On September 08 2016 22:48 The_Red_Viper wrote: So yeah i am with you, for this specific scenario region locking didn't help to make sc2 grow, but nothing really would i think. First you would need more actual players, aka potential viewers.
This is really the linchpin of any potential "fix" if you ask me.
That's why I'm super hopeful, because what Blizzard is doing right now is releasing a ton of co-op content, which apparently is quite successful. They're looking into some fundamental re-designs of the game itself, as well. If they're looking to make Starcraft a fun game before making it a successful esport, then I think that things are going to go swimmingly.
They'd be redoing what they did with Hearthstone, which is getting active new content, new game modes, etc.
I think if we want to be perfectly fair and honest with ourselves, we need to realize that Starcraft 2 and Brood War were both the precursors of eSports in the first place. Korean Brood War was the first eSport, Blizzard realized the potential and tried to recreate that at a global level with Starcraft 2. Their goal is something which was somewhat unprecedented, you have to admit, right?
Starcraft 2 is the game which took on the brunt of the R&D around making a successful esport. You can kind of see it in how the game was designed and how WCS was formed. I think that Blizzard are in the process of applying the lessons which have been learned before: they're making Starcraft 2 a game which is fundamentally fun to play, rather than being a spectator's game. This means more copies of Starcraft are sold and there's a higher player base, which translates to a higher viewer base.
Which is why the daedgaem circle jerk is asinine. You can see how the game is getting more and more fun, how Blizzard is doing things better and better. The crux is, in my opinion, the LOTV redesign which is in store. I'm super pumped for this.
The growth isn't quite there yet, but I think it's coming. I do however want to point out that the artificial welfare measures which are being requested by ESL, Dreamhack and foreigners are more detrimental than beneficial to the scene. Laugh all you want, but Kespa and Afreeca are doing a lot of good for Starcraft right now.
All in all, 2016 was a quirky year for Starcraft. I really enjoyed the Korean scene this year, especially the BW resurgence. Hopefully in 2017 things are even better and we get some growth.
On September 08 2016 23:19 The_Red_Viper wrote: I will stop now though, TL is just too hardcore into korean sc2 to even discuss these things here. Which is (as i said before) funny because i couldn't care less about foreign sc2 myself. That doesn't mean that i am unable to grasp the concept though -.-
Actually we are having a discussion here. You just seem to have difficulty coping with the fact that some people did not take your "truths" for granted just like you didnt take ours. Discussion doesnt necessarily lead to both sides agreeing on something. This does not mean that either opinion is wrong. But i guess im just too hardcore to be reasonable.
Im not trolling and i dont know how you got that notion. I may be exaggerating and this is because this subject is really bugging me. I have no idea how you come to think that without the region lock there wouldnt be any events at all. You cannot deliver proof for such a statement and therefor its just speculative bullshit. Besides that i didnt watch IEM, Dreamhack etc this year since i wasnt interested in these. So from my limited perspective there were no such events this year.
It´s been said and hinted at several occasions. The most recent and perhaps most freely spoken by Incontrol just a couple of days ago at . Start listening at ~59 minutes. Or I can write his exact words here:
"Alot of the partners of event went to Blizzard in 2015 and 2016 and said; If you dont change how things are going we´re not gonna run Starcraft. Its not worth it for us anymore."
I don´t how you can get a clearer message than that.
Well then that basically means it's the death of the foreigner Starcraft scene because let's not kid ourselves, outside of Korea this was a shit, uninteresting year for Starcraft, at least for me personally. I'm not really bothered to watch Polt beat foreigners, or watch Polt lose to himself when he plays against foreigners. It's not interesting.
Obscure foreigners whose face I can't even picture (is that the definition of faceless?) are winning tournaments which I'm not even bothering to watch in the first place. If I want to know what Nerchio, Neeb or Showtime look like, I need to google it. I'm mostly familiar with the Korean players who are all around PL, GSL, ASL and S2L. I recognize more readily the faces of players like Organ, Shuttle, Sharp, etc. as well.
Sounds harsh, but that's how it is. Berate me all you want, but the only Starcraft I'm ever going to bother allocating my limited free time to watching is the kind being played at the highest level of cutting edge. I'm going to watch Brood War VODs and enjoy them (mostly due to the infectious enthusiasm from Tastosis).
Nope. That's how I see it.
Realistically speaking, there should have been regional events from the get-go. A mix of regional events for every region and some international events as well. That way foreigners could have had their "growth", which is basically them practicing the game 4 hours a day, sucking at it, but still winning things because everyone sucks. I don't know how some fans would identify to that, but if they do, well whatever.
I don't know. I watched a Nerchio vs Neeb bo5 in some foreign tournament which was way more high level than a proleague ZvP between two decent KR players. Like after watching Nerchio vs Neeb I thought this korean ZvP was too shitty to watch, I even felt like the zerg was matchfixing seeing how painfully bad it was.
Maybe you just don't have a clue about what is high level starcraft and what is not, so you just watch korean starcraft because on average it's better, but you miss out quite a lot doing that.
To be quite frank, I'm sure that top foreigners are legitimately good at the game. I'd say that the best foreigners are probably close to Code S level.
