PR talk without a single reasonable answer. Actually no. There is one good and interesting answer - they are preparing 1 (ONE) global event. Well, everybody expected that there will be at least the ONE event. Unfortunately, it seems, there will be really only ONE event.
"you can’t stop players from retiring"
She is a really, really nice lady. And I really, really don't like her.
Yep, Pure PR BS.
My favorite part is where she mentions that going to 2012 system would be too "drastic" (but region lock is not :D).
On March 07 2016 18:13 Diabolique wrote: What would you say are the biggest positive and the biggest negative points about the new WCS system? "- Blaaa blaaa blaaa, everything is great, it is an opportunity, it is exciting, blaaa blaaa blaaaa."
A bullshit PR talk without a single reasonable answer. Actually no. There is one good and interesting answer - they are preparing 1 (ONE) global event. Well, everybody expected that there will be at least the ONE event. Unfortunately, it seems, there will be really only ONE event.
"you can’t stop players from retiring"
She is a really, really nice lady. And I really, really don't like her.
Yep, Pure PR BS.
My favorite part is where she mentions that going to 2012 system would be too "drastic" (but region lock is not :D).
You might want to check liquipedia to see what 2012 system was and what it resulted in, my friend...
On March 07 2016 17:17 AKAvg wrote: "...We’ve been working with organizers in Korea to build more grassroots tournaments and to help growing that talent. There are things we are already doing, a lot of it behind the scenes which people might not realize as well..."
Quite a lot I hope because so far...
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.
I agree and disagree. I think that unless all the foreigners moved to Korea and trained in team houses, they probably wouldn't be as good as Koreans.
That being said, there a number if examples of both Koreans and foreigners living at home and beating top Koreans without that Korean environment.
Besides, look at 2013/2014, I mean, we really didn't see that many foreigners going toe to toe with Koreans. I think Blizzard is correct in trying this for a year and then assessing where the competitive scene is at after Blizzcon.
If i am not mistaken, there was not a single foreign win in a premier (maybe not even in a major) and usually top16 was just korean vs korean. Thats not a sustainable environment.
Proplayers today want safety, want a chance to earn money. I mean would you sacrifice school if you have no chance to win money, even if you are the most talented player outside of korea?
We always come back to the same points that progaming environment in Korea is better, so progamers are more likely to become better and better. It's just a circle : If you stay in school/keep your other job you cannot get better than someone doing it full-time (couple exceptions aside, for sure!), but how can you know you can be better even if you drop your week activities? It is quite hard to break this cycle, but they are trying ways to help making it more viable. Time will tell I guess. We also need to keep showing support for the players/team/events we love in this game, of course!
The main difficulty right now between KR and not-KR is the meta, they are really not playing the same way, especially when it comes to positioning and control, so I am not so sure that Koreans would prevails if they are not careful.
On March 07 2016 20:40 usopsama wrote: I know, right? Foreigners were not skilled enough to "make it far into a big tournament" because players from South Korea were knocking them out left and right, so let's dumb down the competition by implementing a region-lock and keep the best of the best players away. That way, foreigners can "make it far into a big tournament" and secure spots that they otherwise would not deserve. That is basically the logic that you are agreeing to.
You are not addressing any of the issues i mentioned. The fact is that things weren't working out with the old system, what is the point in continuing a tournament model that you know isn't working? It is not like i like the idea of Korean players having to retire, but Blizzard is already funding the scene with quite a lot of money, we cannot reasonably expect to to spend even more. I don't know if the new WCS model will help the game, but at least they are trying something.
Also now is the time for the Korean fans to step up. We have foreign tournament makers put up their own money to provide tournaments, where is the Korean HomeStory Cup? Where is the Korean BasetradeTV? Why is it that the country with the best Starcraft players in the world doesn't have anything similar?
That headline is fucking brilliant... absolutely fucking brilliant. a tip of my chapeau to the wise man who decided to make that the headline of this interview.
"We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft." the ultimate in passive-voice, oblique statements. can it get any worse?
"We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft." sounds like a left-wing, grassroots labour/democratic party talking about the economy. "we are trying to make sure we are doing what's best for the economy by funding government projects"
"We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft." sounds like the lazy husband/wife whose relationship is spinning out of control saying... "i was hoping to try my best to make my marriage hopefully work if that is possible"
the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
the haters have clearly pounded Ms. Phan into defense-mode during interviews and that's sad. i prefer teh fuck-you atttitudes of guys like Pardo and Browder.
On March 07 2016 17:17 AKAvg wrote: "...We’ve been working with organizers in Korea to build more grassroots tournaments and to help growing that talent. There are things we are already doing, a lot of it behind the scenes which people might not realize as well..."
Quite a lot I hope because so far...
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.
I agree and disagree. I think that unless all the foreigners moved to Korea and trained in team houses, they probably wouldn't be as good as Koreans.
That being said, there a number if examples of both Koreans and foreigners living at home and beating top Koreans without that Korean environment.
Besides, look at 2013/2014, I mean, we really didn't see that many foreigners going toe to toe with Koreans. I think Blizzard is correct in trying this for a year and then assessing where the competitive scene is at after Blizzcon.
If i am not mistaken, there was not a single foreign win in a premier (maybe not even in a major) and usually top16 was just korean vs korean. Thats not a sustainable environment.
Proplayers today want safety, want a chance to earn money. I mean would you sacrifice school if you have no chance to win money, even if you are the most talented player outside of korea?
That's what WCS LEAGUE was for. They canceled it and used established tournaments. This means to me a step down. That's like canceling GSL and pretending Korea will be better without it... WCS DISAPPEARED, I am wondering that many people are ignoring this...
On March 07 2016 20:40 usopsama wrote: I know, right? Foreigners were not skilled enough to "make it far into a big tournament" because players from South Korea were knocking them out left and right, so let's dumb down the competition by implementing a region-lock and keep the best of the best players away. That way, foreigners can "make it far into a big tournament" and secure spots that they otherwise would not deserve. That is basically the logic that you are agreeing to.
You are not addressing any of the issues i mentioned. The fact is that things weren't working out with the old system, what is the point in continuing a tournament model that you know isn't working? It is not like i like the idea of Korean players having to retire, but Blizzard is already funding the scene with quite a lot of money, we cannot reasonably expect to to spend even more. I don't know if the new WCS model will help the game, but at least they are trying something.
Also now is the time for the Korean fans to step up. We have foreign tournament makers put up their own money to provide tournaments, where is the Korean HomeStory Cup? Where is the Korean BasetradeTV? Why is it that the country with the best Starcraft players in the world doesn't have anything similar?
Uhh, how about Olimoleague? Also Korea is producing 5 days of top quality SC2 content(2 days of PL, 2 days of GSL, 1 day of S2SL). There's no room for some amateur to step in, it's not profitable. That's what many tournaments were saying during 2013.
On March 07 2016 17:17 AKAvg wrote: "...We’ve been working with organizers in Korea to build more grassroots tournaments and to help growing that talent. There are things we are already doing, a lot of it behind the scenes which people might not realize as well..."
Quite a lot I hope because so far...
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.
I agree and disagree. I think that unless all the foreigners moved to Korea and trained in team houses, they probably wouldn't be as good as Koreans.
That being said, there a number if examples of both Koreans and foreigners living at home and beating top Koreans without that Korean environment.
Besides, look at 2013/2014, I mean, we really didn't see that many foreigners going toe to toe with Koreans. I think Blizzard is correct in trying this for a year and then assessing where the competitive scene is at after Blizzcon.
If i am not mistaken, there was not a single foreign win in a premier (maybe not even in a major) and usually top16 was just korean vs korean. Thats not a sustainable environment.
Proplayers today want safety, want a chance to earn money. I mean would you sacrifice school if you have no chance to win money, even if you are the most talented player outside of korea?
That's what WCS LEAGUE was for. They canceled it and used established tournaments. This means to me a step down. That's like canceling GSL and pretending Korea will be better without it... WCS DISAPPEARED, I am wondering that many people are ignoring this...
On March 07 2016 20:40 usopsama wrote: I know, right? Foreigners were not skilled enough to "make it far into a big tournament" because players from South Korea were knocking them out left and right, so let's dumb down the competition by implementing a region-lock and keep the best of the best players away. That way, foreigners can "make it far into a big tournament" and secure spots that they otherwise would not deserve. That is basically the logic that you are agreeing to.
You are not addressing any of the issues i mentioned. The fact is that things weren't working out with the old system, what is the point in continuing a tournament model that you know isn't working? It is not like i like the idea of Korean players having to retire, but Blizzard is already funding the scene with quite a lot of money, we cannot reasonably expect to to spend even more. I don't know if the new WCS model will help the game, but at least they are trying something.
Also now is the time for the Korean fans to step up. We have foreign tournament makers put up their own money to provide tournaments, where is the Korean HomeStory Cup? Where is the Korean BasetradeTV? Why is it that the country with the best Starcraft players in the world doesn't have anything similar?
Uhh, how about Olimoleague? Also Korea is producing 5 days of top quality SC2 content(2 days of PL, 2 days of GSL, 1 day of S2SL). There's no room for some amateur to step in, it's not profitable. That's what many tournaments were saying during 2013.
This is exactly the biggest problem - they "stole" the international tournaments for the welfare system. Nobody has anything against some special tournaments for foreigners only. Even the 8 foreigners at BlizzCon bring it a bit closer to some kind of "Olympic games", where each nation has some players, like Jamaica the ice skating team. But stealing all IEMs, DHs and probably also Red Bulls and MSI's, that is a real sinn.
Thanks god, we have the 5 days of best Starcraft2 through Proleague, GSL and SSL. But for how long? When GSL and SSL are not in the large stages, there will be again just the Proleague. At least, thanks for that.
I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016.
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
i find it funny how grrr created the blue print for a foriegner to succeed in Starcraft. And no one is following it. its the same blue print any non-North American follows when they want to succeed in Hockey's highest levels and Basketball's highest levels. david krejci and giulliame patry please stand up and take a bow.
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016.
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
Polt doesn't sleep. Also he's the Prime Terran, they had good Terran Academy Maru, MKP, Polt, YoDa, ByuN and others
Afaik Polt hasn't been a full time student in a long time and spent a lot of time in Korea last year. He also lives together with Neuro and Violet, so his practice environment is quite good for the foreign scene. Lots of players like Neeb, Snute, Showtime Nerchio and MarineLorD can beat him on a good day, so I don't think him barely winning is embarassing for foreign players. He just has more experience on the big stage, which will now become less and less of an advangtage.
If he wins all 3 seasons easily okay, but so far he has only won one and it wasn't a stomp.
As others said, this is all PR bs: painting everything pink and evading the negative points, answering with things we all already know and thus adding little to no new information.
I ofc knew it would be like this, but it still pisses me off that Blizzard speaks of the Starcraft scene centering everything around foreigners. They always talk about what was is good for foreigners, what decisions can solve the foreigner scene problems, what didn't work in the past for foreigners, viewership for foreign events, etc.... I know this will sound like an obvious joke but the title should be "We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for FOREIGN StarCraft."
The questions asked were right tho, Kudos to the TL interviewer who tried to get something interesting but Kim Phan was very evasive. She didn't even address the bad things that had nothing to do with Korea like all the screw ups with the rules and the unreleased book (I can't believe they didn't release it... It should be step 0 in every tournament system!).
I think it is not the fault of Kim Phan to only send out PR statements and "make Starcraft great again" slogans. Thats her job.
It is the interviewers fault to not ask harder questions or follow PR statements by specific questions to stop her from PR-bullshiting. The interviewer tried it, but failed hard to get her out of her pink PR speak.
On March 07 2016 16:20 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote: We are seeing a lot of incoming players rising, and I think that’s exciting, fresh blood is always good, and you are seeing some surprises with Legacy of the Void being so different, people love playing it, so I heard a lot of positive feedback about the game and how it affected eSports.
I'm not able to judge the LotV changes for eSports, but for causal gamers the high wall to climb to play SC2 got even higher - and casual gamers are the ones who watch the streams. More units, some very special units (flying siege unit, which cannot attack buildings ...), more special abilities, even faster gameplay ... maybe good for competition, but bad for fun.
So I guess, "fresh blood" refers to some new (semi-)professional players entering tournaments, not to gamers, who did not play SC2 before LotV.
If you never played SC2 there is no way to understand what's going on in a SC2 game. So I really would like to see some more content for casual gamers, maybe a SC-light with reduced number of units, "normal" speed, free2play?
So many people criticizing her answers. True, they are not the most direct and explanatory answers, but damn somebody needs to be positive with all this negativity going on.
On March 07 2016 23:39 Clonester wrote: I think it is not the fault of Kim Phan to only send out PR statements and "make Starcraft great again" slogans. Thats her job.
It is the interviewers fault to not ask harder questions or follow PR statements by specific questions to stop her from PR-bullshiting. The interviewer tried it, but failed hard to get her out of her pink PR speak.
Yeah but what else can the interviewer do? He/she can't insist too much with the questions without sounding aggressive... Also keep in mind Kim Phan is not amateur PR, if she wants to evade she will get it her way no doubt.
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
You're not stupid to the point of thinking that the foreign scene rebirth could magically happen before money is given out, by the sole fact of annoucing it, right?
Polt and Hydra were superior in 2015, they still are, no surprise there, it's up to the foreigner scene to get the chance to improve and it won't be done in one day. Teams need to be remade, audience to grow and sponsor to come back, for a start.
Take Polt as level benchmark that foreigners must surpass within a year (or two, cause, really, the guy is good...)
Great interview! I like that you guys asked some fairly hard hitting questions. For the most part I like her answers too, although this one was a bit odd:
Kim Phan: We also love Proleague, we think it’s awesome. And we’ve thought about it. There need to be more teams outside of Korea however in order to build a league. So yeah, we did think about it. But the nature of StarCraft 2 being a 1on1 game and the infrastructure outside of Korea making it harder for teams to practice together is a bigger challenge. So the question is how to grow these things, so you can have enough teams on an even playing field.
That's really not the case. At least, if they did it online. Back in the day we saw time and again that online team leagues with an offline finals are a great way to do it: AcerTeamStory, IPL TAC, and I think there was another one I'm forgetting. Those were some of my favourite things to watch, especially IPL TAC, who can forget Team Taeja!?
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
Sry but this is just dumb. Polt being an exception to the rule means very little to the overall concept. There will be outliers, but that doesn't change the fact that typically the infrastructure is simply a lot better in korea and that fact alone is one of the reasons they produce(d?) top player after top player. If you want the foreign scene to get on that level you first need to give them some form of motivation, not motivation for single players (they wanna be the very best, bla bla), but for the scene as a whole. Region lock is pretty much the only solution to that problem.
I still don't like how they went on to achieve it, but as TB for example said, maybe the tournament organizers like ESL and Dreamhack simply wanted their tournaments region locked and Blizzard had no other realistic option. Seems fairly likely i guess.
On March 07 2016 23:56 alukarD wrote: So many people criticizing her answers. True, they are not the most direct and explanatory answers, but damn somebody needs to be positive with all this negativity going on.
Well all this comes to the fact they messed Koreans and here are people who like them.
Had they announced there will be 3 Global events(1 for NA, 1 for EU, 1 for Korea(or whatever)) then there will be some ranting, but we would have at least SOMETHING. Now she announced 1 FUCKING GLOBAL TOURNAMENT. ONE. That would be at least something you could look forward.
But they removed Koreans from ALL the tournaments in our time zones(let's face it, GSL is not in the most friendly time ever for NA/EU time zones) and haven't announced the replacement. Now we have 1. To me it sounds "hey, be happy you have at least one, you could have had only Blizzcon". And we should be positive about it? Are you joking?
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
Sry but this is just dumb. Polt being an exception to the rule means very little to the overall concept. There will be outliers, but that doesn't change the fact that typically the infrastructure is simply a lot better in korea and that fact alone is one of the reasons they produce(d?) top player after top player. If you want the foreign scene to get on that level you first need to give them some form of motivation, not motivation for single players (they wanna be the very best, bla bla), but for the scene as a whole. Region lock is pretty much the only solution to that problem.
I still don't like how they went on to achieve it, but as TB for example said, maybe the tournament organizers like ESL and Dreamhack simply wanted their tournaments region locked and Blizzard had no other realistic option. Seems fairly likely i guess.
Don't forget that they canceled their region locked league. To me it looks that some organizations wanted to go out of the SC2 so they canceled league and moved the money to the tournaments so they don't end up with a league and 3 - 4 tournaments dominated by Koreans.
It's not a problem for tournaments to lock their tournaments, it is the organizer who gives the money and it's their rules in the end. For example Take invites most of the people of HSC because he likes them. He's the organizer, he has the responsibility for money from sponsors, his choice and nobody is going insane because of it
On March 07 2016 23:39 Clonester wrote: I think it is not the fault of Kim Phan to only send out PR statements and "make Starcraft great again" slogans. Thats her job.
It is the interviewers fault to not ask harder questions or follow PR statements by specific questions to stop her from PR-bullshiting. The interviewer tried it, but failed hard to get her out of her pink PR speak.
Yeah but what else can the interviewer do? He/she can't insist too much with the questions without sounding aggressive... Also keep in mind Kim Phan is not amateur PR, if she wants to evade she will get it her way no doubt.
Then just abbord the interview. The interviewer is there to give his readers informations they cant obtain otherwise, not standard PR bullshit. If Kim P cant delivere that, there is no point to continue such an interview. Better be aggressive or assholian then this.
And not to mention: Rulebook? King Kong? Masa? Viewernumbers.
Yes, she is professional in dodging questions and "generating that positive attitute towards the game we want to see". But it is still the interviewers task to stop her from PRing and hitting her with hard questions. When she talked about the "fresh blood", why not just plain ask her, how much of fresh blood DRG Ling and Ladyrind are to solve the issue.
On March 07 2016 23:56 alukarD wrote: So many people criticizing her answers. True, they are not the most direct and explanatory answers, but damn somebody needs to be positive with all this negativity going on.
Well all this comes to the fact they messed Koreans and here are people who like them.
Had they announced there will be 3 Global events(1 for NA, 1 for EU, 1 for Korea(or whatever)) then there will be some ranting, but we would have at least SOMETHING. Now she announced 1 FUCKING GLOBAL TOURNAMENT. ONE. That would be at least something you could look forward.
But they removed Koreans from ALL the tournaments in our time zones(let's face it, GSL is not in the most friendly time ever for NA/EU time zones) and haven't announced the replacement. Now we have 1. To me it sounds "hey, be happy you have at least one, you could have had only Blizzcon". And we should be positive about it? Are you joking?
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
Sry but this is just dumb. Polt being an exception to the rule means very little to the overall concept. There will be outliers, but that doesn't change the fact that typically the infrastructure is simply a lot better in korea and that fact alone is one of the reasons they produce(d?) top player after top player. If you want the foreign scene to get on that level you first need to give them some form of motivation, not motivation for single players (they wanna be the very best, bla bla), but for the scene as a whole. Region lock is pretty much the only solution to that problem.