That said, maybe you're confusing "high level" and "close match". I don't know, but I'm not really going to assume that the foreigner scene is worth a damn until we get foreigners doing well. The foreigner scene is a giant meme to me, with Lilbow holding the meme conch until his successor appears next Blizzcon. When we get foreigners who take Koreans to town at their own game, let's talk. In the mean time it's objectively true that ESL and Dreamhack cried to Blizzard about region-locking Koreans because foreigners are too crappy at the game (and they even say as much, amirite uthermal) to play with the big boys.
If foreigner Starcraft really is worth a damn then we wouldn't need to block out only Koreans from playing the game at international, open events.
Proleague is something special, it's something else in its own. It's downright entertaining, not only because of the games, but because it's fun to cheer for a team (rather than just a player). I'm a Jinair fanboy because I love my boy Maru, but I'm still cheering for Jinair players whenever they play.
Also, for sure the Korean scene gets its share of shitty games. Look at Zest's most recent PL match. I still don't get it and this is the current GSL champion we're talking about here. Was that high level play? Fuck no. In fact many, many Korean games are bops. They're shitty games which end in less than 5 minutes because one player fucked up. Why is that, you ask?
Most likely because Koreans win to play the game, foreigners play to not lose. So you get cutting edge matches out of Koreans, down to the wire because they're doing everything they can to cinch a win. When I watch a foreigner game (granted, I haven't seen any in a while) I don't get the same vibes at all.
In the mean time, I'm not going to get vibes or nerd chills watching foreign Starcraft if I know that right off the bat, tournaments are hosted in a way to keep out of overall best players in the world. Are you telling me I'm supposed to get excited for tournaments which have been explicitly watered down to protect foreigners from Koreans? Maybe YOU can get excited for that and maybe YOU can tell yourself that you're watching amazing Starcraft. Me? I can't.
These are my views and remarks. I hope tournament organizers read this and think things over. There's nothing wrong with regional tournaments, on the contrary, that's a good idea. However having ONLY regional tournaments is stupid as fuck, you'd want still at least 2 or 3 international, open events. Of which this year we're going to get 2, I believe. Homestory Cup and Kespa Cup. One got cock-blocked by Blizzard in that it can't give WCS points, the other interferes with Copa America (whatever it's called, also why the fuck are Euros playing in it??) so that it's not a realistically good tournament for foreigners to attend.
There's no IEM Global event or Dreamhack Open and I will rightfully lament that.
On September 08 2016 18:15 opisska wrote:Unless you are a prodigy like Stephano or Polt, you need to train full time to be even remotely good
Are you telling me that Team Liquid is NOT paying for airline tickets and NOT allowing their players to practice full time? Are TL players required to work part-time sewing TL t-shirts to be allowed to practice? Does Millenium ask that players specifically limit the amount of practice they get, so as to save money on internet bills? Does Euronics not pay players their rent?
Serious question: are players salaried at all? Korean or foreigner?
I don't know. I think it's a bit cheap to say that foreigners don't have the same opportunities to practice as Koreans. Especially when LOTV came out and a kind of soft-reset took place.
I would say that the best foreigners are easily Code S level. The reason I say that is because the players who were beaten in Code A are people like Bunny, Trust, jjakji, Symbol, Stork, Sorry, Billowy, Armani, Pet, and Reality, These are all players that I think the top foreigners can beat or have already beaten.
The problem is that the people who come over to foreigner tournaments are generally not the low Code S/low Code Korean players; they are the high level ones or people who have won GSLs. So it's not that the foreign scene is so terrible, it's just that they cannot yet compete against the very highest level of Korean competition. Perhaps if only lower level Koreans came over, foreigners might have a better chance against them.
And you're right. Proleague is really something special because you get to cheer for more than one person. You cheer for the group (somewhat regardless of race), kind of like when I cheer for Canadians in SC2 despite being a heavy Protoss fan.
And yes, sometimes there are bad Korean games because players play strategies that will win (or fail horribly) rather than just safe builds. But at the same time, some high level players play games that are just bad. And it's not that one person made one or a few mistakes and then lost, it's that the entire game was riddled with errors by both players. And there have been those in the Korean scene. I'm thinking like with Patience in the SSL or MyuNgSiK in the GSL. These games are not really cutting edge because it's more like two people hammering at each other with blunt knives.
As for sick nerd chills, I guess I would ask if you get nerd chills while watching Code A/low Code S players duking it out. Your assertion that you cannot see foreigner games as amazing is revealing because I see no reason why foreigners cannot, on occasion, produce some amazing games. It's not as if I'm watching WCS Summer and being like, "This is the best starcraft ever!" But this does not preclude the possibility that I watch or even expect some very good starcraft play.
Also, there are actually four/five (including Blizzcon) global events this year. WCA and WESG are Chinese-sponsored global tournaments. Oh, and Copa is being called "WCS Copa Intercontinental," so that's why...
In any case, I don't think it's cheap to say that Koreans get more opportunities to practice because there are actually competitive teams and coaches in Korea. I do not believe that any foreign teams are set up in the same way. It's like how it's easier to get better in hockey in Canada versus hockey in China because hockey is one of the most popular sports here. Yes, talent does make a difference, and you still have to work hard, but you will not have the same benefit of working in an environment that actively fosters competitive play at the highest level.