I still don't like how they went on to achieve it, but as TB for example said, maybe the tournament organizers like ESL and Dreamhack simply wanted their tournaments region locked and Blizzard had no other realistic option. Seems fairly likely i guess.
Don't forget that they canceled their region locked league. To me it looks that some organizations wanted to go out of the SC2 so they canceled league and moved the money to the tournaments so they don't end up with a league and 3 - 4 tournaments dominated by Koreans.
It's not a problem for tournaments to lock their tournaments, it is the organizer who gives the money and it's their rules in the end. For example Take invites most of the people of HSC because he likes them. He's the organizer, he has the responsibility for money from sponsors, his choice and nobody is going insane because of it
For you, and everybody who feels all these changes unbearable why not step away and find something else to follow? Seriously. You are not happy. You are not helping others being happy. This is a new era for Starcrat, and nobody is forced to go along with it. Cheers.
On March 08 2016 00:10 showstealer1829 wrote: I appreciate the article and all but I think I can sum this interview up in three words
Public Relations Bullshit
I keep seeing this comment, I'm curious what you and others expected her to say?
She even mentions a global event being planned and that is also upsetting people because.. it would be better to announce more global tournaments...? I thought the interview was decent.
On March 07 2016 23:56 alukarD wrote: So many people criticizing her answers. True, they are not the most direct and explanatory answers, but damn somebody needs to be positive with all this negativity going on.
Well all this comes to the fact they messed Koreans and here are people who like them.
Had they announced there will be 3 Global events(1 for NA, 1 for EU, 1 for Korea(or whatever)) then there will be some ranting, but we would have at least SOMETHING. Now she announced 1 FUCKING GLOBAL TOURNAMENT. ONE. That would be at least something you could look forward.
But they removed Koreans from ALL the tournaments in our time zones(let's face it, GSL is not in the most friendly time ever for NA/EU time zones) and haven't announced the replacement. Now we have 1. To me it sounds "hey, be happy you have at least one, you could have had only Blizzcon". And we should be positive about it? Are you joking?
On March 08 2016 00:06 The_Red_Viper wrote:
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
Sry but this is just dumb. Polt being an exception to the rule means very little to the overall concept. There will be outliers, but that doesn't change the fact that typically the infrastructure is simply a lot better in korea and that fact alone is one of the reasons they produce(d?) top player after top player. If you want the foreign scene to get on that level you first need to give them some form of motivation, not motivation for single players (they wanna be the very best, bla bla), but for the scene as a whole. Region lock is pretty much the only solution to that problem.
I still don't like how they went on to achieve it, but as TB for example said, maybe the tournament organizers like ESL and Dreamhack simply wanted their tournaments region locked and Blizzard had no other realistic option. Seems fairly likely i guess.
Don't forget that they canceled their region locked league. To me it looks that some organizations wanted to go out of the SC2 so they canceled league and moved the money to the tournaments so they don't end up with a league and 3 - 4 tournaments dominated by Koreans.
It's not a problem for tournaments to lock their tournaments, it is the organizer who gives the money and it's their rules in the end. For example Take invites most of the people of HSC because he likes them. He's the organizer, he has the responsibility for money from sponsors, his choice and nobody is going insane because of it
For you, and everybody who feels all these changes unbearable why not step away and find something else to follow? Seriously. You are not happy. You are not helping others being happy. This is a new era for Starcrat, and nobody is forced to go along with it. Cheers.
... DAFUQ? I am talking about Korean SC2 followers. Do you get it? Are you trolling?
I start again slower. There are people who love the top SC2. The top SC2 is in Korea. The fun is to watch it live and enjoy it with other people(e.g. LR threads). We could watch these top players in EU friendly times, we can see them live! Now we have only Korean stuff, some of us can watch only after the work and thus cannot take in the social aspect of this.
And your recommendation is to follow SOMETHING ELSE? Hell no! I love watching SC2 and I want to watch MY favorite players and not risking my work at the same time. But hey, Blizzard took this away from me. They could have taken something but no, they took EVERYTHING. EVERY TOURNAMENT OUT THERE.
And then you come here and write this - hey, follow something else. Cool. Great bait.
Edit: Though I have to admit that I am not watching any welfare tournament. I watched only the Polt games and not all of them. So I am actually not following it in a some kind of a weird sense
On March 07 2016 23:56 alukarD wrote: So many people criticizing her answers. True, they are not the most direct and explanatory answers, but damn somebody needs to be positive with all this negativity going on.
Well all this comes to the fact they messed Koreans and here are people who like them.
Had they announced there will be 3 Global events(1 for NA, 1 for EU, 1 for Korea(or whatever)) then there will be some ranting, but we would have at least SOMETHING. Now she announced 1 FUCKING GLOBAL TOURNAMENT. ONE. That would be at least something you could look forward.
But they removed Koreans from ALL the tournaments in our time zones(let's face it, GSL is not in the most friendly time ever for NA/EU time zones) and haven't announced the replacement. Now we have 1. To me it sounds "hey, be happy you have at least one, you could have had only Blizzcon". And we should be positive about it? Are you joking?
On March 08 2016 00:06 The_Red_Viper wrote:
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
Sry but this is just dumb. Polt being an exception to the rule means very little to the overall concept. There will be outliers, but that doesn't change the fact that typically the infrastructure is simply a lot better in korea and that fact alone is one of the reasons they produce(d?) top player after top player. If you want the foreign scene to get on that level you first need to give them some form of motivation, not motivation for single players (they wanna be the very best, bla bla), but for the scene as a whole. Region lock is pretty much the only solution to that problem.
I still don't like how they went on to achieve it, but as TB for example said, maybe the tournament organizers like ESL and Dreamhack simply wanted their tournaments region locked and Blizzard had no other realistic option. Seems fairly likely i guess.
Don't forget that they canceled their region locked league. To me it looks that some organizations wanted to go out of the SC2 so they canceled league and moved the money to the tournaments so they don't end up with a league and 3 - 4 tournaments dominated by Koreans.
It's not a problem for tournaments to lock their tournaments, it is the organizer who gives the money and it's their rules in the end. For example Take invites most of the people of HSC because he likes them. He's the organizer, he has the responsibility for money from sponsors, his choice and nobody is going insane because of it
For you, and everybody who feels all these changes unbearable why not step away and find something else to follow? Seriously. You are not happy. You are not helping others being happy. This is a new era for Starcrat, and nobody is forced to go along with it. Cheers.
Dont worry, the CS:GO Tournament on IEM Katowice was stellar fantastic to watch with the very best teams of the world who delivered extremly tense games, some maps already seen as close to the best ones in the world.
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.
On March 07 2016 23:56 alukarD wrote: So many people criticizing her answers. True, they are not the most direct and explanatory answers, but damn somebody needs to be positive with all this negativity going on.
Well all this comes to the fact they messed Koreans and here are people who like them.
Had they announced there will be 3 Global events(1 for NA, 1 for EU, 1 for Korea(or whatever)) then there will be some ranting, but we would have at least SOMETHING. Now she announced 1 FUCKING GLOBAL TOURNAMENT. ONE. That would be at least something you could look forward.
But they removed Koreans from ALL the tournaments in our time zones(let's face it, GSL is not in the most friendly time ever for NA/EU time zones) and haven't announced the replacement. Now we have 1. To me it sounds "hey, be happy you have at least one, you could have had only Blizzcon". And we should be positive about it? Are you joking?
On March 08 2016 00:06 The_Red_Viper wrote:
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
Sry but this is just dumb. Polt being an exception to the rule means very little to the overall concept. There will be outliers, but that doesn't change the fact that typically the infrastructure is simply a lot better in korea and that fact alone is one of the reasons they produce(d?) top player after top player. If you want the foreign scene to get on that level you first need to give them some form of motivation, not motivation for single players (they wanna be the very best, bla bla), but for the scene as a whole. Region lock is pretty much the only solution to that problem.
I still don't like how they went on to achieve it, but as TB for example said, maybe the tournament organizers like ESL and Dreamhack simply wanted their tournaments region locked and Blizzard had no other realistic option. Seems fairly likely i guess.
Don't forget that they canceled their region locked league. To me it looks that some organizations wanted to go out of the SC2 so they canceled league and moved the money to the tournaments so they don't end up with a league and 3 - 4 tournaments dominated by Koreans.
It's not a problem for tournaments to lock their tournaments, it is the organizer who gives the money and it's their rules in the end. For example Take invites most of the people of HSC because he likes them. He's the organizer, he has the responsibility for money from sponsors, his choice and nobody is going insane because of it
For you, and everybody who feels all these changes unbearable why not step away and find something else to follow? Seriously. You are not happy. You are not helping others being happy. This is a new era for Starcrat, and nobody is forced to go along with it. Cheers.
Dont worry, the CS:GO Tournament on IEM Katowice was stellar fantastic to watch with the very best teams of the world who delivered extremly tense games, some maps already seen as close to the best ones in the world.
And in the end Fnatic wins, it starts to become boring tbh :D (Fnatic being disliked doesn't help either)
I feel like I'm the only one who really doesn't mind about what I think is the biggest reason why WCS welfare is being so criticized is because of the ammount of competitions in Korea does not make up for them downsizing their access to international tournaments.
Right NOW its wonderful with the 5 days of Starcraft a week, but there's there's the impending issue there's going to be huge spaces of time where we're only going to have Proleague because of between seasons breaks. Not to mention the problem where a favorite gets bad groups/gets bodied out of the 2 leagues in the Ro32 and has to sit out of tournaments for six months.
On March 08 2016 00:10 showstealer1829 wrote: I appreciate the article and all but I think I can sum this interview up in three words
Public Relations Bullshit
I keep seeing this comment, I'm curious what you and others expected her to say?
She even mentions a global event being planned and that is also upsetting people because.. it would be better to announce more global tournaments...? I thought the interview was decent.
Anything that said "We're listening"?
Anything new?
Anything other than public relations bullshit?
I realize the title wouldn't fit but the title of this posts really should be Kim Phan: "We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft.......Unless you live in Korea......In which case fuck you"
On March 07 2016 23:56 alukarD wrote: So many people criticizing her answers. True, they are not the most direct and explanatory answers, but damn somebody needs to be positive with all this negativity going on.
Well all this comes to the fact they messed Koreans and here are people who like them.
Had they announced there will be 3 Global events(1 for NA, 1 for EU, 1 for Korea(or whatever)) then there will be some ranting, but we would have at least SOMETHING. Now she announced 1 FUCKING GLOBAL TOURNAMENT. ONE. That would be at least something you could look forward.
But they removed Koreans from ALL the tournaments in our time zones(let's face it, GSL is not in the most friendly time ever for NA/EU time zones) and haven't announced the replacement. Now we have 1. To me it sounds "hey, be happy you have at least one, you could have had only Blizzcon". And we should be positive about it? Are you joking?
On March 08 2016 00:06 The_Red_Viper wrote:
On March 07 2016 22:42 waiting2Bbanned wrote: I've always found it funny how pretty much 9 out of every 10 posts of the new WCS apologists (that includes most of the foreign pro-gamers who cheered when they got the welfare system, like Nerchio) keep talking about the "Korean infrastructure", the "pro-team environment" that cannot be rivaled by the foreign players.
..aaaand then you have Polt, who hasn't been in a "Korean team environment" in many years, living in the US, having no teammates to speak of (unless you count his occasional practice-partner Violet, who is on a different team), while also being a ful-time student, come in and destroy all the whiny foreigners in the first WCS event of 2016. I'm still glad there was still Snute to save face for the EU, would've been pretty embarrassing if not for him..
I wonder what the foreigner excuse would be now..?
P.S. Re: Kim Pham's interview, where is all this "new blood coming in" she's talking about?? DRGLing in KR and Reynor in EU are the only ones I know of, offsetting all the retirements LOL?
Sry but this is just dumb. Polt being an exception to the rule means very little to the overall concept. There will be outliers, but that doesn't change the fact that typically the infrastructure is simply a lot better in korea and that fact alone is one of the reasons they produce(d?) top player after top player. If you want the foreign scene to get on that level you first need to give them some form of motivation, not motivation for single players (they wanna be the very best, bla bla), but for the scene as a whole. Region lock is pretty much the only solution to that problem.
I still don't like how they went on to achieve it, but as TB for example said, maybe the tournament organizers like ESL and Dreamhack simply wanted their tournaments region locked and Blizzard had no other realistic option. Seems fairly likely i guess.
Don't forget that they canceled their region locked league. To me it looks that some organizations wanted to go out of the SC2 so they canceled league and moved the money to the tournaments so they don't end up with a league and 3 - 4 tournaments dominated by Koreans.
It's not a problem for tournaments to lock their tournaments, it is the organizer who gives the money and it's their rules in the end. For example Take invites most of the people of HSC because he likes them. He's the organizer, he has the responsibility for money from sponsors, his choice and nobody is going insane because of it
For you, and everybody who feels all these changes unbearable why not step away and find something else to follow? Seriously. You are not happy. You are not helping others being happy. This is a new era for Starcrat, and nobody is forced to go along with it. Cheers.
Dont worry, the CS:GO Tournament on IEM Katowice was stellar fantastic to watch with the very best teams of the world who delivered extremly tense games, some maps already seen as close to the best ones in the world.
And in the end Fnatic wins, it starts to become boring tbh :D (Fnatic being disliked doesn't help either)
I dont think so. Fnatic the monolith you have to take down, the gate keeper to heaven. I dont want to ban Fnatic, call it Major Circuit Events and see who is best after Fnatic. Map 1 and Map 3 between Fnatic and LG was extremly tense and good. Major gonna be guuud (even when Fnatic, the Evil of all Evil wins)
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 )
On March 08 2016 00:10 showstealer1829 wrote: I appreciate the article and all but I think I can sum this interview up in three words
Public Relations Bullshit
I keep seeing this comment, I'm curious what you and others expected her to say?
She even mentions a global event being planned and that is also upsetting people because.. it would be better to announce more global tournaments...? I thought the interview was decent.
Anything that said "We're listening"?
Anything new?
Anything other than public relations bullshit?
I realize the title wouldn't fit but the title of this posts really should be Kim Phan: "We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft.......Unless you live in Korea......In which case fuck you"
Come on you can get more specific than that. Throwing out curse words doesn't help either.
Also,
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.
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 )
I share the same feelings. If we could squeeze in 2 more Korea tournaments (in my dreams, having 2 OSLs would just be the best thing on the planet) then I think we'd have a perfect system.
On March 08 2016 00:41 The_Red_Viper wrote: But one thing i cannot understand, why only 2 seasons of GSL/SSL?
I bet it was what the Korean broadcasters wanted. Less SC2 time to allow more LoL/Kart Rider/etc. content (aka more profitable content).
Damn that's a negative pov :D Maybe it's true, but i wouldn't think so tbh. Right now my theory is that the fact that the winners qualify directly for blizzcon makes 4 tournaments simply the best choice? (so we have 4 winners and 4 wcs points leaders) Even though that's not really conistent with WCS either (3 winners and 5 wcs point leaders) Hmm
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".
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.
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.
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.
You must not follow a lot of SC2 personalities on twitter
Ironically, none of them are Senior Esports Managers at Blizzard Entertainment.
Well she's definitely the most high profile person posting about this issue, but other high profile personalities have blown up over lesser things. In any case, posting here is dangerous (hi TB, I miss u) but I am glad that she is.
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 --
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.
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.
Any non-citizen player will be required to compete regularly on the local ladder, and will have other guidelines to fulfill.
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?
Afaik Polt hasn't been a full time student in a long time and spent a lot of time in Korea last year. He also lives together with Neuro and Violet, so his practice environment is quite good for the foreign scene.
sooo.. in "foreigner speak" living in the same house with one other pro-gamer (1 1/2 if you wanna count Neuro too) who's not even on the same team, since CM Storm only had 1 player, and visiting family in Korea equals "Korean team environment". Got it.
I don't think him barely winning is embarassing for foreign players
again, translating from "foreigner speak", dropping 4 maps from 5 matches (4 BO5's and 1 BO7) and 3-0 Nerchio ("the best foreign zerg" in Poland) is "barely winning".
I think I'm beginning to understand this new language now
when is broodwar hd coming miss kim phan? or how about support for the bw scene in kr/elsewhere? i read the whole interview about "what is best for starcraft" and i didn't see a single reference to either of these things ~.~
I understand blizzard is trying to make it look like foreigners have a chance but you have to be totally delusional if you think the best foreigners have the slightest chance against the top code S
On March 08 2016 01:29 Hurricaned wrote: I understand blizzard is trying to make it look like foreigners have a chance but you have to be totally delusional if you think the best foreigners have the slightest chance against the top code S
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 discussed 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 .
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.
First of all, thanks for replying to my post! I know making everyone satisfied is impossible but I think there are some things that almost everyone can agree on. I'll mention the 2 things I think are most important:
I personally think that the system is putting too much effort on rescuing the foreign scene and not enough in Korea. This feels unfair (because the better players get less opportunities), and goes in detriment of the overall scene because Korea represents the top, thus if Korea declines then the whole scene loses quality. Given how the current system is, I think things could improve significantly if there were more tournaments where Koreans can play in. I understand working with Korean organizations can be hard, but I don't see why we don't have Global Events yet. Maybe I am too demanding but I think 1 or 2 Global Events plus Blizzcon doesn't cut it.
Also, this maybe seems like a cliche but I think communication is key in the current times because you just implemented a new system that included a very bold move (region locking), so making a special effort to address the questions with direct answers is very important. I'm sorry to be so negative but the interview in the OP left us with a lot of important aspects untouched, for example what you think is going bad with the new system (Korea has too little tournaments, WCS rules unclear, tournament qualifiers badly organized/handled, to name a few) and how you plan on fixing it. If said things are not talked about then we don't know whether you don't see the problem, or whether your priorities lie way far from them, or whether we simply are being too negative. In the end we don't know if action will be taken or to solve them, which feels very frustrating and I believe is the reason of most of the angry "zomg foreigner welfare" posts.
Again I'm sorry to be so negative and I hope my English is good enough to get my message through!
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 .
This is what would I wrote if I could write. (I bet this conditional is wrong either)
On March 08 2016 01:29 Hurricaned wrote: I understand blizzard is trying to make it look like foreigners have a chance but you have to be totally delusional if you think the best foreigners have the slightest chance against the top code S
That's not what we're trying to do.
Which is IMO wrong. Well, not wrong, but...
Right now the foreigners has the biggest shot to win vs. high profiled monsters. The game is new, meta isn't settled, they can surprise(e.g. Lilbow vs. TY at DH). The longer the game will be stable the bigger the difference. I think that up until July(my estimation) it would be quite interesting and watchable. Maybe I am optimistic in the threshold, maybe I am not, who knows, we will never know
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.