Ultimately, I definitely respect your reasoning to support Korean SC2 and less so the system that Blizzard brought in. It's not that you don't want foreigners to do well, you just don't want to have mainly foreigner only tournaments at the expense of the better Starcraft 2 scene.
But that being said, I think you should take a step back and look at a high level foreign match and then look at a Code S match without any top 16 Koreans in it and ask yourself if they are so radically different. Perhaps they are on another level, but it seems to me that if Koreans really were on another level to even the best foreigners, then foreigners would not have much chance going against Koreans online. If the difference is that great, then even if Koreans are not playing as hard, they should still win.
On September 08 2016 23:19 The_Red_Viper wrote: I will stop now though, TL is just too hardcore into korean sc2 to even discuss these things here. Which is (as i said before) funny because i couldn't care less about foreign sc2 myself. That doesn't mean that i am unable to grasp the concept though -.-
I think you´re exactly right. Random guys who take trophies and can´t be arsed to say anything more than "I will try harder for my fans" are terrible for storylines. It´s just that it´s always been like this in Starcraft. I believe this is why people go absolutely crazy for foreigner who are able to compete with Koreans like Stephano or Scarlett. They´re so much more relatable, and sports without emotional attachment will never attract "the masses". I mean, trying to feel something for a guy like Stats, how much more desperate could one get?
And another thing that makes Korean Starcraft much more attractive to me and I assume a couple of other people:
The format. With GSL/SSL/PL I get a chunk of 2-4 hours on one day. I can watch that and stay informed. But weekend tournaments have just way too much playtime cramped into a weekend. I loved to watch that all day when I didn´t have a job. But now, I don´t watch any of it, because it´s way too much effort time-wise to really get into it. But of course, the weekend tournament are the only possible format for everyone outside Seoul. Doesn´t make it better, though.
I agree with the gist of your post, I see the sense in what you say and you're right that I'm perhaps unfairly assuming that foreigner players are bad; they're bad compared to the absolute cream of the cream. I should regardless still be interested in watching said cream play.
I'll just nit pick at a few details, otherwise I agree with the gist of it.
Your assertion that you cannot see foreigner games as amazing is revealing because I see no reason why foreigners cannot, on occasion, produce some amazing games. It's not as if I'm watching WCS Summer and being like, "This is the best starcraft ever!" But this does not preclude the possibility that I watch or even expect some very good starcraft play.
Yeah, I can see the sense in that. I'm a casual fan and not a good player, so maybe I can't pick up on quality as well as others. I still sense that
Also, there are actually four/five (including Blizzcon) global events this year. WCA and WESG are Chinese-sponsored global tournaments. Oh, and Copa is being called "WCS Copa Intercontinental," so that's why...
I didn't know that Korea was in fact not a part of the Asian continent, though I'll be sure to brush on my geography.
I don't include Blizzcon as a global event because it's not open, players are invited based on WCS points which is fallacy to me since not everyone gets the same opportunities. I'm talking about open events when I bitch on the forums, which Blizzcon is not.
Ultimately, I definitely respect your reasoning to support Korean SC2 and less so the system that Blizzard brought in. It's not that you don't want foreigners to do well, you just don't want to have mainly foreigner only tournaments at the expense of the better Starcraft 2 scene.
Yes, that's mostly it. I attach importance to actual open events too. To me there's a lot of hype in seeing a tournament where anyone can sign up. Screw the visa / resident issues, the borderline racist "we want white people holding trophies because that's what marketing is for", the region locking, qualifiers, rule books, and other stuff. I really love the events where it's simple: you can sign up as long as you play Starcraft. Open events are my favorite, I really think that anything can happen in those. Hence my lamenting that we get less and less of them.
But that being said, I think you should take a step back and look at a high level foreign match and then look at a Code S match without any top 16 Koreans in it and ask yourself if they are so radically different. Perhaps they are on another level, but it seems to me that if Koreans really were on another level to even the best foreigners, then foreigners would not have much chance going against Koreans online. If the difference is that great, then even if Koreans are not playing as hard, they should still win.
You're right on this one: you could even take it a step further and say that those top 16 are able to effectively siphon the entire scene of its cash if they could. Arguably they deserve it, since they're at the top of the game. Surely they don't. What I would have loved to see, for example, is just one for Korea in WCS Copa. That would have been great. Unfortunately we can't have that due to WCS points and the system.
On September 08 2016 23:03 Charoisaur wrote: Even if you're right and koreans aren't as marketable in the western scene I don't think this has much to do with the current state of sc2. the game just has to few players to attract high viewer numbers. regionlock/no regionlock doesn't really make a difference there.
I think it even has the highest rate of viewers per players out of all the esports so saying regionlock is the reason for low viewer numbers is pretty wrong.
Pretty much this, all the region lock this year did was hurt viewership numbers or kept them stagnant because the people who wanted to see the best players refused to watch, offsetting the numbers that came in.
Or if you compare it to what the championships replaced, the WCS season finals. More than half the audience found something better to do.
Im not trolling and i dont know how you got that notion. I may be exaggerating and this is because this subject is really bugging me. I have no idea how you come to think that without the region lock there wouldnt be any events at all. You cannot deliver proof for such a statement and therefor its just speculative bullshit. Besides that i didnt watch IEM, Dreamhack etc this year since i wasnt interested in these. So from my limited perspective there were no such events this year.
It´s been said and hinted at several occasions. The most recent and perhaps most freely spoken by Incontrol just a couple of days ago at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAN8qUY67ns. Start listening at ~59 minutes. Or I can write his exact words here:
"Alot of the partners of event went to Blizzard in 2015 and 2016 and said; If you dont change how things are going we´re not gonna run Starcraft. Its not worth it for us anymore."
I don´t how you can get a clearer message than that.
Well then that basically means it's the death of the foreigner Starcraft scene because let's not kid ourselves, outside of Korea this was a shit, uninteresting year for Starcraft, at least for me personally. I'm not really bothered to watch Polt beat foreigners, or watch Polt lose to himself when he plays against foreigners. It's not interesting.
Obscure foreigners whose face I can't even picture (is that the definition of faceless?) are winning tournaments which I'm not even bothering to watch in the first place. If I want to know what Nerchio, Neeb or Showtime look like, I need to google it. I'm mostly familiar with the Korean players who are all around PL, GSL, ASL and S2L. I recognize more readily the faces of players like Organ, Shuttle, Sharp, etc. as well.
Sounds harsh, but that's how it is. Berate me all you want, but the only Starcraft I'm ever going to bother allocating my limited free time to watching is the kind being played at the highest level of cutting edge. I'm going to watch Brood War VODs and enjoy them (mostly due to the infectious enthusiasm from Tastosis).
Nope. That's how I see it.
Realistically speaking, there should have been regional events from the get-go. A mix of regional events for every region and some international events as well. That way foreigners could have had their "growth", which is basically them practicing the game 4 hours a day, sucking at it, but still winning things because everyone sucks. I don't know how some fans would identify to that, but if they do, well whatever.
I don't know. I watched a Nerchio vs Neeb bo5 in some foreign tournament which was way more high level than a proleague ZvP between two decent KR players. Like after watching Nerchio vs Neeb I thought this korean ZvP was too shitty to watch, I even felt like the zerg was matchfixing seeing how painfully bad it was.
Maybe you just don't have a clue about what is high level starcraft and what is not, so you just watch korean starcraft because on average it's better, but you miss out quite a lot doing that.
To be quite frank, I'm sure that top foreigners are legitimately good at the game. I'd say that the best foreigners are probably close to Code S level.
That said, maybe you're confusing "high level" and "close match". I don't know, but I'm not really going to assume that the foreigner scene is worth a damn until we get foreigners doing well. The foreigner scene is a giant meme to me, with Lilbow holding the meme conch until his successor appears next Blizzcon. When we get foreigners who take Koreans to town at their own game, let's talk. In the mean time it's objectively true that ESL and Dreamhack cried to Blizzard about region-locking Koreans because foreigners are too crappy at the game (and they even say as much, amirite uthermal) to play with the big boys.
If foreigner Starcraft really is worth a damn then we wouldn't need to block out only Koreans from playing the game at international, open events.
Proleague is something special, it's something else in its own. It's downright entertaining, not only because of the games, but because it's fun to cheer for a team (rather than just a player). I'm a Jinair fanboy because I love my boy Maru, but I'm still cheering for Jinair players whenever they play.
Also, for sure the Korean scene gets its share of shitty games. Look at Zest's most recent PL match. I still don't get it and this is the current GSL champion we're talking about here. Was that high level play? Fuck no. In fact many, many Korean games are bops. They're shitty games which end in less than 5 minutes because one player fucked up. Why is that, you ask?
Most likely because Koreans win to play the game, foreigners play to not lose. So you get cutting edge matches out of Koreans, down to the wire because they're doing everything they can to cinch a win. When I watch a foreigner game (granted, I haven't seen any in a while) I don't get the same vibes at all.
In the mean time, I'm not going to get vibes or nerd chills watching foreign Starcraft if I know that right off the bat, tournaments are hosted in a way to keep out of overall best players in the world. Are you telling me I'm supposed to get excited for tournaments which have been explicitly watered down to protect foreigners from Koreans? Maybe YOU can get excited for that and maybe YOU can tell yourself that you're watching amazing Starcraft. Me? I can't.
These are my views and remarks. I hope tournament organizers read this and think things over. There's nothing wrong with regional tournaments, on the contrary, that's a good idea. However having ONLY regional tournaments is stupid as fuck, you'd want still at least 2 or 3 international, open events. Of which this year we're going to get 2, I believe. Homestory Cup and Kespa Cup. One got cock-blocked by Blizzard in that it can't give WCS points, the other interferes with Copa America (whatever it's called, also why the fuck are Euros playing in it??) so that it's not a realistically good tournament for foreigners to attend.
There's no IEM Global event or Dreamhack Open and I will rightfully lament that.