I completely agree with this; shutting out any interaction between KR players (PL, GSL, SSL players, not Polt,Violet,Hydra) and the foreigners cannot possibly be good for the scene. Lack of hype/viewership/SC2 exposure from the Foreigner vs. KR rivalry, also giving foreigners a chance to play against KR meta and accurately gauge their performance BEFORE the Blizzcon ultimate test so they don't get roflstomped the first time they actually get a chance to play against Koreans.
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?
..and also this. I know some retirements are inevitable (age, military svc etc.) but with the lack of tourneys how would any young talented KR kid think he'd have a chance making a living out of becoming a pro SC2 player?
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?
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)
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.
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 --
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 --
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.
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.
Any non-citizen player will be required to compete regularly on the local ladder, and will have other guidelines to fulfill.
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.
Like what was posted, would tighter restrictions at the cost of regional freedom (until the final stages, where multi-regional structure would take place and be implemented) not cancel out what you said about players complaining about server differences? It'd prune excess aspects, make the trivial stages more efficient, and boost interest in final stages with the motivation needed to keep participants active enough so quotas aren't an issue.
I have yet to see anyone explain how the old system was suddenly going to bring in thousands of fans. The Korean domination is not working, in fact it has slowly and steadily driven viewers and sponsors away, so what is the point of keep giving Korean players pity money?
With the launch of Legacy of the Void we have one final chance at doing something, so why continue a system that is not working?
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?
I dunno about most of this but I would assume the RO32 didnt get anything because there was some invites? Would be pretty bs for people to get invited then not win a single game and get paid thousands for it.
On March 08 2016 04:00 Oasx wrote:With the launch of Legacy of the Void we have one final chance at doing something, so why continue a system that is not working?
The launch is not the end, let's have some more hope than that.
Games take YEARS to saturate mechanics into themselves. Look at Brood War's technical aspects and how mechanics evolved over time, along with play styles.
There are many ways Blizzard can capitalize on SC2's scene (as a business AND as a game company making a product more fulfilling), one of the main ones being micro-transactions and a better tournament system structurally.
IPL 5 is one of the strangest phenomenons in SC2. It was bemoaned as the greatest example of BL-Infestor being OP. But it was voted by TL members as their favorite tournament if 2012, and Korea v World is still remembered as one of thr greatest SC2 moments of all time (for good reason)
Whoa, I leave my office, reopen my PC a couple of hours later and suddenly this :O
On March 08 2016 00:34 kimaphan wrote: 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.
It was mentioned a couple of times in this thread: slight adjustments to the prize pool distribution would make a lot of sense in terms of supporting foreigners in WCS (in fact, I believe that making prize pools less top-heavy would make sense overall). When the first game in ro32 is all-or-nothing and advancing from ro32 to ro16 is worth more that ro16-ro8 or ro8-ro4, it just seems wrong and probably puts the players under a lot of unnecessary stress. You've probably heard similar feedback multiple times and I appreciate that you may not be authorized to disclose what exactly was discussed internally in terms of prize distribution, but I feel this may be the best opportunity to convey anything to anyone meaningful in Blizzard* so, well, I concur with all other critics of the distributon at WCS Winter.
* - because I may have missed that opportunity when I guess you were sitting right next to me in the auditorium in Katowice - I discussed the stream viewership with either you or somebody with a VIP ID really similar to you; I must've suffered a total face recognition failure at that time
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.
Speaking of ladder, have you considered more ladder-oriented events? The WCS Winter Challenger - at least from my standpoint as a fan - was a success. I remember watching the last game on NA when qxc beat Polt and it was the first ladder game I remember that could be really called a nailbiter. Still, as some GMs (I recall Scarlett for example) pointed out, you don't really need a lot of time to climb to top16 - if you are a GM, you can grind it out within one-two days. Perhaps more ladder-oriented events would encourage more people to play the ladder on the same server on a more consistent basis?
On March 07 2016 23:39 Clonester wrote: I think it is not the fault of Kim Phan to only send out PR statements and "make Starcraft great again" slogans. Thats her job.
It is the interviewers fault to not ask harder questions or follow PR statements by specific questions to stop her from PR-bullshiting. The interviewer tried it, but failed hard to get her out of her pink PR speak.
In her defense, she really cannot say anything else. In the interviewer’s defense, she would have said the same bs if the interviewer tried harder bc she is probably not allowed to say anything other than what we all know.
Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
On March 07 2016 23:39 Clonester wrote: I think it is not the fault of Kim Phan to only send out PR statements and "make Starcraft great again" slogans. Thats her job.
It is the interviewers fault to not ask harder questions or follow PR statements by specific questions to stop her from PR-bullshiting. The interviewer tried it, but failed hard to get her out of her pink PR speak.
In her defense, she really cannot say anything else. In the interviewer’s defense, she would have said the same bs if the interviewer tried harder bc she is probably not allowed to say anything other than what we all know.
Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
Did that really happen? Can I have a source please?
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.
I tend to agree while also hoping I'm wrong. I just feel like this is a half assed attempt at window dressing and PR spin to say "We're listening to your concerns" while all the while not addressing those concerns or even worse, dismissing it out of hand.
I would love to be wrong about this, maybe there is a great change coming that Kim couldn't discuss or talk about but to me personally as a fan. It would have been better off had she not come, because all I personally see is PR Bullshit and noone listening. Meanwhile the same problems remain.
Put it this way. I'm more pissed off now than I was after reading the interview
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
On March 08 2016 02:14 Diabolique wrote: 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???
The prizes are a fraction of the total cost of running those leagues. If you're suggesting that they reduce the prize per league in order to fund the production of twice as many leagues then I don't think there will be any prizes left. It's not enough to cover it. You'd have to figure out how to operate the leagues at much lower costs but that may result in an unacceptable drop in quality.
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.
Speaking of ladder, have you considered more ladder-oriented events? The WCS Winter Challenger - at least from my standpoint as a fan - was a success. I remember watching the last game on NA when qxc beat Polt and it was the first ladder game I remember that could be really called a nailbiter. Still, as some GMs (I recall Scarlett for example) pointed out, you don't really need a lot of time to climb to top16 - if you are a GM, you can grind it out within one-two days. Perhaps more ladder-oriented events would encourage more people to play the ladder on the same server on a more consistent basis?
The ladder event seemed more like a miniature proof-of-concept than a significant implementation. For it to really make a difference, there ought to be a system where the current rankings are recorded at the end of each day and a player's ranking in the competition is determined by the sum of all their daily ranks divided by the number of days. To qualify would require being top 16 in the summed ranking over the recent months.
If the idea is to give players more opportunities for high quality practice, then it cannot be a five day period like it was, especially when only the rank at the end of the five days mattered. And it cannot even be something like a two to three week period, since that still amounts to only six to nine weeks of opportunity per year. If ladder rank started to matter immediately after a Championship and it mattered all the way until the next Championship's Challenger, then players could get sustained high-quality practice at a time that matters. And as the Championship gets closer, during the time between the Championship and its Challenger qualifier, players are no longer obligated to play so many games without anonymity and can privately prepare for the tournament. Any up-and-coming player would've had months of ladder games with the top players to network for practice partners for this dormant ladder period.
edit: Sorry for double post. I assumed someone else would have replied by the time I submitted this one, oops.
Personally I think the 2015 system was perfect. It seemed like a good compromise between people wanting to see koreans and people wanting to see foreigners.
We had our foreign tournament where foreigner had a realistic chance to win and also collect a ton of prizemoney (1,5 k for a ro64 finish; for up and coming foreigners it was far better than the current system where only the top foreigners benefit from). At the same time koreans had still the opportunity to travel all around the world to compete at foreign tournaments and interact with foreign fans.
If it's true that blizzard was forced to cancel the WCS tournament (it sounds like it) I can understand their decision but it's still a shame that koreans get denied any opportunity to interact with foreign fans and many koreans who relied on those foreign tournaments got forced into irrelevance or retirement.
It also sucks that there are only 2 seasons for GSL and SSL which means that once a player fails both qualifier he has nothing to play in for half a year but I guess this is not blizzards fault. The least blizzard can do for the korean scene right now is to make more global events (at least 3 per year) so there will be at least SOME foreign tournaments they can play in.
Also I guess blizzcon ro16 will be a bit of a joke with koreans making a competition out of it who finishes his bo5 the fastest. I don't think 8 quick 3 - 0s will be good for the mentality of foreigners.
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
So "She is responsible for managing the monstrous eSport" but what I can see is that she is yet another PR man. Not her fault I am sure, but it gets tiresome. I'm suprised she didn't complain that there has been negative feedback over the WCS changes, and demand people to be more positive.
On March 07 2016 23:39 Clonester wrote: I think it is not the fault of Kim Phan to only send out PR statements and "make Starcraft great again" slogans. Thats her job.
It is the interviewers fault to not ask harder questions or follow PR statements by specific questions to stop her from PR-bullshiting. The interviewer tried it, but failed hard to get her out of her pink PR speak.
In her defense, she really cannot say anything else. In the interviewer’s defense, she would have said the same bs if the interviewer tried harder bc she is probably not allowed to say anything other than what we all know.
Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
Did that really happen? Can I have a source please?
In this situation, Blizzard Korea employees have no problem going around saying "StarCraft 2 isn't any fun, is it? Play other games." in the company of pro players. I don't think that's right. Players, teams, industry workers are all doing their best to keep StarCraft 2 afloat. Saying that kind of stuff shows you don't have the right attitude. Of course, it they probably meant it as telling players to play HearthStone or Heroes of the Storm. Still, I can't understand it.
I don't think not allowing Koreans to play EU and NA WCS is the problem. Do you think there was EU and NA WCS for BW to help Koreans? No. Yet, they were doing well. It's just that SC2 can't compete well with LoL, CS and others. It's not WCS.
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
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.
Definitely agree there. We need more strong national scenes.
On March 08 2016 06:18 Charoisaur wrote: Personally I think the 2015 system was perfect. It seemed like a good compromise between people wanting to see koreans and people wanting to see foreigners.
We had our foreign tournament where foreigner had a realistic chance to win and also collect a ton of prizemoney (1,5 k for a ro64 finish; for up and coming foreigners it was far better than the current system where only the top foreigners benefit from). At the same time koreans had still the opportunity to travel all around the world to compete at foreign tournaments and interact with foreign fans.
If it's true that blizzard was forced to cancel the WCS tournament (it sounds like it) I can understand their decision but it's still a shame that koreans get denied any opportunity to interact with foreign fans and many koreans who relied on those foreign tournaments got forced into irrelevance or retirement.
It also sucks that there are only 2 seasons for GSL and SSL which means that once a player fails both qualifier he has nothing to play in for half a year but I guess this is not blizzards fault. The least blizzard can do for the korean scene right now is to make more global events (at least 3 per year) so there will be at least SOME foreign tournaments they can play in.
Also I guess blizzcon ro16 will be a bit of a joke with koreans making a competition out of it who finishes his bo5 the fastest. I don't think 8 quick 3 - 0s will be good for the mentality of foreigners.
Well at this point it's not 8 Foreigners. The best for Foreign hopes would be 7+Polt (Who has an automatic qualification spot sewn up from the Winter Championship). More likely it's going to be 5+Polt, Hydra, Violet. Could even be 4 if Stardust still has his visa (He said on twitter he's coming back)
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
On March 08 2016 04:14 nurle wrote: Kim Phan: "We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft."
Sadly you have not done this once since the beta came out!
So either thats not what they are trying to do or they are incompetent at it.
If Blizzard was an Employee, it would get fired.
*That being said, every game will lose popularity after the initial few years (2 normally for a multiplayer game), and it is still more active than ghost towns like Crysis 2 multiplayer, etc.*
The only problem is that Blizzard does NOT have perfect information about the landscape of SC2 E-Sports, therefore is making decisions based on incomplete information. Its as safe as making decisions on a con-flip basis.
Credit to Ms. Phan for coming into this thread and answering questions. She undeniably deserves some street cred when you see how negative and hostile some of the comments are.
On March 08 2016 04:14 nurle wrote: Kim Phan: "We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft." Sadly you have not done this once since the beta came out!
On March 08 2016 06:18 Charoisaur wrote: Personally I think the 2015 system was perfect. It seemed like a good compromise between people wanting to see koreans and people wanting to see foreigners.
You really liked that eu players had to flight 16h from eu to usa studio and played 2-3 bo3 games of ro32/16 groupstage? Same in WCS 2013/2014 when snute played for WCS NA.
On March 08 2016 06:18 Charoisaur wrote: Personally I think the 2015 system was perfect. It seemed like a good compromise between people wanting to see koreans and people wanting to see foreigners.
You really liked that eu players had to flight 16h from eu to usa studio and played 2-3 bo3 games of ro32/16 groupstage? Same in WCS 2013/2014 when snute played for WCS NA.
This is not something special. At blizzcon 8 players play only 1 bo5.
On March 08 2016 06:18 Charoisaur wrote: Personally I think the 2015 system was perfect. It seemed like a good compromise between people wanting to see koreans and people wanting to see foreigners.
You really liked that eu players had to flight 16h from eu to usa studio and played 2-3 bo3 games of ro32/16 groupstage? Same in WCS 2013/2014 when snute played for WCS NA.
This is not something special. At blizzcon 8 players play only 1 bo5.
Global playoffs for 2016 has changed format; groups into 8 man bracket
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
That's just outright false though. Both games are still being actively supported. AoE2HD has its steam servers and AoC is played on voobly either way. AoE3 still has its ESO service up and they're actually renewing the hardware for those servers.
There's no active balance support and community support from official devs, however they're maintaining the servers in perfect working order.
Either way, I don't even see your point. What are we even arguing about? I just wanted to say that the age of empires RTS series is still active today, with a community behind it. :/
I'll also rip on blizzard for making dumb business decisions with their RTS. e.g. fucking over Korea for no reason.
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
That's just outright false though. Both games are still being actively supported. AoE2HD has its steam servers and AoC is played on voobly either way. AoE3 still has its ESO service up and they're actually renewing the hardware for those servers.
There's no active balance support and community support from official devs, however they're maintaining the servers in perfect working order.
Either way, I don't even see your point. What are we even arguing about? I just wanted to say that the age of empires RTS series is still active today, with a community behind it. :/
I'll also rip on blizzard for making dumb business decisions with their RTS. e.g. fucking over Korea for no reason.
you can't understand a money argument and then whine about "business decisions" LOL don't worry man.. you'll get your wish soon... ATVI is pulling the plug on their contribution to the RTS genre in 2 years or less.
you sound like my NHL '94 buddies who think EA should sink money into the NHL black hole.
On March 08 2016 04:14 nurle wrote: Kim Phan: "We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft."
Sadly you have not done this once since the beta came out!
So either thats not what they are trying to do or they are incompetent at it.
If Blizzard was an Employee, it would get fired.
*That being said, every game will lose popularity after the initial few years (2 normally for a multiplayer game), and it is still more active than ghost towns like Crysis 2 multiplayer, etc.*
The only problem is that Blizzard does NOT have perfect information about the landscape of SC2 E-Sports, therefore is making decisions based on incomplete information. Its as safe as making decisions on a con-flip basis.
This is completely BS. our whole society and economy operates based on incomplete and imperfect knowledge.
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
That's just outright false though. Both games are still being actively supported. AoE2HD has its steam servers and AoC is played on voobly either way. AoE3 still has its ESO service up and they're actually renewing the hardware for those servers.
There's no active balance support and community support from official devs, however they're maintaining the servers in perfect working order.
Either way, I don't even see your point. What are we even arguing about? I just wanted to say that the age of empires RTS series is still active today, with a community behind it. :/
I'll also rip on blizzard for making dumb business decisions with their RTS. e.g. fucking over Korea for no reason.
That should've been obvious from the title of the thread... It's such a hilarious title it seems like a parody.
CNN breaking news: Boeing announces that they design planes so they don't crash. Intel designs CPUs which preferably don't catch on fire, at least they do their best. FIFA announces that soccer should be fun to watch maybe. Arby's food probably won't make you horribly sick, at least not by design.
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
That's just outright false though. Both games are still being actively supported. AoE2HD has its steam servers and AoC is played on voobly either way. AoE3 still has its ESO service up and they're actually renewing the hardware for those servers.
There's no active balance support and community support from official devs, however they're maintaining the servers in perfect working order.
Either way, I don't even see your point. What are we even arguing about? I just wanted to say that the age of empires RTS series is still active today, with a community behind it. :/
I'll also rip on blizzard for making dumb business decisions with their RTS. e.g. fucking over Korea for no reason.
That should've been obvious from the title of the thread... It's such a hilarious title it seems like a parody.
CNN breaking news: Boeing announces that they design planes so they don't crash. Intel designs CPUs which preferably don't catch on fire, at least they do their best. FIFA announces that soccer should be fun to watch maybe. Arby's food probably won't make you horribly sick, at least not by design.
Ok
That's not what I got out of it. From what I understand, a lot of people believe that what's best for Blizzard and what's best for SC2 are not the same thing. They think that whatever Blizzard is trying to do with SC2 or get out of SC2 is not aligned with SC2's best interests. The quote is Blizzard stating that their involvement with SC2 is in fact with the goal of doing what's best for it.
From what I've observed, no one has any idea what's best for SC2. But there are a lot of people who get very cynical and develop elaborate theories whenever Blizzard makes a decision that negatively impacts something they like about the scene. Instead of looking at the whole situation and the pros and cons and the compromises that must be made, they tunnel vision on the thing they personally prioritize highly and claim that sacrificing this particular thing is a sign that the people in charge do not have our best interests in mind. And the most extreme of them are probably even more upset after reading an interview like this because they don't trust Blizzard and feeling like they're being lied to while being betrayed is even more upsetting. It's irrational for them to pay any attention at all if that's the case.
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
That's just outright false though. Both games are still being actively supported. AoE2HD has its steam servers and AoC is played on voobly either way. AoE3 still has its ESO service up and they're actually renewing the hardware for those servers.
There's no active balance support and community support from official devs, however they're maintaining the servers in perfect working order.
Either way, I don't even see your point. What are we even arguing about? I just wanted to say that the age of empires RTS series is still active today, with a community behind it. :/
I'll also rip on blizzard for making dumb business decisions with their RTS. e.g. fucking over Korea for no reason.
That should've been obvious from the title of the thread... It's such a hilarious title it seems like a parody.
CNN breaking news: Boeing announces that they design planes so they don't crash. Intel designs CPUs which preferably don't catch on fire, at least they do their best. FIFA announces that soccer should be fun to watch maybe. Arby's food probably won't make you horribly sick, at least not by design.
Ok
That's not what I got out of it. From what I understand, a lot of people believe that what's best for Blizzard and what's best for SC2 are not the same thing. They think that whatever Blizzard is trying to do with SC2 or get out of SC2 is not aligned with SC2's best interests. The quote is Blizzard stating that their involvement with SC2 is in fact with the goal of doing what's best for it.
From what I've observed, no one has any idea what's best for SC2. But there are a lot of people who get very cynical and develop elaborate theories whenever Blizzard makes a decision that negatively impacts something they like about the scene. Instead of looking at the whole situation and the pros and cons and the compromises that must be made, they tunnel vision on the thing they personally prioritize highly and claim that sacrificing this particular thing is a sign that the people in charge do not have our best interests in mind. And the most extreme of them are probably even more upset after reading an interview like this because they don't trust Blizzard and feeling like they're being lied to while being betrayed is even more upsetting. It's irrational for them to pay any attention at all if that's the case.
I mean even if it's this curious attempt to establish a dialogue with those people, it still comes off as some standard PR. Call me cynical, I still believe that SC2's interests are those of Blizzard, but this is still silver-tongued business with red tape all over it.
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
That's just outright false though. Both games are still being actively supported. AoE2HD has its steam servers and AoC is played on voobly either way. AoE3 still has its ESO service up and they're actually renewing the hardware for those servers.
There's no active balance support and community support from official devs, however they're maintaining the servers in perfect working order.
Either way, I don't even see your point. What are we even arguing about? I just wanted to say that the age of empires RTS series is still active today, with a community behind it. :/
I'll also rip on blizzard for making dumb business decisions with their RTS. e.g. fucking over Korea for no reason.
That should've been obvious from the title of the thread... It's such a hilarious title it seems like a parody.
CNN breaking news: Boeing announces that they design planes so they don't crash. Intel designs CPUs which preferably don't catch on fire, at least they do their best. FIFA announces that soccer should be fun to watch maybe. Arby's food probably won't make you horribly sick, at least not by design.
Ok
That's not what I got out of it. From what I understand, a lot of people believe that what's best for Blizzard and what's best for SC2 are not the same thing. They think that whatever Blizzard is trying to do with SC2 or get out of SC2 is not aligned with SC2's best interests. The quote is Blizzard stating that their involvement with SC2 is in fact with the goal of doing what's best for it.
From what I've observed, no one has any idea what's best for SC2. But there are a lot of people who get very cynical and develop elaborate theories whenever Blizzard makes a decision that negatively impacts something they like about the scene. Instead of looking at the whole situation and the pros and cons and the compromises that must be made, they tunnel vision on the thing they personally prioritize highly and claim that sacrificing this particular thing is a sign that the people in charge do not have our best interests in mind. And the most extreme of them are probably even more upset after reading an interview like this because they don't trust Blizzard and feeling like they're being lied to while being betrayed is even more upsetting. It's irrational for them to pay any attention at all if that's the case.
Actually most of the time I'm whining that we're penalizing Koreans, not Starcraft. It just sucks to be Korean since you have less opportunities than foreigners now, thanks to Blizzard. Just look at Axiom. Disbanded because they were Korean.
Now, we have events where it doesn't matter if you're good or not, it matters if you're Korean. So if you're Korean, you're penalized for it.
It's just flat-out unfair to Korean players, because they're Korean. That is objectively true and that is what I am personally whining about. It's just stupid to penalize players for their nationality. :/
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
That's just outright false though. Both games are still being actively supported. AoE2HD has its steam servers and AoC is played on voobly either way. AoE3 still has its ESO service up and they're actually renewing the hardware for those servers.
There's no active balance support and community support from official devs, however they're maintaining the servers in perfect working order.
Either way, I don't even see your point. What are we even arguing about? I just wanted to say that the age of empires RTS series is still active today, with a community behind it. :/
I'll also rip on blizzard for making dumb business decisions with their RTS. e.g. fucking over Korea for no reason.
That should've been obvious from the title of the thread... It's such a hilarious title it seems like a parody.
CNN breaking news: Boeing announces that they design planes so they don't crash. Intel designs CPUs which preferably don't catch on fire, at least they do their best. FIFA announces that soccer should be fun to watch maybe. Arby's food probably won't make you horribly sick, at least not by design.
Ok
That's not what I got out of it. From what I understand, a lot of people believe that what's best for Blizzard and what's best for SC2 are not the same thing. They think that whatever Blizzard is trying to do with SC2 or get out of SC2 is not aligned with SC2's best interests. The quote is Blizzard stating that their involvement with SC2 is in fact with the goal of doing what's best for it.
From what I've observed, no one has any idea what's best for SC2. But there are a lot of people who get very cynical and develop elaborate theories whenever Blizzard makes a decision that negatively impacts something they like about the scene. Instead of looking at the whole situation and the pros and cons and the compromises that must be made, they tunnel vision on the thing they personally prioritize highly and claim that sacrificing this particular thing is a sign that the people in charge do not have our best interests in mind. And the most extreme of them are probably even more upset after reading an interview like this because they don't trust Blizzard and feeling like they're being lied to while being betrayed is even more upsetting. It's irrational for them to pay any attention at all if that's the case.
Actually most of the time I'm whining that we're penalizing Koreans, not Starcraft. It just sucks to be Korean since you have less opportunities than foreigners now, thanks to Blizzard. Just look at Axiom. Disbanded because they were Korean.
Now, we have events where it doesn't matter if you're good or not, it matters if you're Korean. So if you're Korean, you're penalized for it.
It's just flat-out unfair to Korean players, because they're Korean. That is objectively true and that is what I am personally whining about. It's just stupid to penalize players for their nationality. :/
To be fair, Axiom is kind of a 50-50 guess. On one hand with TB's current health situation they were probably on borrowed time at best, but on the other if the WCS rules resembled 2014. I have no doubt they'd at least still be active this year
Interesting read. I'm not surprised people are retiring...I think the shift of game devotion has taken a toll on starcraft...so many different games to choose from. StarCraft is just one of those games where technical expertise is such an important role in the game...and you do fall behind quickly if you don't play. I think most people prefer to play in team oriented esports and that's probably why the grassroots approach will be successful, but probably not as successful as SC:BW during it's prime in the early/mid 2000's. But I wish...
On March 08 2016 03:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I've learned a new english word to describe this speech : double talk. Come on she doesn't really answer to any questions... How can we trust Blizzard, if they all speak like politicians ?
relative to other large developers Blizzard is not only more honest than all of their competition i would argue they are too honest... and they get crucified by haters for it.
overall Blizzard is an honest company. and that means you will sometimes hear things you don't want to hear.
On March 08 2016 04:58 swissman777 wrote: Meanwhile, koreans hate blizzard for feeling so left out and rightfully so considering the incident with blizzard employee telling people to play other games than sc.
i agree with the sentiment. just try other RTS games and you will see they do not bring even 1/10th to the table what WC2, SC1, WC3 and SC2 offer.
Starcraft1 and 2 and CoH2 is all that is left.
that's your own opinion, lol
at this point how many RTS studios even exist. it doesn't matter how great your game is.. if it does not make money and you can't support it...
i guess you enjoy that epic GR.Org post sales support for C&C... GameRanger >BNet2 eh? LOLOL
its hilarious seeing "RTS fans" rip Blizz to shreds as RTS studio after studio packs it in. lots of yap and no cash.
i enjoy age of empires and it's given me a fuck ton of memories, as much as starcaft has. both aoe2 and aoe3 are active too. :/
the server support between AoE and SC2 is not comparable. its just not. and Ensemble no longer exists. and their big pie in the sky plans to have the ex-employees perform server support on the side was just talk.
That's just outright false though. Both games are still being actively supported. AoE2HD has its steam servers and AoC is played on voobly either way. AoE3 still has its ESO service up and they're actually renewing the hardware for those servers.
There's no active balance support and community support from official devs, however they're maintaining the servers in perfect working order.
Either way, I don't even see your point. What are we even arguing about? I just wanted to say that the age of empires RTS series is still active today, with a community behind it. :/
I'll also rip on blizzard for making dumb business decisions with their RTS. e.g. fucking over Korea for no reason.
That should've been obvious from the title of the thread... It's such a hilarious title it seems like a parody.
CNN breaking news: Boeing announces that they design planes so they don't crash. Intel designs CPUs which preferably don't catch on fire, at least they do their best. FIFA announces that soccer should be fun to watch maybe. Arby's food probably won't make you horribly sick, at least not by design.
Ok
That's not what I got out of it. From what I understand, a lot of people believe that what's best for Blizzard and what's best for SC2 are not the same thing. They think that whatever Blizzard is trying to do with SC2 or get out of SC2 is not aligned with SC2's best interests. The quote is Blizzard stating that their involvement with SC2 is in fact with the goal of doing what's best for it.
From what I've observed, no one has any idea what's best for SC2. But there are a lot of people who get very cynical and develop elaborate theories whenever Blizzard makes a decision that negatively impacts something they like about the scene. Instead of looking at the whole situation and the pros and cons and the compromises that must be made, they tunnel vision on the thing they personally prioritize highly and claim that sacrificing this particular thing is a sign that the people in charge do not have our best interests in mind. And the most extreme of them are probably even more upset after reading an interview like this because they don't trust Blizzard and feeling like they're being lied to while being betrayed is even more upsetting. It's irrational for them to pay any attention at all if that's the case.
So do you think restricted acess for Koreans to WCS is a good thing? Personally, I think it is good or it's not what has damaged sc2 popularity at least. You played BW and you remember that Koreans didn't need WCS, MLG, and similar tournaments, yet BW was doing so well. However, they had MSL, OSL and GomTv tournament which wasn't too popular with KeSPA pro gamers. So maybe what Blizzard misses in Korea is several tournaments such as MSL and OSL but this should really be up to sponsors and KeSPA not Blizzard.
Edit: I'd even argue that Blizzard shouldn't host Blizzcon at all. All the money they spend on that for sc2 should really go to game developers to make sc2 better, while organisations such as KeSPA and GomTv should host their own tournament. Blizzard doesn't have the capacity to run tournaments, develop games and support them. It's like believing in more government means better.
Once again a poor decision is made at Blizzard HQ. They screwed up DotA and missed at a golden opportunity hat was literally on their feet waiting to be picked up. But nup, their arrogance blinds them and gets picked up by Valve.
I mean cmon the map makers were using blizzards engine!!!
As a result we get more shitty decisions like making maps are now owned by Blizzard (yeah good one! Their asses are covered next time something big comes out of the community which gives themselves full rights and the ability to toss the creator out with ease). And yes they will do this, they even tried to sue valve for the name DotA and they know they screwed up.
I do admit blizzard do produce good quality products and the love they put in is obvious but man the poor decisions we seen since the release of WoL have given them a result they deserve.
They really are hurting themselves in the long run with dumb rules like having an attempt to monopolise all tournaments.
They should either ban all tournaments and create 1 mainstream tournament or let it free reign on its own.
Also I wouldn't mind if they open sourced their engine more so we can actually more creativity .
IMO Blozzard should ignore the exports scene and let it organically take care of itself and focus more on developing games as they used to do.
On March 09 2016 03:45 FoxerGames wrote: IMO Blozzard should ignore the exports scene and let it organically take care of itself and focus more on developing games as they used to do.
On March 09 2016 03:45 FoxerGames wrote: IMO Blozzard should ignore the exports scene and let it organically take care of itself and focus more on developing games as they used to do.
That's how BW succeeded but I'm not sure that it's the best way to go these days. The biggest esports are those that get support from the game's developer, there's a very real symbiotic relationship between a dev and its game where, given good management, the money spent on the esports scene (marketing) generates some sales and consumer good-will. This is good for the dev/publisher as well as the competitive scene.
Think about Riot with LoL and Valve with Dota2 and CSGO, these are developers which are active in esports, and although they've both made many mistakes (some particularly bad), they're still orgs with deep pockets.
Do you think Blizzard should ignore esports specifically because you think they're bad at it, because that I could understand. But I'd argue that perhaps they need a department to handle this and maybe they should do their homework.
On March 09 2016 03:45 FoxerGames wrote: Once again a poor decision is made at Blizzard HQ. They screwed up DotA and missed at a golden opportunity hat was literally on their feet waiting to be picked up. But nup, their arrogance blinds them and gets picked up by Valve.
i disagree based on Pardo's giant 6 hour interview shortly after leaving Blizz .... they had no development bandwidth to take on a new project as WoW was exploding in popularity. they were expecting to make millions from WoW and instead it made Billions.
On March 09 2016 03:45 FoxerGames wrote: IMO Blozzard should ignore the exports scene and let it organically take care of itself and focus more on developing games as they used to do.
A chance for foreigners to shine seems important. If we help grow foreign AND korean starcraft it will be better! If 3 leagues are not enough you could always expand on that, not take away from potential growth of the entire world. iem got 60k btw. Proof that people want to watch foreigners play! If we can get starcraft around the world to grow more this means more attention on starcraft. More money, more design focus, and more potential players! Growing starcraft needs to come at any cost necessary imo. If thats cutting all foreigners out of the picture or reducing korean dominance around the world for chances of local fan growth.
On March 09 2016 04:36 ilililililililiii wrote: A chance for foreigners to shine seems important. If we help grow foreign AND korean starcraft it will be better! If 3 leagues are not enough you could always expand on that, not take away from potential growth of the entire world. iem got 60k btw. Proof that people want to watch foreigners play! If we can get starcraft around the world to grow more this means more attention on starcraft. More money, more design focus, and more potential players! Growing starcraft needs to come at any cost necessary imo. If thats cutting all foreigners out of the picture or reducing korean dominance around the world for chances of local fan growth.
Foreigners have plenty of chances to shine, it should be their business to take them and to make the best of it. If they don't, that's on them and real competitors should understand that. Some affirmative action is cute at first, until it's not.
I think it needs to come at any cost necessary. So trying this out sounds fine in a game that seems to be "dying". if not we'll know soon enough if we need to change it back. IEM had 60k which was surprising.
If you said that years ago when it would have risked the popular and what seemd to be growing scene id agree with you. But i feel like we're more desperate than ever. This seems to be a solid run at trying something different.
On March 09 2016 04:36 ilililililililiii wrote: iem got 60k btw. Proof that people want to watch foreigners play!
IEM Katowice 2015 peaked at 156k. Proof people want to see Koreans play!
And I know what's coming next from someone "The final got a host from LoL, it's not valid". I'm not using it as a point of debate really, just pointing out I can twist viewership numbers to support my argument too
On March 09 2016 05:32 ilililililililiii wrote: that was after cs go on the same channel right. Yea that doesn't count
you say it because you know its true. We'll know soon enough if this works or not.
See? Moving the goalposts. IEM Katowice this year did worse than last year every day and yet the goalposts move to "Oh it's not fair to compare the two because this year finished on Saturday"
Compared to the thing it was replaced (WCS) we've had two tournaments and BOTH times this year has been blown out of the water, with IEM Katowice getting humilated compared to IEM Katowice last year
But keep moving the goalposts and denying the truth, it only proves what I said all along, any one who supported this change is either racist or has racist tendencies.
There is nothing more that i want than seeing starcraft grow. For me right now absolutely nothing. You mentioned last year it had a higher number. The reality is thats not a higher number. Maybe it is idk but the facts of it being on the same channel( i dont think it was even hosted it was on the same channel) make it non statistically viable. If someone put a random channel in front me i tend to look at it. If cs go finals were after sc2 on the same channel id watch it. I never watch cs go.
Either way if you're right about everyday performance you're probably right. I just want to see starcraft grow. You lose respect with the whole racist tendencies thing though. I feel sad watching starcraft decline. I support blizzard trying different things to make it grow.
On March 09 2016 05:57 ilililililililiii wrote: There is nothing more that i want than seeing starcraft grow. For me right now absolutely nothing. You mentioned last year it had a higher number. The reality is thats not a higher number. Maybe it is idk but the facts of it being on the same channel( i dont think it was even hosted it was on the same channel) make it non statistically viable. If someone put a random channel in front me i tend to look at it. If cs go finals were after sc2 on the same channel id watch it. I never watch cs go.
Either way if you're right about everyday performance you're probably right. I just want to see starcraft grow. You lose respect with the whole racist tendencies thing though. I feel sad watching starcraft decline. I support blizzard trying different things to make it grow.
How is it racist? Let's call the whole world Korea so you can be happy. There are regions, then a global stage.
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
As far as money and growth is concerned if more people come out to watch home heros and local talent it has nothing to do with race. This is only theory afaik
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
Haven't posted here in a while, been spending most of my forum time on /r/DotA2/ and LiquidDotA.com. This post is written from the perspective of a DotA player who switched despite preferring real RTS games.
The fundamental problem facing Starcraft 2 esports is that the game is too frustrating to play. It doesn't matter what bullshit region locks or player incentives or whatever you do to try and grow the scene if no one cares about the game. Now, obviously, some people care about the game, as evidenced by the continued existence of this forum, but the fact of the matter is that most people do not like Starcraft 2.
Unless you can find a way to get mass appeal the way DotA and LoL have, it doesn't matter what fixes or changes you make to Starcraft 2 esports. This interview is pure PR bullshit; the answers seem like they're what Blizzard wants to be true, instead of an honest assessment of the state of Starcraft 2 esports.
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
Region-locking would be great, but the implementation only seems to kick Koreans OUT of other regions (mostly EU). Due to it, I believe most foreign tournaments are going to have lower quality games. I like watching Starcraft, playing not so much anymore. Watching IEM I enjoyed Snute vs Major, and the finals so I'll be on the lookout for foreign koreans, and Snute.
The foreign tournaments aren't going to magically become more skillful now that all the best players got sent home. The good foreigners will still be good, and the koreans will still be the best.
On March 09 2016 05:32 ilililililililiii wrote: that was after cs go on the same channel right. Yea that doesn't count
you say it because you know its true. We'll know soon enough if this works or not.
The 3 WCS 2015 finals (notation: Region locked) had better viewer counts then this WCS 2016 Event. They mostly peaked at 75k.
IEM Kato had also better viewers on Friday (did they play thursday last year?) then this IEM on Friday. While there was a CS:GO Tournament with over 1.000.000 Viewers going on the same time (and a LoL tournament)
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
people supporting this racist rule by blizzard are the one who are looking dumb. The vast majority of foreigners dont have the determination and the will to put as much effort as the korean do. (see lilbow last blizzcon)
This rule is simply racist, banning korean BECAUSE they are better. Like, wtf? the goal of a competitive game is not to be the best anymore? its, whos not korean?
People who defend this are either racist, or they are soo desesperate for sc2 that they would try anything in the world, including accepting racist rules to make sc2 a top game again.
But i prefer sc2 dying in dignity over banning all the people (koreans) that made this game alive and fun for so long just to see the game last a bit longer thanks to scrubreigner
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
people supporting this racist rule by blizzard are the one who are looking dumb. The vast majority of foreigners dont have the determination and the will to put as much effort as the korean do. (see lilbow last blizzcon)
This rule is simply racist, banning korean BECAUSE they are better. Like, wtf? the goal of a competitive game is not to be the best anymore? its, whos not korean?
People who defend this are either racist, or they are soo desesperate for sc2 that they would try anything in the world, including accepting racist rules to make sc2 a top game again.