On September 08 2016 18:15 opisska wrote:Unless you are a prodigy like Stephano or Polt, you need to train full time to be even remotely good
Are you telling me that Team Liquid is NOT paying for airline tickets and NOT allowing their players to practice full time? Are TL players required to work part-time sewing TL t-shirts to be allowed to practice? Does Millenium ask that players specifically limit the amount of practice they get, so as to save money on internet bills? Does Euronics not pay players their rent?
Serious question: are players salaried at all? Korean or foreigner?
I don't know. I think it's a bit cheap to say that foreigners don't have the same opportunities to practice as Koreans. Especially when LOTV came out and a kind of soft-reset took place.
I would say that the best foreigners are easily Code S level. The reason I say that is because the players who were beaten in Code A are people like Bunny, Trust, jjakji, Symbol, Stork, Sorry, Billowy, Armani, Pet, and Reality, These are all players that I think the top foreigners can beat or have already beaten.
not sure about that. maybe foreigners have improved this year (online results are different than offline results) but last year some of the worst koreans could still dominate foreign tournaments. wiki.teamliquid.net wiki.teamliquid.net
Im not trolling and i dont know how you got that notion. I may be exaggerating and this is because this subject is really bugging me. I have no idea how you come to think that without the region lock there wouldnt be any events at all. You cannot deliver proof for such a statement and therefor its just speculative bullshit. Besides that i didnt watch IEM, Dreamhack etc this year since i wasnt interested in these. So from my limited perspective there were no such events this year.
It´s been said and hinted at several occasions. The most recent and perhaps most freely spoken by Incontrol just a couple of days ago at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAN8qUY67ns. Start listening at ~59 minutes. Or I can write his exact words here:
"Alot of the partners of event went to Blizzard in 2015 and 2016 and said; If you dont change how things are going we´re not gonna run Starcraft. Its not worth it for us anymore."
I don´t how you can get a clearer message than that.
Well then that basically means it's the death of the foreigner Starcraft scene because let's not kid ourselves, outside of Korea this was a shit, uninteresting year for Starcraft, at least for me personally. I'm not really bothered to watch Polt beat foreigners, or watch Polt lose to himself when he plays against foreigners. It's not interesting.
Obscure foreigners whose face I can't even picture (is that the definition of faceless?) are winning tournaments which I'm not even bothering to watch in the first place. If I want to know what Nerchio, Neeb or Showtime look like, I need to google it. I'm mostly familiar with the Korean players who are all around PL, GSL, ASL and S2L. I recognize more readily the faces of players like Organ, Shuttle, Sharp, etc. as well.
Sounds harsh, but that's how it is. Berate me all you want, but the only Starcraft I'm ever going to bother allocating my limited free time to watching is the kind being played at the highest level of cutting edge. I'm going to watch Brood War VODs and enjoy them (mostly due to the infectious enthusiasm from Tastosis).
Nope. That's how I see it.
Realistically speaking, there should have been regional events from the get-go. A mix of regional events for every region and some international events as well. That way foreigners could have had their "growth", which is basically them practicing the game 4 hours a day, sucking at it, but still winning things because everyone sucks. I don't know how some fans would identify to that, but if they do, well whatever.
I don't know. I watched a Nerchio vs Neeb bo5 in some foreign tournament which was way more high level than a proleague ZvP between two decent KR players. Like after watching Nerchio vs Neeb I thought this korean ZvP was too shitty to watch, I even felt like the zerg was matchfixing seeing how painfully bad it was.
Maybe you just don't have a clue about what is high level starcraft and what is not, so you just watch korean starcraft because on average it's better, but you miss out quite a lot doing that.
To be quite frank, I'm sure that top foreigners are legitimately good at the game. I'd say that the best foreigners are probably close to Code S level.
That said, maybe you're confusing "high level" and "close match". I don't know, but I'm not really going to assume that the foreigner scene is worth a damn until we get foreigners doing well. The foreigner scene is a giant meme to me, with Lilbow holding the meme conch until his successor appears next Blizzcon. When we get foreigners who take Koreans to town at their own game, let's talk. In the mean time it's objectively true that ESL and Dreamhack cried to Blizzard about region-locking Koreans because foreigners are too crappy at the game (and they even say as much, amirite uthermal) to play with the big boys.
If foreigner Starcraft really is worth a damn then we wouldn't need to block out only Koreans from playing the game at international, open events.
Proleague is something special, it's something else in its own. It's downright entertaining, not only because of the games, but because it's fun to cheer for a team (rather than just a player). I'm a Jinair fanboy because I love my boy Maru, but I'm still cheering for Jinair players whenever they play.
Also, for sure the Korean scene gets its share of shitty games. Look at Zest's most recent PL match. I still don't get it and this is the current GSL champion we're talking about here. Was that high level play? Fuck no. In fact many, many Korean games are bops. They're shitty games which end in less than 5 minutes because one player fucked up. Why is that, you ask?
Most likely because Koreans win to play the game, foreigners play to not lose. So you get cutting edge matches out of Koreans, down to the wire because they're doing everything they can to cinch a win. When I watch a foreigner game (granted, I haven't seen any in a while) I don't get the same vibes at all.