But i prefer sc2 dying in dignity over banning all the people (koreans) that made this game alive and fun for so long just to see the game last a bit longer thanks to scrubreigner
You have no idea what you are talking about. It's really as simple as that. Thanks for your intelligent input though
Starcraft has been on the decline. Why you would want things to stay the same is beyond me. We need to find different ways to grow the scene. The theory is that people will come out to see home town heroes. WHAT is confusing about this holy cow. We get it you're mad, but act like you can comprehend these basic theories blizzard is putting forth. You dont have to agree, but you dont have to stoop so low either. The bigger picture is most important. It may not work ok so be it. At least blizzard is trying.
Priority #1 growing the scene (you dont have to agree but this is the reality)
Top current theory - more space/awareness/opportunity for foreigners (some of you dont agree but this is the theory) This is what i understand at least feel free to give me your opinion.
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
people supporting this racist rule by blizzard are the one who are looking dumb. The vast majority of foreigners dont have the determination and the will to put as much effort as the korean do. (see lilbow last blizzcon)
This rule is simply racist, banning korean BECAUSE they are better. Like, wtf? the goal of a competitive game is not to be the best anymore? its, whos not korean?
People who defend this are either racist, or they are soo desesperate for sc2 that they would try anything in the world, including accepting racist rules to make sc2 a top game again.
But i prefer sc2 dying in dignity over banning all the people (koreans) that made this game alive and fun for so long just to see the game last a bit longer thanks to scrubreigner
You have no idea what you are talking about. It's really as simple as that. Thanks for your intelligent input though
lol, sick comeback, young boy. I guess we have a futur lawyer here
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
people supporting this racist rule by blizzard are the one who are looking dumb. The vast majority of foreigners dont have the determination and the will to put as much effort as the korean do. (see lilbow last blizzcon)
This rule is simply racist, banning korean BECAUSE they are better. Like, wtf? the goal of a competitive game is not to be the best anymore? its, whos not korean?
People who defend this are either racist, or they are soo desesperate for sc2 that they would try anything in the world, including accepting racist rules to make sc2 a top game again.
But i prefer sc2 dying in dignity over banning all the people (koreans) that made this game alive and fun for so long just to see the game last a bit longer thanks to scrubreigner
You have no idea what you are talking about. It's really as simple as that. Thanks for your intelligent input though
lol, sick comeback, young boy. I guess we have a futur lawyer here
You simply have no idea what racism is. Maybe you are one of the sjw though, for them pretty much anything is racist/sexist7whatever, could be the case?! Blizzard's idea to region lock simply is not racist. Stop calling it that. You can disagree with the general idea to help the foreign scene that way, sure. You can disagree with the implementation of the region lock, fine. But calling Blizzard and "people who defend it" racist is mind-bogglingly dumb and i cannot even believe people would say stuff like that and actually mean it. I doubt this will lead to an interesting discussion though, so the chances are high that i won't respond to your likely answer.
I love the korean scene more than the foreign scene. I study and watch almost all of Proleague SSL and GSL. (lol @last time i studied from a foreigner) But I also want there to be more money in starcraft. This requires growth. Obviously some of you dont care about the money in the space, but many do.
Maybe one day people can be confident with a goal career in starcraft, instead of it being a big risk.
On March 09 2016 08:49 ilililililililiii wrote: I love the korean scene more than the foreign scene. I study and watch almost all of Proleague SSL and GSL. (lol @last time i studied from a foreigner) But I also want there to be more money in starcraft. This requires growth. Obviously some of you dont care about the money in the space, but many do.
Maybe one day people can be confident with a goal career in starcraft, instead of it being a big risk.
That's not gonna happen in SC2's lifetime that's for sure.
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
And it would have been just as racist if it was France, or Brazil, or Spain.
I stand by my statement. Anyone supporting the Region Lock has at the very least racist tendencies.
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
And it would have been just as racist if it was France, or Brazil, or Spain.
I stand by my statement. Anyone supporting the Region Lock has at the very least racist tendencies.
On March 09 2016 08:49 ilililililililiii wrote: I love the korean scene more than the foreign scene. I study and watch almost all of Proleague SSL and GSL. (lol @last time i studied from a foreigner) But I also want there to be more money in starcraft. This requires growth. Obviously some of you dont care about the money in the space, but many do.
Maybe one day people can be confident with a goal career in starcraft, instead of it being a big risk.
That's not gonna happen in SC2's lifetime that's for sure.
Well it won't happen in SC2 but to be fair trying to be a professional athlete as never been anything else then a risk. Most people will lose more then they will gain from these kind of dream, at least from a money perspective, after that it depend of your values in life. If you feel ok spending 20 hours a week training only to be stuck mid gm or to in some local semi-pro football league then no problem.
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
And it would have been just as racist if it was France, or Brazil, or Spain.
I stand by my statement. Anyone supporting the Region Lock has at the very least racist tendencies.
ok let me see if I can't tell you why your incredibly stupid. 1. you can't call something racist when its where some one lives and not what race that person is that is preventing them from participating. 2. the same system that is supposedly discriminating against Koreans is also giving them one extra tournament and more money to compete in compared to the rest of the world. 3. Koreans are still participating in the tournament that's apparently discriminating against them.
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
And it would have been just as racist if it was France, or Brazil, or Spain.
I stand by my statement. Anyone supporting the Region Lock has at the very least racist tendencies.
ok let me see if I can't tell you why your incredibly stupid. 1. you can't call something racist when its where some one lives and not what race that person is that is preventing them from participating. 2. the same system that is supposedly discriminating against Koreans is also giving them one extra tournament and more money to compete in compared to the rest of the world. 3. Koreans are still participating in the tournament that's apparently discriminating against them.
how the hell do you even have an argument?
1. The WCS rules ban everyone from Korea who doesn't have a visa. Who lives there? Koreans
2. They've taken away every weekend tournament (DH, IEM, Redbull, etc) and given them nothing in return. Which means if you don't qualify for the ONE extra tournament you don't get any money. play, points for 6 months.
3. NA Koreans are. Not Koreans in general. Only 3 can right now due to the rules they made.
You can paint your picture any way you like. Koreans are getting fucked over hardcore and if you support it you are just as complicit.
If I started shouting to ban MarineLord based on his Nationwars results I'd be shouted down and rightly so. But it's just as stupid and racist as what this is.
Anyway. I'm not going to argue any further. You won't change my views on this. I think if you support the current system you are at least suspect of racist tendencies. You can shout me down as biased or stupid if you so wish, but I won't back down from that view
On March 09 2016 06:12 ilililililililiii wrote: if you read what we said you'd know hes the one saying its racist shield. I'm saying he loses respect stooping so low as to say people are racist.
What do you call it when a group of people are being hindered or hurt due to their race? I call it racism.
Omg this again. Koreans aren't region locked because they are koreans. It has nothing to do with their race. At least that's not what the region locking is about at all. (the implementation might be bad though, i can see that) Koreans are banned from these tournaments because they have an 'unfair' advantage due to their infrastructure. Stop calling blizzard racist, it makes you look dumb.
Exactly the same would have happened if France would have the majority of best players in the world, or Brazil, or Spain. It's not racism.
people supporting this racist rule by blizzard are the one who are looking dumb. The vast majority of foreigners dont have the determination and the will to put as much effort as the korean do. (see lilbow last blizzcon)
This rule is simply racist, banning korean BECAUSE they are better. Like, wtf? the goal of a competitive game is not to be the best anymore? its, whos not korean?
People who defend this are either racist, or they are soo desesperate for sc2 that they would try anything in the world, including accepting racist rules to make sc2 a top game again.
But i prefer sc2 dying in dignity over banning all the people (koreans) that made this game alive and fun for so long just to see the game last a bit longer thanks to scrubreigner
You have no idea what you are talking about. It's really as simple as that. Thanks for your intelligent input though
lol, sick comeback, young boy. I guess we have a futur lawyer here
You simply have no idea what racism is. Maybe you are one of the sjw though, for them pretty much anything is racist/sexist7whatever, could be the case?! Blizzard's idea to region lock simply is not racist. Stop calling it that. You can disagree with the general idea to help the foreign scene that way, sure. You can disagree with the implementation of the region lock, fine. But calling Blizzard and "people who defend it" racist is mind-bogglingly dumb and i cannot even believe people would say stuff like that and actually mean it. I doubt this will lead to an interesting discussion though, so the chances are high that i won't respond to your likely answer.
you are wrong on soo many level its almost funny.
First im completly against people seeing sexism or racism everywhere. Also, its funny that you keep saying its not racist, but you bring no arguments (or at least, relevant and non stupid ones).
You simply cant ban 1 country, only one, from almost all tournaments because they are born in korea, while letting every other countries being able to compete. How hard is it for you to understand?
Region lock? fine, but region lock should make only a country, or a continent being able to compete in a certain tournament. not 1 country NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY.
It makes no sense to ban koreans for a european tournament, but not japanese, not china, not australia.
Whats the big difference between them?
Yet, blizzard only bans korea, not japan. Why should a japanese player do not require a visa, while koreans need? I understand why blizzard does that, even if im completly against it. But saying its not racist is just pure stupidity.
P.S Dont bother replying anyway, except insulting me, you bring 0 argument and just look dumber and dumber with every post you make.
On March 08 2016 22:07 Incognoto wrote: Yeah this topic was just PR from blizzard, nothing of substance. ):
You wanted more PR from Blizzard earlier in this thread:
On March 08 2016 02:29 Incognoto wrote: 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.
Why click on a thread about an interview between TL and Kim Phan if you aren't interested in PR?
And to complain that nothing of substance transpired... well of course, the interview is an interview just for communication. It's not a meeting or something. I don't know how you could hope for more than just words and explanations from an interview. There isn't supposed to be anything of substance that occurs at an interview. Just talking.
"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."
Racism, seriously, wtf? Whoever put it up here, just don't understand what it has to do with the subject...
People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
But using radical terms to paint Blizzard as racists (lol!) is just doesn't raise the correct issues. The term's been dragged through the mud too much over the years anyway, you can make it say anything.
On March 10 2016 00:23 NonY wrote: Why click on a thread about an interview between TL and Kim Phan if you aren't interested in PR?
And to complain that nothing of substance transpired... well of course, the interview is an interview just for communication. It's not a meeting or something. I don't know how you could hope for more than just words and explanations from an interview. There isn't supposed to be anything of substance that occurs at an interview. Just talking.
He wanted more communication, he got PR. Many people understand the term "PR" with an implied negative connotation, even though it's not always the case.
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
But using radical terms to paint Blizzard as racists (lol!) is just doesn't raise the correct issues. The term's been dragged through the mud too much over the years anyway, you can make it say anything.
On March 10 2016 00:23 NonY wrote: Why click on a thread about an interview between TL and Kim Phan if you aren't interested in PR?
And to complain that nothing of substance transpired... well of course, the interview is an interview just for communication. It's not a meeting or something. I don't know how you could hope for more than just words and explanations from an interview. There isn't supposed to be anything of substance that occurs at an interview. Just talking.
He wanted more communication, he got PR. Many people understand the term "PR" with an implied negative connotation, even though it's not always the case.
If PR is bad because it has spin, then it doesn't make any sense to complain about it when the communication he then initiates contains a ton of negative spin:
"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."
If he values straight talk then he does a poor job of showing it. The way he communicates isn't how goal-oriented productive people who respect each other would communicate to each other either...
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
But using radical terms to paint Blizzard as racists (lol!) is just doesn't raise the correct issues. The term's been dragged through the mud too much over the years anyway, you can make it say anything.
On March 10 2016 00:23 NonY wrote: Why click on a thread about an interview between TL and Kim Phan if you aren't interested in PR?
And to complain that nothing of substance transpired... well of course, the interview is an interview just for communication. It's not a meeting or something. I don't know how you could hope for more than just words and explanations from an interview. There isn't supposed to be anything of substance that occurs at an interview. Just talking.
He wanted more communication, he got PR. Many people understand the term "PR" with an implied negative connotation, even though it's not always the case.
If PR is bad because it has spin, then it doesn't make any sense to complain about it when the communication he then initiates contains a ton of negative spin:
"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."
If he values straight talk then he does a poor job of showing it. The way he communicates isn't how goal-oriented productive people who respect each other would communicate to each other either...
Well, I dunno how is the world where you live but some people like it when journalism is actual journalism and not "let's avoid all important issues and act like we're Soviet-era Pravda". An interview should not be an interview for communication (ie raw PR), simply because a competent and willing interviewer should not be nice to the interviewee. And obviously the part you quote is negative, he's complaining. Do you often happen to complain in a positive way?
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
its in the nature of anything less than BO7 series. its rampant in the Olympics and international hockey, basketball and baseball competitions. in international basketball and baseball they really should just hand the US the Gold and not invite them.. and have every other country in the world fight over Silver.
should the women's world hockey championship even exist? just have Canada and the US do a single BO7. no, Canada plays Sweden in 2006 because the US loses 1 game to Sweden after beating them like 15 times during the year? LOL
Does any one really believe the 1988 Soviet Union had a better basketball team than the US? does any one think the 1980 US hockey team was better than the 1980 Soviet hockey team?
i can go on forever with these comparisons... usually the champ of these short-time-line international events is questionable and based on 1 game.
the NCAA Basketball. its all 1-game eliminations for the final 64 teams does anyone think Arizona > Kentucky in '97? and again, i can list 1000 upsets here.
As far as I am aware, the point of the Olympics IS to put nationality ahead of competition. I would rather my SC2 tournaments didn't do that. Though for most sports in the olympics, the major tournaments/competitions of their respective sports, rightfully put competition, or entertainment first.
On March 10 2016 02:37 Dangermousecatdog wrote: As far as I am aware, the point of the Olympics IS to put nationality ahead of competition. I would rather my SC2 tournaments didn't do that.
it happens in more than just the Olympics. just off the top of my head. world baseball classic, world cup of hockey, every international basketball event, every international curling event.
so umm ya the world baseball classic is anti-american because of how brutally hard it is to make it into competition if you're american but its amazingly easy if you are canadian. and ya, Canada beat the US at WBC 2006. Does any one in the right mind think Jeff Francis is a better pitcher than CC Sabathia?
the kind of "unfairness" being whined about in here happens all the time in dozens of international competitions every year.
if you are the best curling team in the world living in Canada the odds are you'll never see an international competition because some team 1% worse than you was your opponent in some local event and you never got out of local qualifiers.
there is a reasonable chance the best SC2 player inthe world will be some Korean guy who got knocked out in a local qualifier and won't come within 2,000 kilometres of Blizzcon. so what?
2 questions remain. Will we still have haters when more people end up wanting to watch more foreigners, and less about top level play. How long are we testing this if it doesn't work, and people only want to see top level play.
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
its in the nature of anything less than BO7 series. its rampant in the Olympics and international hockey, basketball and baseball competitions. in international basketball and baseball they really should just hand the US the Gold and not invite them.. and have every other country in the world fight over Silver.
should the women's world hockey championship even exist? just have Canada and the US do a single BO7. no, Canada plays Sweden in 2006 because the US loses 1 game to Sweden after beating them like 15 times during the year? LOL
Does any one really believe the 1988 Soviet Union had a better basketball team than the US? does any one think the 1980 US hockey team was better than the 1980 Soviet hockey team?
i can go on forever with these comparisons... usually the champ of these short-time-line international events is questionable and based on 1 game.
the NCAA Basketball. its all 1-game eliminations for the final 64 teams does anyone think Arizona > Kentucky in '97? and again, i can list 1000 upsets here.
Is that what you want or is that what happens? I ask as someone who couldn't care less about the Olympics. Also just because you don't necessarily get the best at the end of a tournament doesn't mean you should throw the notion out of the window. Upsets happen, the worse player can get lucky - you still should have a format that promotes skill above all else though. Otherwise, like I said, it becomes a circus. It seems to me like you're saying "we can't consistently perfectly determine who's the best so we shouldn't even try" which I don't think it's what you actually believe.
I mean if we extend your logic we could run everything in single elim bo1's and it's fine, we're just throwing shit at the wall and people are fine. Then the tournament becomes more about flags moving up brackets than about being good at the game.
Riot got it right. Blizzard got it wrong. Riot's "soft-lock" on the number of Koreans in their regions is great. It helps scenes improve their play while giving Koreans a fair reward for their efforts. Blizzard's "hard-lock" on Koreans is wrong no matter how you want to rationalize it and the numbers will start showing that discrimination of one ethnicity won't fix a problem that is much deeper than the idea that: "the scene is struggling because Koreans are dominating too much".
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
its in the nature of anything less than BO7 series. its rampant in the Olympics and international hockey, basketball and baseball competitions. in international basketball and baseball they really should just hand the US the Gold and not invite them.. and have every other country in the world fight over Silver.
should the women's world hockey championship even exist? just have Canada and the US do a single BO7. no, Canada plays Sweden in 2006 because the US loses 1 game to Sweden after beating them like 15 times during the year? LOL
Does any one really believe the 1988 Soviet Union had a better basketball team than the US? does any one think the 1980 US hockey team was better than the 1980 Soviet hockey team?
i can go on forever with these comparisons... usually the champ of these short-time-line international events is questionable and based on 1 game.
the NCAA Basketball. its all 1-game eliminations for the final 64 teams does anyone think Arizona > Kentucky in '97? and again, i can list 1000 upsets here.
Is that what you want or is that what happens? I ask as someone who couldn't care less about the Olympics. Also just because you don't necessarily get the best at the end of a tournament doesn't mean you should throw the notion out of the window. Upsets happen, the worse player can get lucky - you still should have a format that promotes skill above all else though. Otherwise, like I said, it becomes a circus. It seems to me like you're saying "we can't consistently perfectly determine who's the best so we shouldn't even try" which I don't think it's what you actually believe.
I mean if we extend your logic we could run everything in single elim bo1's and it's fine, we're just throwing shit at the wall and people are fine. Then the tournament becomes more about flags moving up brackets than about being good at the game.
if Blizz had the resources of the NBA, MLB, or NFL they could crown an undisputed world champ. they don't have those resources therefore we get the kind of international competition you see in dozens of other competitive endeavours.
Determining who is "the best" in a 1 weekend event is unreliable, A BO7 played over 2 weeks is what it takes. The NBA , MLB and NHL are the only organizations with the financial mite to make that happen.
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
its in the nature of anything less than BO7 series. its rampant in the Olympics and international hockey, basketball and baseball competitions. in international basketball and baseball they really should just hand the US the Gold and not invite them.. and have every other country in the world fight over Silver.
should the women's world hockey championship even exist? just have Canada and the US do a single BO7. no, Canada plays Sweden in 2006 because the US loses 1 game to Sweden after beating them like 15 times during the year? LOL
Does any one really believe the 1988 Soviet Union had a better basketball team than the US? does any one think the 1980 US hockey team was better than the 1980 Soviet hockey team?
i can go on forever with these comparisons... usually the champ of these short-time-line international events is questionable and based on 1 game.
the NCAA Basketball. its all 1-game eliminations for the final 64 teams does anyone think Arizona > Kentucky in '97? and again, i can list 1000 upsets here.
Is that what you want or is that what happens? I ask as someone who couldn't care less about the Olympics. Also just because you don't necessarily get the best at the end of a tournament doesn't mean you should throw the notion out of the window. Upsets happen, the worse player can get lucky - you still should have a format that promotes skill above all else though. Otherwise, like I said, it becomes a circus. It seems to me like you're saying "we can't consistently perfectly determine who's the best so we shouldn't even try" which I don't think it's what you actually believe.
I mean if we extend your logic we could run everything in single elim bo1's and it's fine, we're just throwing shit at the wall and people are fine. Then the tournament becomes more about flags moving up brackets than about being good at the game.
if Blizz had the resources of the NBA, MLB, or NFL they could crown an undisputed world champ. they don't have those resources therefore we get the kind of international competition you see in dozens of other competitive endeavours.
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
its in the nature of anything less than BO7 series. its rampant in the Olympics and international hockey, basketball and baseball competitions. in international basketball and baseball they really should just hand the US the Gold and not invite them.. and have every other country in the world fight over Silver.
should the women's world hockey championship even exist? just have Canada and the US do a single BO7. no, Canada plays Sweden in 2006 because the US loses 1 game to Sweden after beating them like 15 times during the year? LOL
Does any one really believe the 1988 Soviet Union had a better basketball team than the US? does any one think the 1980 US hockey team was better than the 1980 Soviet hockey team?
i can go on forever with these comparisons... usually the champ of these short-time-line international events is questionable and based on 1 game.
the NCAA Basketball. its all 1-game eliminations for the final 64 teams does anyone think Arizona > Kentucky in '97? and again, i can list 1000 upsets here.
Is that what you want or is that what happens? I ask as someone who couldn't care less about the Olympics. Also just because you don't necessarily get the best at the end of a tournament doesn't mean you should throw the notion out of the window. Upsets happen, the worse player can get lucky - you still should have a format that promotes skill above all else though. Otherwise, like I said, it becomes a circus. It seems to me like you're saying "we can't consistently perfectly determine who's the best so we shouldn't even try" which I don't think it's what you actually believe.
I mean if we extend your logic we could run everything in single elim bo1's and it's fine, we're just throwing shit at the wall and people are fine. Then the tournament becomes more about flags moving up brackets than about being good at the game.
if Blizz had the resources of the NBA, MLB, or NFL they could crown an undisputed world champ. they don't have those resources therefore we get the kind of international competition you see in dozens of other competitive endeavours.
The GSL-SSL supermatch champion will pretty much be an undisputed world champ.
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
its in the nature of anything less than BO7 series. its rampant in the Olympics and international hockey, basketball and baseball competitions. in international basketball and baseball they really should just hand the US the Gold and not invite them.. and have every other country in the world fight over Silver.
should the women's world hockey championship even exist? just have Canada and the US do a single BO7. no, Canada plays Sweden in 2006 because the US loses 1 game to Sweden after beating them like 15 times during the year? LOL
Does any one really believe the 1988 Soviet Union had a better basketball team than the US? does any one think the 1980 US hockey team was better than the 1980 Soviet hockey team?
i can go on forever with these comparisons... usually the champ of these short-time-line international events is questionable and based on 1 game.
the NCAA Basketball. its all 1-game eliminations for the final 64 teams does anyone think Arizona > Kentucky in '97? and again, i can list 1000 upsets here.
Is that what you want or is that what happens? I ask as someone who couldn't care less about the Olympics. Also just because you don't necessarily get the best at the end of a tournament doesn't mean you should throw the notion out of the window. Upsets happen, the worse player can get lucky - you still should have a format that promotes skill above all else though. Otherwise, like I said, it becomes a circus. It seems to me like you're saying "we can't consistently perfectly determine who's the best so we shouldn't even try" which I don't think it's what you actually believe.
I mean if we extend your logic we could run everything in single elim bo1's and it's fine, we're just throwing shit at the wall and people are fine. Then the tournament becomes more about flags moving up brackets than about being good at the game.
if Blizz had the resources of the NBA, MLB, or NFL they could crown an undisputed world champ. they don't have those resources therefore we get the kind of international competition you see in dozens of other competitive endeavours.
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
its in the nature of anything less than BO7 series. its rampant in the Olympics and international hockey, basketball and baseball competitions. in international basketball and baseball they really should just hand the US the Gold and not invite them.. and have every other country in the world fight over Silver.
should the women's world hockey championship even exist? just have Canada and the US do a single BO7. no, Canada plays Sweden in 2006 because the US loses 1 game to Sweden after beating them like 15 times during the year? LOL
Does any one really believe the 1988 Soviet Union had a better basketball team than the US? does any one think the 1980 US hockey team was better than the 1980 Soviet hockey team?
i can go on forever with these comparisons... usually the champ of these short-time-line international events is questionable and based on 1 game.
the NCAA Basketball. its all 1-game eliminations for the final 64 teams does anyone think Arizona > Kentucky in '97? and again, i can list 1000 upsets here.
Is that what you want or is that what happens? I ask as someone who couldn't care less about the Olympics. Also just because you don't necessarily get the best at the end of a tournament doesn't mean you should throw the notion out of the window. Upsets happen, the worse player can get lucky - you still should have a format that promotes skill above all else though. Otherwise, like I said, it becomes a circus. It seems to me like you're saying "we can't consistently perfectly determine who's the best so we shouldn't even try" which I don't think it's what you actually believe.
I mean if we extend your logic we could run everything in single elim bo1's and it's fine, we're just throwing shit at the wall and people are fine. Then the tournament becomes more about flags moving up brackets than about being good at the game.
if Blizz had the resources of the NBA, MLB, or NFL they could crown an undisputed world champ. they don't have those resources therefore we get the kind of international competition you see in dozens of other competitive endeavours.
The GSL-SSL supermatch champion will pretty much be an undisputed world champ.
fantastic problem solved. call up Dana White and Don King and get a promoter for it. oh right they won't take your call because there is zero chance of ever making any money on that super match.
On March 08 2016 02:29 Incognoto wrote: 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.
Why click on a thread about an interview between TL and Kim Phan if you aren't interested in PR?
And to complain that nothing of substance transpired... well of course, the interview is an interview just for communication. It's not a meeting or something. I don't know how you could hope for more than just words and explanations from an interview. There isn't supposed to be anything of substance that occurs at an interview. Just talking.
Yeah that was poorly worded on my part.
I think it's encouraging that there are blizzard reps posting here. However I'm still wondering if they actually take remarks and criticism into account, or if it's just a show and they're only pretending to listen. There's a nuance there and that's where my grasp of the English language failed me. When I said that "this topic was just PR", I mean that it feels like Blizzard are disconnected from the actual feelings of the community, especially when it comes to penalizing Korean players unfairly. I don't think anyone is able to disagree that it is penalizing to actually be Korean when it comes to being a professional Starcaft player. You have a lot more easier opportunities as a foreigner these days than not, since Koreans are banned from international events. This is something which I view as highly unfair and Blizzard somehow seems to think that this unfairness is a good thing; when I briefly explained these new measures to my young siblings who don't follow Starcraft, they were dumb-founded. I more highly value fair and just conditions for everyone and Blizzard is currently not doing that. There is nothing wrong with region locked tournaments, nothing at all. However it is wrong to discriminate against people of a certain nationality when hosting tournaments which are supposed to be open and international events.
This interview to me says that Blizzard is happy with the way things are and that they are seeing positive signs. The thing is, I'm not seeing these positive signs and from the looks of what I'm reading on TLnet, this is also the case for other people. THAT in turn leads me to believe that Blizzard is disconnected with the community and that this interview is only Blizzard pretending to listen.
I mean, I could be wrong, and that would be great. However, it is objectively the case that right now that certain players are being penalized merely due to their nationality. Korea is being forced to carry the weight of Blizzard's misplaced ideas.
Kim can talk about grassroot tournaments in Korea but so far nothing concrete has actually happened.
I hope that my own views are a bit more clear now, it's true that often times posting simple, cynical, one-liners doesn't do much for the discussion.
Edit: Read the rest of the thread a little. I'm right to complain because this is one of the rare instances where I believe that staying silent is the wrong call. If I were to shut up about my thoughts on these new reforms and keep my negative opinions to myself, then I would have no right whatsoever to say that Blizzard isn't listening.
On March 10 2016 01:17 Djzapz wrote: People should use the term "discrimination" in this case. Blizzard may be the architect of a system which seems to be designed gives an unfair advantage to certain people based on nationality. I'd argue there's no ill will, but WCS's system clearly puts nationality ahead of competition. This deserves to be discussed. Let me put it this way, if the spirit of a competition is to find out who the best player is, and you intentionally funnel less competent players at the highest level of competition, are you running a tournament or a circus? Circuses are fun, people like that.
its in the nature of anything less than BO7 series. its rampant in the Olympics and international hockey, basketball and baseball competitions. in international basketball and baseball they really should just hand the US the Gold and not invite them.. and have every other country in the world fight over Silver.
should the women's world hockey championship even exist? just have Canada and the US do a single BO7. no, Canada plays Sweden in 2006 because the US loses 1 game to Sweden after beating them like 15 times during the year? LOL
Does any one really believe the 1988 Soviet Union had a better basketball team than the US? does any one think the 1980 US hockey team was better than the 1980 Soviet hockey team?
i can go on forever with these comparisons... usually the champ of these short-time-line international events is questionable and based on 1 game.
the NCAA Basketball. its all 1-game eliminations for the final 64 teams does anyone think Arizona > Kentucky in '97? and again, i can list 1000 upsets here.
Is that what you want or is that what happens? I ask as someone who couldn't care less about the Olympics. Also just because you don't necessarily get the best at the end of a tournament doesn't mean you should throw the notion out of the window. Upsets happen, the worse player can get lucky - you still should have a format that promotes skill above all else though. Otherwise, like I said, it becomes a circus. It seems to me like you're saying "we can't consistently perfectly determine who's the best so we shouldn't even try" which I don't think it's what you actually believe.
I mean if we extend your logic we could run everything in single elim bo1's and it's fine, we're just throwing shit at the wall and people are fine. Then the tournament becomes more about flags moving up brackets than about being good at the game.
Determining who is "the best" in a 1 weekend event is unreliable, A BO7 played over 2 weeks is what it takes. The NBA , MLB and NHL are the only organizations with the financial mite to make that happen.
I don't know how LoL and Dota2 do it but CSGO has 3 majors a year and getting there is not easy. It's not one weekend, generally the finals last 3-4 days but there's a lengthy qualification process. The winner and the runner ups are almost always considered the best teams in the world, and the setting is such that all the best teams in the world get to qualify. The major is not rigged to allow more people of a certain nationality in, the teams which qualify generally are the best in the world. The 16 teams which qualified for the upcoming major are basically all in the top20, with 1 or 2 notable teams missing and they're not from the top10.
It manages to be representative without artificial boundaries.
On March 10 2016 02:37 Dangermousecatdog wrote: As far as I am aware, the point of the Olympics IS to put nationality ahead of competition. I would rather my SC2 tournaments didn't do that.
it happens in more than just the Olympics. just off the top of my head. world baseball classic, world cup of hockey, every international basketball event, every international curling event.
so umm ya the world baseball classic is anti-american because of how brutally hard it is to make it into competition if you're american but its amazingly easy if you are canadian. and ya, Canada beat the US at WBC 2006. Does any one in the right mind think Jeff Francis is a better pitcher than CC Sabathia?
the kind of "unfairness" being whined about in here happens all the time in dozens of international competitions every year.
if you are the best curling team in the world living in Canada the odds are you'll never see an international competition because some team 1% worse than you was your opponent in some local event and you never got out of local qualifiers.
there is a reasonable chance the best SC2 player inthe world will be some Korean guy who got knocked out in a local qualifier and won't come within 2,000 kilometres of Blizzcon. so what?
Sorry, too many cultural references so I have no idea what you are talking about. Also what is "there is a reasonable chance the best SC2 player inthe world will be some Korean guy who got knocked out in a local qualifier and won't come within 2,000 kilometres of Blizzcon." What is this supposed to mean?
On March 10 2016 02:37 Dangermousecatdog wrote: As far as I am aware, the point of the Olympics IS to put nationality ahead of competition. I would rather my SC2 tournaments didn't do that.
it happens in more than just the Olympics. just off the top of my head. world baseball classic, world cup of hockey, every international basketball event, every international curling event.
so umm ya the world baseball classic is anti-american because of how brutally hard it is to make it into competition if you're american but its amazingly easy if you are canadian. and ya, Canada beat the US at WBC 2006. Does any one in the right mind think Jeff Francis is a better pitcher than CC Sabathia?
the kind of "unfairness" being whined about in here happens all the time in dozens of international competitions every year.
if you are the best curling team in the world living in Canada the odds are you'll never see an international competition because some team 1% worse than you was your opponent in some local event and you never got out of local qualifiers.
there is a reasonable chance the best SC2 player inthe world will be some Korean guy who got knocked out in a local qualifier and won't come within 2,000 kilometres of Blizzcon. so what?
Sorry, too many cultural references so I have no idea what you are talking about. Also what is "there is a reasonable chance the best SC2 player inthe world will be some Korean guy who got knocked out in a local qualifier and won't come within 2,000 kilometres of Blizzcon." What is this supposed to mean?
He doesn't mind that Blizzcon is no longer meant to be the highest level of competition. If the best player doesn't manage to qualify because there are fewer spots for koreans and the level of play is undermined by this, it's fine, according to him.
Now I'd say it's unlikely that the best player would fail to qualify, but it's likely that many of the best won't, and they'll be replaced by Europeans and North American players who couldn't take a map off them on a good day. It means that bad players are eliminated at the end of the tournament rather than through the qualification process. That's not how things are supposed to be done.
On March 08 2016 22:07 Incognoto wrote: Yeah this topic was just PR from blizzard, nothing of substance. ):
You wanted more PR from Blizzard earlier in this thread:
On March 08 2016 02:29 Incognoto wrote: 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.
Why click on a thread about an interview between TL and Kim Phan if you aren't interested in PR?
And to complain that nothing of substance transpired... well of course, the interview is an interview just for communication. It's not a meeting or something. I don't know how you could hope for more than just words and explanations from an interview. There isn't supposed to be anything of substance that occurs at an interview. Just talking.
Yeah that was poorly worded on my part.
I think it's encouraging that there are blizzard reps posting here. However I'm still wondering if they actually take remarks and criticism into account, or if it's just a show and they're only pretending to listen. There's a nuance there and that's where my grasp of the English language failed me. When I said that "this topic was just PR", I mean that it feels like Blizzard are disconnected from the actual feelings of the community, especially when it comes to penalizing Korean players unfairly. I don't think anyone is able to disagree that it is penalizing to actually be Korean when it comes to being a professional Starcaft player. You have a lot more easier opportunities as a foreigner these days than not, since Koreans are banned from international events. This is something which I view as highly unfair and Blizzard somehow seems to think that this unfairness is a good thing; when I briefly explained these new measures to my young siblings who don't follow Starcraft, they were dumb-founded. I more highly value fair and just conditions for everyone and Blizzard is currently not doing that. There is nothing wrong with region locked tournaments, nothing at all. However it is wrong to discriminate against people of a certain nationality when hosting tournaments which are supposed to be open and international events.
This interview to me says that Blizzard is happy with the way things are and that they are seeing positive signs. The thing is, I'm not seeing these positive signs and from the looks of what I'm reading on TLnet, this is also the case for other people. THAT in turn leads me to believe that Blizzard is disconnected with the community and that this interview is only Blizzard pretending to listen.
I mean, I could be wrong, and that would be great. However, it is objectively the case that right now that certain players are being penalized merely due to their nationality. Korea is being forced to carry the weight of Blizzard's misplaced ideas.
Kim can talk about grassroot tournaments in Korea but so far nothing concrete has actually happened.
I hope that my own views are a bit more clear now, it's true that often times posting simple, cynical, one-liners doesn't do much for the discussion.
Edit: Read the rest of the thread a little. I'm right to complain because this is one of the rare instances where I believe that staying silent is the wrong call. If I were to shut up about my thoughts on these new reforms and keep my negative opinions to myself, then I would have no right whatsoever to say that Blizzard isn't listening.
That has more to do with them listening to players and other people like Catz. In either case, it's all fluff and has no real weight behind it because the game isn't growing. That time has long gone and many people are aware of it. The community is what it is and you can keep adding band-aids.. hm, on second thought let's just say keep changing the makeup of your regions it's not going to do anything really though. The community is what it is. Either you please a few players/fans and leave another group shunned or vice versa. It's just going to keep dwindling.
On March 10 2016 04:14 MaCRo.gg wrote: Riot got it right. Blizzard got it wrong. Riot's "soft-lock" on the number of Koreans in their regions is great. It helps scenes improve their play while giving Koreans a fair reward for their efforts. Blizzard's "hard-lock" on Koreans is wrong no matter how you want to rationalize it and the numbers will start showing that discrimination of one ethnicity won't fix a problem that is much deeper than the idea that: "the scene is struggling because Koreans are dominating too much".
How do you do a soft lock when its not a team game?
On March 10 2016 04:08 jalstar wrote: I like the new WCS system because it will eventually lead to the end of the practice of ranking Koreans by who attends the most foreign tournaments.
Not sure what people were expecting to read in an interview with someone like her. she's not one of those guy at Blizzard that play or is passionate about games, she's not a developer or a game designer or anything like that.
She's the guy that has meeting with the old people to talk about how to make this whole thing work money and ressources wise.
talk is cheap, they always promise but dont really deliver. After how hard the Korean sc2 scene was hit I really want to see if anything they say becomes true.
On March 08 2016 22:07 Incognoto wrote: Yeah this topic was just PR from blizzard, nothing of substance. ):
You wanted more PR from Blizzard earlier in this thread:
On March 08 2016 02:29 Incognoto wrote: 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.
Why click on a thread about an interview between TL and Kim Phan if you aren't interested in PR?
And to complain that nothing of substance transpired... well of course, the interview is an interview just for communication. It's not a meeting or something. I don't know how you could hope for more than just words and explanations from an interview. There isn't supposed to be anything of substance that occurs at an interview. Just talking.
Yeah that was poorly worded on my part.
I think it's encouraging that there are blizzard reps posting here. However I'm still wondering if they actually take remarks and criticism into account, or if it's just a show and they're only pretending to listen. There's a nuance there and that's where my grasp of the English language failed me. When I said that "this topic was just PR", I mean that it feels like Blizzard are disconnected from the actual feelings of the community, especially when it comes to penalizing Korean players unfairly. I don't think anyone is able to disagree that it is penalizing to actually be Korean when it comes to being a professional Starcaft player. You have a lot more easier opportunities as a foreigner these days than not, since Koreans are banned from international events. This is something which I view as highly unfair and Blizzard somehow seems to think that this unfairness is a good thing; when I briefly explained these new measures to my young siblings who don't follow Starcraft, they were dumb-founded. I more highly value fair and just conditions for everyone and Blizzard is currently not doing that. There is nothing wrong with region locked tournaments, nothing at all. However it is wrong to discriminate against people of a certain nationality when hosting tournaments which are supposed to be open and international events.