In the mean time, I'm not going to get vibes or nerd chills watching foreign Starcraft if I know that right off the bat, tournaments are hosted in a way to keep out of overall best players in the world. Are you telling me I'm supposed to get excited for tournaments which have been explicitly watered down to protect foreigners from Koreans? Maybe YOU can get excited for that and maybe YOU can tell yourself that you're watching amazing Starcraft. Me? I can't.
These are my views and remarks. I hope tournament organizers read this and think things over. There's nothing wrong with regional tournaments, on the contrary, that's a good idea. However having ONLY regional tournaments is stupid as fuck, you'd want still at least 2 or 3 international, open events. Of which this year we're going to get 2, I believe. Homestory Cup and Kespa Cup. One got cock-blocked by Blizzard in that it can't give WCS points, the other interferes with Copa America (whatever it's called, also why the fuck are Euros playing in it??) so that it's not a realistically good tournament for foreigners to attend.
There's no IEM Global event or Dreamhack Open and I will rightfully lament that.
On September 08 2016 18:15 opisska wrote:Unless you are a prodigy like Stephano or Polt, you need to train full time to be even remotely good
Are you telling me that Team Liquid is NOT paying for airline tickets and NOT allowing their players to practice full time? Are TL players required to work part-time sewing TL t-shirts to be allowed to practice? Does Millenium ask that players specifically limit the amount of practice they get, so as to save money on internet bills? Does Euronics not pay players their rent?
Serious question: are players salaried at all? Korean or foreigner?
I don't know. I think it's a bit cheap to say that foreigners don't have the same opportunities to practice as Koreans. Especially when LOTV came out and a kind of soft-reset took place.
I would say that the best foreigners are easily Code S level. The reason I say that is because the players who were beaten in Code A are people like Bunny, Trust, jjakji, Symbol, Stork, Sorry, Billowy, Armani, Pet, and Reality, These are all players that I think the top foreigners can beat or have already beaten.
not sure about that. maybe foreigners have improved this year (online results are different than offline results) but last year some of the worst koreans could still dominate foreign tournaments. wiki.teamliquid.net wiki.teamliquid.net
And that's why I'm saying that the foreigners have improved this year. Also, the Asus one actually proves my point because drogo won against lower level Koreans, and he also won versus Code A Koreans. Yes, he lost to Losira (Code S), but a 4-2 score isn't bad, and I don't really think that drogo was the best foreigner last year either. So when you have lower level Koreans and Code A level Koreans instead of top 16/8 Code S Koreans, foreigners don't do so poorly.
As for Gfinity, yes, it is Code A players winning against the best foreigners. However, uThermal and Lilbow both won a game against their opponents, so I don't really consider this "domination" by Koreans seeing as there were three Koreans in an 8 person tournament (so already really small) and one of the Koreans was beaten, and the other two Koreans won 2-1 against their respective opponents.
Also, there are actually four/five (including Blizzcon) global events this year. WCA and WESG are Chinese-sponsored global tournaments. Oh, and Copa is being called "WCS Copa Intercontinental," so that's why...
I didn't know that Korea was in fact not a part of the Asian continent, though I'll be sure to brush on my geography.
I don't include Blizzcon as a global event because it's not open, players are invited based on WCS points which is fallacy to me since not everyone gets the same opportunities. I'm talking about open events when I bitch on the forums, which Blizzcon is not.
Ultimately, I definitely respect your reasoning to support Korean SC2 and less so the system that Blizzard brought in. It's not that you don't want foreigners to do well, you just don't want to have mainly foreigner only tournaments at the expense of the better Starcraft 2 scene.
Yes, that's mostly it. I attach importance to actual open events too. To me there's a lot of hype in seeing a tournament where anyone can sign up. Screw the visa / resident issues, the borderline racist "we want white people holding trophies because that's what marketing is for", the region locking, qualifiers, rule books, and other stuff. I really love the events where it's simple: you can sign up as long as you play Starcraft. Open events are my favorite, I really think that anything can happen in those. Hence my lamenting that we get less and less of them.
But that being said, I think you should take a step back and look at a high level foreign match and then look at a Code S match without any top 16 Koreans in it and ask yourself if they are so radically different. Perhaps they are on another level, but it seems to me that if Koreans really were on another level to even the best foreigners, then foreigners would not have much chance going against Koreans online. If the difference is that great, then even if Koreans are not playing as hard, they should still win.
You're right on this one: you could even take it a step further and say that those top 16 are able to effectively siphon the entire scene of its cash if they could. Arguably they deserve it, since they're at the top of the game. Surely they don't. What I would have loved to see, for example, is just one for Korea in WCS Copa. That would have been great. Unfortunately we can't have that due to WCS points and the system.
Interestingly, I have to say that Open events were always my least favourite events because they were usually dreamhack events, (and my favourite Protoss Koreans somehow usually lost at these ones...), because the fewer number of games in an IEM meant that all the matches I wanted to see were casted. Also, I think that the level of Koreans was higher in the IEM, but that's just my opinion...
And yeah, I was quite disappointed when I found out that all the IEMs would no longer have herO, and the top 16 definitely deserves to win the most money, which, through this system, they may not. (Though, WCA and WESG have yet to be played).