This interview to me says that Blizzard is happy with the way things are and that they are seeing positive signs. The thing is, I'm not seeing these positive signs and from the looks of what I'm reading on TLnet, this is also the case for other people. THAT in turn leads me to believe that Blizzard is disconnected with the community and that this interview is only Blizzard pretending to listen.
I mean, I could be wrong, and that would be great. However, it is objectively the case that right now that certain players are being penalized merely due to their nationality. Korea is being forced to carry the weight of Blizzard's misplaced ideas.
Kim can talk about grassroot tournaments in Korea but so far nothing concrete has actually happened.
I hope that my own views are a bit more clear now, it's true that often times posting simple, cynical, one-liners doesn't do much for the discussion.
Edit: Read the rest of the thread a little. I'm right to complain because this is one of the rare instances where I believe that staying silent is the wrong call. If I were to shut up about my thoughts on these new reforms and keep my negative opinions to myself, then I would have no right whatsoever to say that Blizzard isn't listening.
What if the community is wrong? What if we're the ones missing or misinterpreting the evidence, not Blizzard? If there is a disconnect between the community's assessment of the facts and Blizzard's assessment, why does that logically mean Blizzard has to be the one at fault? While no company can ever be completely accurate, perhaps we are the ones responsible for the majority of the seeming disconnect rather than Blizzard and maybe our information (and/or the logical process we're using to analyze said information) isn't correct. Just a thought because your admittedly well-worded and well explained thought process seems to overlook that step in your analysis of the situation.
That is indeed a possibility. If it holds out that Blizzard is right and the community is wrong, then perhaps we should see increased viewership, more opportunities for all players regardless of their nationality, a growing scene, more exposure and more players actually playing Starcraft.
In the mean time, none of that is happening. None of that is happening and as of right now, it is penalizing to actually be a player with Korean nationality. So, I am not personally seeing the justification of discriminating Koreans from open and international events. I also know that Blizzard had 3 or 4 years to run a good and fair WCS system and that the results were not there.
Actually, maybe the results were there, only foreigners were not. You tell me.. I only see events which are supposed to be open to all players get closed off to players of a certain nationality only. Then I see Blizzard congratulating themselves for "positive signs" whereas I do not see any myself. So, I can help but wonder if Blizzard are not indeed disconnected from the community and/or reality.
On March 19 2016 05:16 Incognoto wrote: That is indeed a possibility. If it holds out that Blizzard is right and the community is wrong, then perhaps we should see increased viewership, more opportunities for all players regardless of their nationality, a growing scene, more exposure and more players actually playing Starcraft.
In the mean time, none of that is happening. None of that is happening and as of right now, it is penalizing to actually be a player with Korean nationality. So, I am not personally seeing the justification of discriminating Koreans from open and international events. I also know that Blizzard had 3 or 4 years to run a good and fair WCS system and that the results were not there.
Actually, maybe the results were there, only foreigners were not. You tell me.. I only see events which are supposed to be open to all players get closed off to players of a certain nationality only. Then I see Blizzard congratulating themselves for "positive signs" whereas I do not see any myself. So, I can help but wonder if Blizzard are not indeed disconnected from the community and/or reality.
Just saw this. Closing events off can be helpful and to be honest, viewership for the foreigner only events has gone waaaaaaay up on average in comparison to the WCS EU, WCS America, and WCS Premier League events of the past two years. Just sayin. Fairness, like anything can be good or bad (usually, I'd say its a mixture of both) and I certainly don't think "fairness" necessarily always equals "best". Some limits exist for good reasons. Prior to the changes I had almost stopped watching most competition that included foreigners because the outcome was painfully obvious before the match began but I watched the last several region locked foreigner-only events with bated breathe. They were very well done and the games were creative, exciting and many of them were close and unpredictable. Exciting stuff!
On March 19 2016 05:16 Incognoto wrote: That is indeed a possibility. If it holds out that Blizzard is right and the community is wrong, then perhaps we should see increased viewership, more opportunities for all players regardless of their nationality, a growing scene, more exposure and more players actually playing Starcraft.
In the mean time, none of that is happening. None of that is happening and as of right now, it is penalizing to actually be a player with Korean nationality. So, I am not personally seeing the justification of discriminating Koreans from open and international events. I also know that Blizzard had 3 or 4 years to run a good and fair WCS system and that the results were not there.
Actually, maybe the results were there, only foreigners were not. You tell me.. I only see events which are supposed to be open to all players get closed off to players of a certain nationality only. Then I see Blizzard congratulating themselves for "positive signs" whereas I do not see any myself. So, I can help but wonder if Blizzard are not indeed disconnected from the community and/or reality.
Just saw this. Closing events off can be helpful and to be honest, viewership for the foreigner only events has gone waaaaaaay up on average in comparison to the WCS EU, WCS America, and WCS Premier League events of the past two years. Just sayin. Fairness, like anything can be good or bad (usually, I'd say its a mixture of both) and I certainly don't think "fairness" necessarily always equals "best". Some limits exist for good reasons. Prior to the changes I had almost stopped watching most competition that included foreigners because the outcome was painfully obvious before the match began but I watched the last several region locked foreigner-only events with bated breathe. They were very well done and the games were creative, exciting and many of them were close and unpredictable. Exciting stuff!
you seem to forgot last year HotS and current year LotV are different games so its not a legit argument. swarmhosts and mechgames were boring as fuck to watch and lotv barely has them anymore.
So they promise all these global events to make up for the lack of Korean contestants in the WCS scene. This interview shows that there were never really any plans for a lot of WCS Global matches. "1 coming up but haven't announced." For all I know they could have just started to plan it going "holy batshit these guys haven't forgot that we promised a global event!" I am beginning to think that the 8 spots in Blizzcon are not welfare for foreigners, but rather for Koreans who just don't get enough chances to rack up WCS Points..... I am completely fine with WCS being a circuit, but Dreamhack and IEM, please keep them Global;;;;; They keep on going over Lilbow and Mana Lilbow and Mana X Lilbow and Mana both beating Koreans in the semis. O Korean pros are like street cred... You gotta beat them to be recognized. I don't know if the foreign scene can improve from internal sparring but I really hope it does because beating Koreans are the only way their games are going to be recognized.
Foreign WCS winners are good, but in the overall ranking I feel it would be unfair to guys who actually got to Ro8 or Ro4 when there were Koreans in the scene. I bet if there weren't Koreans, they would have won for sure. Am I saying WCS winner of 2016 S1 = WCS 2013 Ro8? Probably.
Well WCS Season 1 winner technically (In that the Circuit Championships replacing the actual seasons) was Polt, so he was more Ro4
Still it's pretty telling that for all the talk of this helping Foreigners to beat Koreans the only two Foreign champions of WCS 2016 either won a tournament that zero Koreans in it (Harstem) or didn't play a Korean on his side of the draw in the tournament he won (Ptitdrogo).
The only time we have seen Foreigners take on Koreans (As in Koreans not in WCS) in tournament play was IEM Taipei, where Snute and Lilbow got pretty much ROFLStomped.
TL.net wrote: TL.net: Many in the community are looking forward to the WCS Global Events, where Foreigners will compete against Koreans, which is a rare occasion now in the new system. But many are worried, because we haven’t heard any real announcements about these events so far. Is there anything you can say about this? Will Blizzard give more incentives to organizers to organize these events?
Kim Phan: I am trying to think about what I can say… I do know that there is one event being planned, that hasn’t been announced yet. So I shouldn’t say anything until it’s actually announced, as I don’t know what changes might be happening. But I do think those moments will become very, very special and that’s what I am really excited about.
Can't wait for the announcement of the global event, which Kim Phan mentioned in the interview. Really sad, she did not announce it yet.
For all I care it doesn't matter which players win this or that as long as everyone gets the chance to qualify for the big tourneys. Segregating players aint no good.
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Maybe she meant Blizzcon as in "we haven't announced Blizzcon yet".
:/
I'm not sure, but you can be damn sure that I'm pissed that Koreans are discriminated against. It's not racism, yes, yes. I'm talking about objectively less possibilities in terms of tournaments for players who are left out for no other reason than their nationality. It's appalling.
Kim also talked about grassroot tournaments for Korea. Those were also thin air apparently, nothing has even been announced and the year is already half over. I find that a little bad, sorry.
Well, I brought this topic back as I would expect this OGE (ONE GLOBAL EVENT) to be held between the GSL seasons 1 and 2. And in relation to the fact that Proleague just announced, it will be played during the weekends, I have no idea, when do they want to run the global event. Doing it just before BlizzCon might be an interesting idea for last WCS points for people around the threshold, but I would prefer it sometimes now.
On June 01 2016 06:23 Diabolique wrote: Well, I brought this topic back as I would expect this OGE (ONE GLOBAL EVENT) to be held between the GSL seasons 1 and 2. And in relation to the fact that Proleague just announced, it will be played during the weekends, I have no idea, when do they want to run the global event. Doing it just before BlizzCon might be an interesting idea for last WCS points for people around the threshold, but I would prefer it sometimes now.
Think about it:
GSL, SSL and ProLeague will finish arround end of july till mid august.
Blizzcon is 4/5 November. Global Playoffs will be most likely 1 week earlier.
So there is theoretically plenty of time...
But most likely the korean players will just chill their chills for 2 month without doing anything.
On June 01 2016 06:23 Diabolique wrote: Well, I brought this topic back as I would expect this OGE (ONE GLOBAL EVENT) to be held between the GSL seasons 1 and 2. And in relation to the fact that Proleague just announced, it will be played during the weekends, I have no idea, when do they want to run the global event. Doing it just before BlizzCon might be an interesting idea for last WCS points for people around the threshold, but I would prefer it sometimes now.
Think about it:
GSL, SSL and ProLeague will finish arround end of july till mid august.
Blizzcon is 4/5 November. Global Playoffs will be most likely 1 week earlier.
So there is theoretically plenty of time...
But most likely the korean players will just chill their chills for 2 month without doing anything.
OK, if they do the Kespa cup and the ONE GLOBAL EVENT in September / October as the last qualifier for BlizzCon, that would make quite some sense. If it turns out that there will be no Kespa cup and no ONE GLOBAL EVENT, then I will be permanently banned from this forum because I will be writing something about Blizzard.
On May 11 2016 09:31 RCCar wrote: So they promise all these global events to make up for the lack of Korean contestants in the WCS scene. This interview shows that there were never really any plans for a lot of WCS Global matches. "1 coming up but haven't announced." For all I know they could have just started to plan it going "holy batshit these guys haven't forgot that we promised a global event!" I am beginning to think that the 8 spots in Blizzcon are not welfare for foreigners, but rather for Koreans who just don't get enough chances to rack up WCS Points..... I am completely fine with WCS being a circuit, but Dreamhack and IEM, please keep them Global;;;;; They keep on going over Lilbow and Mana Lilbow and Mana X Lilbow and Mana both beating Koreans in the semis. O Korean pros are like street cred... You gotta beat them to be recognized. I don't know if the foreign scene can improve from internal sparring but I really hope it does because beating Koreans are the only way their games are going to be recognized.
Foreign WCS winners are good, but in the overall ranking I feel it would be unfair to guys who actually got to Ro8 or Ro4 when there were Koreans in the scene. I bet if there weren't Koreans, they would have won for sure. Am I saying WCS winner of 2016 S1 = WCS 2013 Ro8? Probably.
Anyone giving Lilbow or Mana street cred for beating the WCS Koreans as some kind of justification for the current system is being willfully ignorant or plain stupid.
Hydra, Polt and Violet are nowhere near the level of the GSL/SSL Korean players. Saying that Lilbow beat Hydra which meant that the foreign scene was improving thanks to the new system fell flat on its fucking head the second he got paired up against Life who just embarassed the crap out of him.
The foreign scene isn't getting any better with this year's system. I'd argue the gap is actually just widening without real competition show it.
Blizzcon this year will suffer because of it. The Ro16 is basically a question of which actual contenders get matched with each other and which get fancy byes in the form of their WCS opponents.
On June 01 2016 06:23 Diabolique wrote: Well, I brought this topic back as I would expect this OGE (ONE GLOBAL EVENT) to be held between the GSL seasons 1 and 2. And in relation to the fact that Proleague just announced, it will be played during the weekends, I have no idea, when do they want to run the global event. Doing it just before BlizzCon might be an interesting idea for last WCS points for people around the threshold, but I would prefer it sometimes now.
Think about it:
GSL, SSL and ProLeague will finish arround end of july till mid august.
Blizzcon is 4/5 November. Global Playoffs will be most likely 1 week earlier.
So there is theoretically plenty of time...
But most likely the korean players will just chill their chills for 2 month without doing anything.
If the koreans have to sit for 2 months before Blizzcon while the foreigners can freely play still rest assured the "R word" is coming back in giant letters
On May 11 2016 09:31 RCCar wrote: So they promise all these global events to make up for the lack of Korean contestants in the WCS scene. This interview shows that there were never really any plans for a lot of WCS Global matches. "1 coming up but haven't announced." For all I know they could have just started to plan it going "holy batshit these guys haven't forgot that we promised a global event!" I am beginning to think that the 8 spots in Blizzcon are not welfare for foreigners, but rather for Koreans who just don't get enough chances to rack up WCS Points..... I am completely fine with WCS being a circuit, but Dreamhack and IEM, please keep them Global;;;;; They keep on going over Lilbow and Mana Lilbow and Mana X Lilbow and Mana both beating Koreans in the semis. O Korean pros are like street cred... You gotta beat them to be recognized. I don't know if the foreign scene can improve from internal sparring but I really hope it does because beating Koreans are the only way their games are going to be recognized.
Foreign WCS winners are good, but in the overall ranking I feel it would be unfair to guys who actually got to Ro8 or Ro4 when there were Koreans in the scene. I bet if there weren't Koreans, they would have won for sure. Am I saying WCS winner of 2016 S1 = WCS 2013 Ro8? Probably.
Anyone giving Lilbow or Mana street cred for beating the WCS Koreans as some kind of justification for the current system is being willfully ignorant or plain stupid.
Hydra, Polt and Violet are nowhere near the level of the GSL/SSL Korean players. Saying that Lilbow beat Hydra which meant that the foreign scene was improving thanks to the new system fell flat on its fucking head the second he got paired up against Life who just embarassed the crap out of him.
The foreign scene isn't getting any better with this year's system. I'd argue the gap is actually just widening without real competition show it.
Blizzcon this year will suffer because of it. The Ro16 is basically a question of which actual contenders get matched with each other and which get fancy byes in the form of their WCS opponents.
Polt and Hydra are probably (at least they were at the start at the year, they seems to be a bit less strong at the last wcs and dreamhack) code S and SSL level player, like round of 32-16 players, all the wcs players did ok in Korea (Hyun, Bomber, MC, Taeja, MMA, Patience) they are not finalist level but I feel they could do fine.
Well, in an interview she can't say something like "we don't care about koreans this year", she just said what people wants to hear, like every interview that involves Blizzard staff.
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Rumors of a global event in the works have been spoken about by personalities on stream since that interview has taken place, and the ones I've seen talk about it have said that it's still being planned and not yet final. Just because it wasn't announced when you wanted it to be doesn't mean we've been lied to.
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Rumors of a global event in the works have been spoken about by personalities on stream since that interview has taken place, and the ones I've seen talk about it have said that it's still being planned and not yet final. Just because it wasn't announced when you wanted it to be doesn't mean we've been lied to.
Do I need to risk a ban by breaking out a laughing gif or is that just superfluous at this point?
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Rumors of a global event in the works have been spoken about by personalities on stream since that interview has taken place, and the ones I've seen talk about it have said that it's still being planned and not yet final. Just because it wasn't announced when you wanted it to be doesn't mean we've been lied to.
Do I need to risk a ban by breaking out a laughing gif or is that just superfluous at this point?
So you're going to meet somebody who is telling you the global event you want is being worked on in the background with ridicule? Seems logical and smart. If you want to be angry and upset over not getting everything you want right when you want it, go ahead lol
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Rumors of a global event in the works have been spoken about by personalities on stream since that interview has taken place, and the ones I've seen talk about it have said that it's still being planned and not yet final. Just because it wasn't announced when you wanted it to be doesn't mean we've been lied to.
Do I need to risk a ban by breaking out a laughing gif or is that just superfluous at this point?
So you're going to meet somebody who is telling you the global event you want is being worked on in the background with ridicule? Seems logical and smart. If you want to be angry and upset over not getting everything you want right when you want it, go ahead lol
It's simply a matter that there's not really a trust around an actual WCS Global Event being planned. If this gets brought up again, I'm sure they'll say some plans fell through, sponsors didn't sign on, etc etc
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Rumors of a global event in the works have been spoken about by personalities on stream since that interview has taken place, and the ones I've seen talk about it have said that it's still being planned and not yet final. Just because it wasn't announced when you wanted it to be doesn't mean we've been lied to.
Do I need to risk a ban by breaking out a laughing gif or is that just superfluous at this point?
So you're going to meet somebody who is telling you the global event you want is being worked on in the background with ridicule? Seems logical and smart. If you want to be angry and upset over not getting everything you want right when you want it, go ahead lol
It's simply a matter that there's not really a trust around an actual WCS Global Event being planned. If this gets brought up again, I'm sure they'll say some plans fell through, sponsors didn't sign on, etc etc
For me, it is quite simple. Blizzard has created a system for 2016, which makes organizing a "global event" almost impossible. After the announcement of this system, there was a huge wave of critics against Blizzard. Many supporters of the new system requested, we have to wait for the actual tournaments to be held. First then, we will be able to evaluate it. Then, Kim Phan mentioned in this interview, that there is actually one global event being planned.
If it turns out to be false and there will be no global event held, then the WCS 2016 could be declared as a complete fiasco, all the critics would be right and Blizzard would get into a funny position of a company, which killed its own game. I only hope, people at Blizzard are aware of that.
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Rumors of a global event in the works have been spoken about by personalities on stream since that interview has taken place, and the ones I've seen talk about it have said that it's still being planned and not yet final. Just because it wasn't announced when you wanted it to be doesn't mean we've been lied to.
Do I need to risk a ban by breaking out a laughing gif or is that just superfluous at this point?
So you're going to meet somebody who is telling you the global event you want is being worked on in the background with ridicule? Seems logical and smart. If you want to be angry and upset over not getting everything you want right when you want it, go ahead lol
It's simply a matter that there's not really a trust around an actual WCS Global Event being planned. If this gets brought up again, I'm sure they'll say some plans fell through, sponsors didn't sign on, etc etc
For me, it is quite simple. Blizzard has created a system for 2016, which makes organizing a "global event" almost impossible. After the announcement of this system, there was a huge wave of critics against Blizzard. Many supporters of the new system requested, we have to wait for the actual tournaments to be held. First then, we will be able to evaluate it. Then, Kim Phan mentioned in this interview, that there is actually one global event being planned.
If it turns out to be false and there will be no global event held, then the WCS 2016 could be declared as a complete fiasco, all the critics would be right and Blizzard would get into a funny position of a company, which killed its own game. I only hope, people at Blizzard are aware of that.
I still remember the optimism when they announced the new rules. There will be more than 1 global event. And so far we had none
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Rumors of a global event in the works have been spoken about by personalities on stream since that interview has taken place, and the ones I've seen talk about it have said that it's still being planned and not yet final. Just because it wasn't announced when you wanted it to be doesn't mean we've been lied to.
Do I need to risk a ban by breaking out a laughing gif or is that just superfluous at this point?
So you're going to meet somebody who is telling you the global event you want is being worked on in the background with ridicule? Seems logical and smart. If you want to be angry and upset over not getting everything you want right when you want it, go ahead lol
It's simply a matter that there's not really a trust around an actual WCS Global Event being planned. If this gets brought up again, I'm sure they'll say some plans fell through, sponsors didn't sign on, etc etc
For me, it is quite simple. Blizzard has created a system for 2016, which makes organizing a "global event" almost impossible. After the announcement of this system, there was a huge wave of critics against Blizzard. Many supporters of the new system requested, we have to wait for the actual tournaments to be held. First then, we will be able to evaluate it. Then, Kim Phan mentioned in this interview, that there is actually one global event being planned.
If it turns out to be false and there will be no global event held, then the WCS 2016 could be declared as a complete fiasco, all the critics would be right and Blizzard would get into a funny position of a company, which killed its own game. I only hope, people at Blizzard are aware of that.
I still remember the optimism when they announced the new rules. There will be more than 1 global event. And so far we had none
Cannot stop laughing.
When the new system was announced, a lot of people called that there'd maybe be one Global Event at most. There's nothing wrong with optimism but the people saying there would be more weren't be realistic.
There's an IEM in Korea in December, I'd put some pretty good money on that being the one Global Event this year
Why does everyone shit on Blizzard for WCS? This is just as much to do with ESL (And DH?) flexing their muscle and making Blizz go to this system or lose ESL support of SC2.
On June 01 2016 05:00 MoosyDoosy wrote: It's nothing we didn't know, but it's really good that we see them caring about the foreigner scene.
Well, I did not know that there is the one global event really planned, so I am quite happy, Kim Phan mentioned it. But so far, they are waiting too long with the announcement of the details. Which can bring some confusion into the community.
What's confusing about it? She lied to try and appease people.
Rumors of a global event in the works have been spoken about by personalities on stream since that interview has taken place, and the ones I've seen talk about it have said that it's still being planned and not yet final. Just because it wasn't announced when you wanted it to be doesn't mean we've been lied to.
Do I need to risk a ban by breaking out a laughing gif or is that just superfluous at this point?
So you're going to meet somebody who is telling you the global event you want is being worked on in the background with ridicule? Seems logical and smart. If you want to be angry and upset over not getting everything you want right when you want it, go ahead lol
It's simply a matter that there's not really a trust around an actual WCS Global Event being planned. If this gets brought up again, I'm sure they'll say some plans fell through, sponsors didn't sign on, etc etc
For me, it is quite simple. Blizzard has created a system for 2016, which makes organizing a "global event" almost impossible. After the announcement of this system, there was a huge wave of critics against Blizzard. Many supporters of the new system requested, we have to wait for the actual tournaments to be held. First then, we will be able to evaluate it. Then, Kim Phan mentioned in this interview, that there is actually one global event being planned.
If it turns out to be false and there will be no global event held, then the WCS 2016 could be declared as a complete fiasco, all the critics would be right and Blizzard would get into a funny position of a company, which killed its own game. I only hope, people at Blizzard are aware of that.
I still remember the optimism when they announced the new rules. There will be more than 1 global event. And so far we had none
Cannot stop laughing.
When the new system was announced, a lot of people called that there'd maybe be one Global Event at most. There's nothing wrong with optimism but the people saying there would be more weren't be realistic.
There's an IEM in Korea in December, I'd put some pretty good money on that being the one Global Event this year
Yeah, and some were reacting that this mystical one global tourney will be actually Blizzcon.
Anyway, if the only global tournament will be held AFTER this season, it will be probably even bigger fail from Blizzard
On June 01 2016 16:17 Phredxor wrote: Why does everyone shit on Blizzard for WCS? This is just as much to do with ESL (And DH?) flexing their muscle and making Blizz go to this system or lose ESL support of SC2.
On June 01 2016 16:25 Phredxor wrote: How do you know Blizzard forced it?
Is this trolling?
Who announced these rules? Blizzard. Who is checking that these rules are fulfilled? Blizzard. Who is the biggest chief when it comes to WCS? Blizzard.
So even if Blizzard didn't have any other option it's still THEIR announcement and THEIR rules.
On June 01 2016 16:25 Phredxor wrote: How do you know Blizzard forced it?
Is this trolling?
Who announced these rules? Blizzard. Who is checking that these rules are fulfilled? Blizzard. Who is the biggest chief when it comes to WCS? Blizzard.
So even if Blizzard didn't have any other option it's still THEIR announcement and THEIR rules.
He is just trolling.
Exactly that is my feeling. If the Global Event will be held AFTER BlizzCon, so any WCS points will be worthless, it would be even a bigger fail from Blizzard. So I still hope, they are aware of the risk of this complete failure and in this case, they might change the rules even for 2016 and remove the threshold for price money of 50k USD for any eventual organizer of such an open event.
On June 01 2016 16:25 Phredxor wrote: How do you know Blizzard forced it?
Is this trolling?
Who announced these rules? Blizzard. Who is checking that these rules are fulfilled? Blizzard. Who is the biggest chief when it comes to WCS? Blizzard.
So even if Blizzard didn't have any other option it's still THEIR announcement and THEIR rules.
Yup, as expected, no global events, not enough tournaments in Korea (where are these Kespa cups, huh?). Blizzard is killing Korean scene which is very stupid in the long term because foreign scene is unreliable and undedicated, it will die withiout Blizzard's help.
On June 01 2016 17:07 Ingvar wrote: Yup, as expected, no global events, not enough tournaments in Korea (where are these Kespa cups, huh?). Blizzard is killing Korean scene which is very stupid in the long term because foreign scene is unreliable and undedicated, it will die withiout Blizzard's help.
This is the part that really doesn't make sense to me.
Why is Blizzard continuing to implement policies that harm the Korean scene when it's the only one that has anything resembling self reliance?
the foreign scene has been since 2012 on Blizzard's life support. It can't exist without its help. So why continue to try and prop it up at the cost of the Korean scene? It doesn't make sense. You're hurting your actual scene trying to force something to exist that doesn't really want to.
Is there any Korean here can give us numbers on PL/GSL/SSL viewers? Is it doing well or decaying? Comparing to last year, PL seems to get 50% less viewers on twitch. Same for SSL.
On May 11 2016 09:31 RCCar wrote: So they promise all these global events to make up for the lack of Korean contestants in the WCS scene. This interview shows that there were never really any plans for a lot of WCS Global matches. "1 coming up but haven't announced." For all I know they could have just started to plan it going "holy batshit these guys haven't forgot that we promised a global event!" I am beginning to think that the 8 spots in Blizzcon are not welfare for foreigners, but rather for Koreans who just don't get enough chances to rack up WCS Points..... I am completely fine with WCS being a circuit, but Dreamhack and IEM, please keep them Global;;;;; They keep on going over Lilbow and Mana Lilbow and Mana X Lilbow and Mana both beating Koreans in the semis. O Korean pros are like street cred... You gotta beat them to be recognized. I don't know if the foreign scene can improve from internal sparring but I really hope it does because beating Koreans are the only way their games are going to be recognized.
Foreign WCS winners are good, but in the overall ranking I feel it would be unfair to guys who actually got to Ro8 or Ro4 when there were Koreans in the scene. I bet if there weren't Koreans, they would have won for sure. Am I saying WCS winner of 2016 S1 = WCS 2013 Ro8? Probably.
It's a joke and look at how many top Korean players have fled the scene to go to greener pastures or play BW again. Shows you how bad the state of the game is in Korea.
On May 11 2016 09:31 RCCar wrote: So they promise all these global events to make up for the lack of Korean contestants in the WCS scene. This interview shows that there were never really any plans for a lot of WCS Global matches. "1 coming up but haven't announced." For all I know they could have just started to plan it going "holy batshit these guys haven't forgot that we promised a global event!" I am beginning to think that the 8 spots in Blizzcon are not welfare for foreigners, but rather for Koreans who just don't get enough chances to rack up WCS Points..... I am completely fine with WCS being a circuit, but Dreamhack and IEM, please keep them Global;;;;; They keep on going over Lilbow and Mana Lilbow and Mana X Lilbow and Mana both beating Koreans in the semis. O Korean pros are like street cred... You gotta beat them to be recognized. I don't know if the foreign scene can improve from internal sparring but I really hope it does because beating Koreans are the only way their games are going to be recognized.
Foreign WCS winners are good, but in the overall ranking I feel it would be unfair to guys who actually got to Ro8 or Ro4 when there were Koreans in the scene. I bet if there weren't Koreans, they would have won for sure. Am I saying WCS winner of 2016 S1 = WCS 2013 Ro8? Probably.
It's a joke and look at how many top Korean players have fled the scene to go to greener pastures or play BW again. Shows you how bad the state of the game is in Korea.
I agree that its sad to see so many pros leave for their halcyon BW scene, but I think the problem is that LotV has no new pros not that the old ones are leaving. If the scene were healthy, we would see an influx of new players to replace the old ones. I think Blizz might see the foreign scene as a way to get new players involved...or more people to buy the game... but there doesn't seem an incentive to new players to play ... both pro and beginner.
On June 05 2016 08:10 HugoBallzak wrote: I stopped following sc2 because lotv is not a good game.
I think exactly the opposite. LotV is a great game and David Kim and people around him are open to the communication with the whole community and are trying to make the game more balanced. I watched this weekend from nostalgia the BlizzCon finals sOs vs. Jae Dong and saw the looooong games, where nothing happens for a long time. At that time, you either gave Protoss time to create a deathball, and you lost, or you stopped him before. Now, it is not at all the case. And the economy change improved all games by 100%!
I also accepted the change of BlizzCon that there will be 8 foreigners and 8 Koreans and somehow am satisfied with it - now, it is more like the olympic games of Starcraft 2. I am also fine with Blizzard supporting some tournaments to give money to foreigners. What I hate is the "lock down" of any tournament, who would otherwise invite Koreans, to prize money 50k+. If they had their WCS2016 system and there were 5 global events, I think, all the fans would get used to it and be fine with it.
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
How ironic would it be if more foreign players, like Lilbow, go to Blizzcon after practicing only, like, 2 games.
I am still waiting for the win he was training for This Karma thing is gorgeous
And the first part - yeah, "we fucked the best players, but we are doing what's best for the players" - I think that's just a pure PR meaningless talk. What is she supposed to say? We fucked Koreans, we applied racist rule, we haven't released book rules yet, but ... we are doing the best for players. Do you want to buy Nova campaign?
The old system harmed the regional players (major playerbase). Either way, you harm someone. The goal is to grow sc2 globally and to give everyone the same chance. That wont happen, when foreigners are not motivated to practise, because they have no chance to earn money. Once foreigners are good enough, we can open the competition again.
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
How ironic would it be if more foreign players, like Lilbow, go to Blizzcon after practicing only, like, 2 games.
I am still waiting for the win he was training for This Karma thing is gorgeous
And the first part - yeah, "we fucked the best players, but we are doing what's best for the players" - I think that's just a pure PR meaningless talk. What is she supposed to say? We fucked Koreans, we applied racist rule, we haven't released book rules yet, but ... we are doing the best for players. Do you want to buy Nova campaign?
The old system harmed the regional players (major playerbase). Either way, you harm someone. The goal is to grow sc2 globally and to give everyone the same chance. That wont happen, when foreigners are not motivated to practise, because they have no chance to earn money. Once foreigners are good enough, we can open the competition again.
What is the status of the game currently? Not gameplay wise as each has his own opinion about it, but interest in general. Is it gaining more than 2015 HOTS? Looking at the streaming numbers I'm not sure if it changed at all (or even changed to worst).
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
How ironic would it be if more foreign players, like Lilbow, go to Blizzcon after practicing only, like, 2 games.
I am still waiting for the win he was training for This Karma thing is gorgeous
And the first part - yeah, "we fucked the best players, but we are doing what's best for the players" - I think that's just a pure PR meaningless talk. What is she supposed to say? We fucked Koreans, we applied racist rule, we haven't released book rules yet, but ... we are doing the best for players. Do you want to buy Nova campaign?
The old system harmed the regional players (major playerbase). Either way, you harm someone. The goal is to grow sc2 globally and to give everyone the same chance. That wont happen, when foreigners are not motivated to practise, because they have no chance to earn money. Once foreigners are good enough, we can open the competition again.
Are you serious? That is like saying that allowing master and grand master players to play in tournaments is harming 96 % of the player base (diamond, plat, gold, silver, bronze)...
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
How ironic would it be if more foreign players, like Lilbow, go to Blizzcon after practicing only, like, 2 games.
I am still waiting for the win he was training for This Karma thing is gorgeous
And the first part - yeah, "we fucked the best players, but we are doing what's best for the players" - I think that's just a pure PR meaningless talk. What is she supposed to say? We fucked Koreans, we applied racist rule, we haven't released book rules yet, but ... we are doing the best for players. Do you want to buy Nova campaign?
The old system harmed the regional players (major playerbase). Either way, you harm someone. The goal is to grow sc2 globally and to give everyone the same chance. That wont happen, when foreigners are not motivated to practise, because they have no chance to earn money. Once foreigners are good enough, we can open the competition again.
They will never be good enough with the poor habits and work ethic a lot of them have. Sorry. That has been a problem since the 90s. Rewarding bad habits is a pity. The thing is it doesn't have to be that way. There is a way to fine a happy medium but instead you shit the bed with a lot of players and these people will never come back. I don't mind the whole regional stuff like the WCG but when you block players and put all sorts of region locks on just about everything else you're giving them no reason to continue. A lot of these players were continuing for the experience and to make money. You disallow the best players to make money and they will go elsewhere.
The guys who went back to BW are making more money than a lot of the current SC2 players. It's frigging sad.
On March 07 2016 21:45 JimmyJRaynor wrote: That headline is fucking brilliant... absolutely fucking brilliant. a tip of my chapeau to the wise man who decided to make that the headline of this interview.
"We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft." the ultimate in passive-voice, oblique statements. can it get any worse?
"We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft." sounds like a left-wing, grassroots labour/democratic party talking about the economy. "we are trying to make sure we are doing what's best for the economy by funding government projects"
"We are trying to make sure we are doing what’s best for StarCraft." sounds like the lazy husband/wife whose relationship is spinning out of control saying... "i was hoping to try my best to make my marriage hopefully work if that is possible"
the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
the haters have clearly pounded Ms. Phan into defense-mode during interviews and that's sad. i prefer teh fuck-you atttitudes of guys like Pardo and Browder.
Did you ever think that maybe the simple explanation for this would be that they are trying to do what they believe is best for Starcraft, instead of your weird "they've pounded her into passiveness" explanation? With that being said, TL forums have turned into what Blizzard forums were years ago at the start of WoL. Hardly any useful discussion with an abundance of emotional opinions, but then again, the mods were super strict at that time. I long for a return to the olden days
On June 01 2016 17:07 Ingvar wrote: Yup, as expected, no global events, not enough tournaments in Korea (where are these Kespa cups, huh?). Blizzard is killing Korean scene which is very stupid in the long term because foreign scene is unreliable and undedicated, it will die withiout Blizzard's help.
This is the part that really doesn't make sense to me.
Why is Blizzard continuing to implement policies that harm the Korean scene when it's the only one that has anything resembling self reliance?
the foreign scene has been since 2012 on Blizzard's life support. It can't exist without its help. So why continue to try and prop it up at the cost of the Korean scene? It doesn't make sense. You're hurting your actual scene trying to force something to exist that doesn't really want to.
Because of that word that is banned in this thread.
It's an absolute joke that a Korean player can make more for himself these days by going back to BW rather than staying in the current system. Meanwhile the viewership numbers keep going down, down, down.
We are trying to make sure we are doing... what’s best for the players.
When she says they are doing what's best for the "players," I guess she is really referring to the foreign players. I mean, they really fucked over a lot of passionate and highly-skilled Korean players with their region-lock.
How ironic would it be if more foreign players, like Lilbow, go to Blizzcon after practicing only, like, 2 games.
I am still waiting for the win he was training for This Karma thing is gorgeous
And the first part - yeah, "we fucked the best players, but we are doing what's best for the players" - I think that's just a pure PR meaningless talk. What is she supposed to say? We fucked Koreans, we applied racist rule, we haven't released book rules yet, but ... we are doing the best for players. Do you want to buy Nova campaign?
The old system harmed the regional players (major playerbase). Either way, you harm someone. The goal is to grow sc2 globally and to give everyone the same chance. That wont happen, when foreigners are not motivated to practise, because they have no chance to earn money. Once foreigners are good enough, we can open the competition again.
They will never be good enough with the poor habits and work ethic a lot of them have. Sorry. That has been a problem since the 90s. Rewarding bad habits is a pity. The thing is it doesn't have to be that way. There is a way to fine a happy medium but instead you shit the bed with a lot of players and these people will never come back. I don't mind the whole regional stuff like the WCG but when you block players and put all sorts of region locks on just about everything else you're giving them no reason to continue. A lot of these players were continuing for the experience and to make money. You disallow the best players to make money and they will go elsewhere.
The guys who went back to BW are making more money than a lot of the current SC2 players. It's frigging sad.
Only a handfull of Stars are doing really well in the BW scene. In case you haven't paid attention, the competitions for BW aren't exactly the most glamorous thing on the planet this year.
And I don't think this system has anything to do with them retiring. The only one who recently left and is 'doing well' in BW is Flash and he had already decided to leave SC2.
On December 04 2016 15:00 dgwow wrote: Not sure if this is the best place to post this but, has there been any official comment by Blizzard about all of the Korean teams disbanding?
How do we grow pro players and give them the chance to shine and to show they truly are skilled? It’s wonderful to see all the best players of the world play and not just Korea—certainly the best of the best in StarCraft is in Korea, no doubt about it—, but there is a best of the best in StarCraft all over the world as well and we wanted to be able to put a spotlight on that
EPT
This Karma thing is gorgeous 
.