So we want to see the best Koreans, but we can't see them unless we also have really good foreigners, and we can't see those until their skill equalizes. I agree with what was said here in that Blizzard's attempts may unfortunately be too little too late. They never implemented a system that guaranteed some amount of income for foreigners. If they aren't successful, then they cannot sustain themselves playing SC2.
Im not trolling and i dont know how you got that notion. I may be exaggerating and this is because this subject is really bugging me. I have no idea how you come to think that without the region lock there wouldnt be any events at all. You cannot deliver proof for such a statement and therefor its just speculative bullshit. Besides that i didnt watch IEM, Dreamhack etc this year since i wasnt interested in these. So from my limited perspective there were no such events this year.
It´s been said and hinted at several occasions. The most recent and perhaps most freely spoken by Incontrol just a couple of days ago at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAN8qUY67ns. Start listening at ~59 minutes. Or I can write his exact words here:
"Alot of the partners of event went to Blizzard in 2015 and 2016 and said; If you dont change how things are going we´re not gonna run Starcraft. Its not worth it for us anymore."
I don´t how you can get a clearer message than that.
Well then that basically means it's the death of the foreigner Starcraft scene because let's not kid ourselves, outside of Korea this was a shit, uninteresting year for Starcraft, at least for me personally. I'm not really bothered to watch Polt beat foreigners, or watch Polt lose to himself when he plays against foreigners. It's not interesting.
Obscure foreigners whose face I can't even picture (is that the definition of faceless?) are winning tournaments which I'm not even bothering to watch in the first place. If I want to know what Nerchio, Neeb or Showtime look like, I need to google it. I'm mostly familiar with the Korean players who are all around PL, GSL, ASL and S2L. I recognize more readily the faces of players like Organ, Shuttle, Sharp, etc. as well.
Sounds harsh, but that's how it is. Berate me all you want, but the only Starcraft I'm ever going to bother allocating my limited free time to watching is the kind being played at the highest level of cutting edge. I'm going to watch Brood War VODs and enjoy them (mostly due to the infectious enthusiasm from Tastosis).
Nope. That's how I see it.
Realistically speaking, there should have been regional events from the get-go. A mix of regional events for every region and some international events as well. That way foreigners could have had their "growth", which is basically them practicing the game 4 hours a day, sucking at it, but still winning things because everyone sucks. I don't know how some fans would identify to that, but if they do, well whatever.
I don't know. I watched a Nerchio vs Neeb bo5 in some foreign tournament which was way more high level than a proleague ZvP between two decent KR players. Like after watching Nerchio vs Neeb I thought this korean ZvP was too shitty to watch, I even felt like the zerg was matchfixing seeing how painfully bad it was.
Maybe you just don't have a clue about what is high level starcraft and what is not, so you just watch korean starcraft because on average it's better, but you miss out quite a lot doing that.
To be quite frank, I'm sure that top foreigners are legitimately good at the game. I'd say that the best foreigners are probably close to Code S level.
That said, maybe you're confusing "high level" and "close match". I don't know, but I'm not really going to assume that the foreigner scene is worth a damn until we get foreigners doing well. The foreigner scene is a giant meme to me, with Lilbow holding the meme conch until his successor appears next Blizzcon. When we get foreigners who take Koreans to town at their own game, let's talk. In the mean time it's objectively true that ESL and Dreamhack cried to Blizzard about region-locking Koreans because foreigners are too crappy at the game (and they even say as much, amirite uthermal) to play with the big boys.
If foreigner Starcraft really is worth a damn then we wouldn't need to block out only Koreans from playing the game at international, open events.
Proleague is something special, it's something else in its own. It's downright entertaining, not only because of the games, but because it's fun to cheer for a team (rather than just a player). I'm a Jinair fanboy because I love my boy Maru, but I'm still cheering for Jinair players whenever they play.
Also, for sure the Korean scene gets its share of shitty games. Look at Zest's most recent PL match. I still don't get it and this is the current GSL champion we're talking about here. Was that high level play? Fuck no. In fact many, many Korean games are bops. They're shitty games which end in less than 5 minutes because one player fucked up. Why is that, you ask?
Most likely because Koreans win to play the game, foreigners play to not lose. So you get cutting edge matches out of Koreans, down to the wire because they're doing everything they can to cinch a win. When I watch a foreigner game (granted, I haven't seen any in a while) I don't get the same vibes at all.
In the mean time, I'm not going to get vibes or nerd chills watching foreign Starcraft if I know that right off the bat, tournaments are hosted in a way to keep out of overall best players in the world. Are you telling me I'm supposed to get excited for tournaments which have been explicitly watered down to protect foreigners from Koreans? Maybe YOU can get excited for that and maybe YOU can tell yourself that you're watching amazing Starcraft. Me? I can't.
These are my views and remarks. I hope tournament organizers read this and think things over. There's nothing wrong with regional tournaments, on the contrary, that's a good idea. However having ONLY regional tournaments is stupid as fuck, you'd want still at least 2 or 3 international, open events. Of which this year we're going to get 2, I believe. Homestory Cup and Kespa Cup. One got cock-blocked by Blizzard in that it can't give WCS points, the other interferes with Copa America (whatever it's called, also why the fuck are Euros playing in it??) so that it's not a realistically good tournament for foreigners to attend.
There's no IEM Global event or Dreamhack Open and I will rightfully lament that.
On September 08 2016 18:15 opisska wrote:Unless you are a prodigy like Stephano or Polt, you need to train full time to be even remotely good
Are you telling me that Team Liquid is NOT paying for airline tickets and NOT allowing their players to practice full time? Are TL players required to work part-time sewing TL t-shirts to be allowed to practice? Does Millenium ask that players specifically limit the amount of practice they get, so as to save money on internet bills? Does Euronics not pay players their rent?
Serious question: are players salaried at all? Korean or foreigner?
I don't know. I think it's a bit cheap to say that foreigners don't have the same opportunities to practice as Koreans. Especially when LOTV came out and a kind of soft-reset took place.
I would say that the best foreigners are easily Code S level. The reason I say that is because the players who were beaten in Code A are people like Bunny, Trust, jjakji, Symbol, Stork, Sorry, Billowy, Armani, Pet, and Reality, These are all players that I think the top foreigners can beat or have already beaten.
not sure about that. maybe foreigners have improved this year (online results are different than offline results) but last year some of the worst koreans could still dominate foreign tournaments. wiki.teamliquid.net wiki.teamliquid.net
And that's why I'm saying that the foreigners have improved this year. Also, the Asus one actually proves my point because drogo won against lower level Koreans, and he also won versus Code A Koreans. Yes, he lost to Losira (Code S), but a 4-2 score isn't bad, and I don't really think that drogo was the best foreigner last year either. So when you have lower level Koreans and Code A level Koreans instead of top 16/8 Code S Koreans, foreigners don't do so poorly.
I was more referring to the fact that B4 and Keen (2 Prime players who couldn't win a single map in proleague) and apocalypse (who?) got to the playoffs ahead of Snute, Lilbow, Bunny (the 3 top foreigners at the time) Uthermal and Mlord.
Im not trolling and i dont know how you got that notion. I may be exaggerating and this is because this subject is really bugging me. I have no idea how you come to think that without the region lock there wouldnt be any events at all. You cannot deliver proof for such a statement and therefor its just speculative bullshit. Besides that i didnt watch IEM, Dreamhack etc this year since i wasnt interested in these. So from my limited perspective there were no such events this year.
It´s been said and hinted at several occasions. The most recent and perhaps most freely spoken by Incontrol just a couple of days ago at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAN8qUY67ns. Start listening at ~59 minutes. Or I can write his exact words here:
"Alot of the partners of event went to Blizzard in 2015 and 2016 and said; If you dont change how things are going we´re not gonna run Starcraft. Its not worth it for us anymore."
I don´t how you can get a clearer message than that.
Well then that basically means it's the death of the foreigner Starcraft scene because let's not kid ourselves, outside of Korea this was a shit, uninteresting year for Starcraft, at least for me personally. I'm not really bothered to watch Polt beat foreigners, or watch Polt lose to himself when he plays against foreigners. It's not interesting.
Obscure foreigners whose face I can't even picture (is that the definition of faceless?) are winning tournaments which I'm not even bothering to watch in the first place. If I want to know what Nerchio, Neeb or Showtime look like, I need to google it. I'm mostly familiar with the Korean players who are all around PL, GSL, ASL and S2L. I recognize more readily the faces of players like Organ, Shuttle, Sharp, etc. as well.
Sounds harsh, but that's how it is. Berate me all you want, but the only Starcraft I'm ever going to bother allocating my limited free time to watching is the kind being played at the highest level of cutting edge. I'm going to watch Brood War VODs and enjoy them (mostly due to the infectious enthusiasm from Tastosis).
Nope. That's how I see it.
Realistically speaking, there should have been regional events from the get-go. A mix of regional events for every region and some international events as well. That way foreigners could have had their "growth", which is basically them practicing the game 4 hours a day, sucking at it, but still winning things because everyone sucks. I don't know how some fans would identify to that, but if they do, well whatever.
I don't know. I watched a Nerchio vs Neeb bo5 in some foreign tournament which was way more high level than a proleague ZvP between two decent KR players. Like after watching Nerchio vs Neeb I thought this korean ZvP was too shitty to watch, I even felt like the zerg was matchfixing seeing how painfully bad it was.
Maybe you just don't have a clue about what is high level starcraft and what is not, so you just watch korean starcraft because on average it's better, but you miss out quite a lot doing that.
To be quite frank, I'm sure that top foreigners are legitimately good at the game. I'd say that the best foreigners are probably close to Code S level.
That said, maybe you're confusing "high level" and "close match". I don't know, but I'm not really going to assume that the foreigner scene is worth a damn until we get foreigners doing well. The foreigner scene is a giant meme to me, with Lilbow holding the meme conch until his successor appears next Blizzcon. When we get foreigners who take Koreans to town at their own game, let's talk. In the mean time it's objectively true that ESL and Dreamhack cried to Blizzard about region-locking Koreans because foreigners are too crappy at the game (and they even say as much, amirite uthermal) to play with the big boys.
If foreigner Starcraft really is worth a damn then we wouldn't need to block out only Koreans from playing the game at international, open events.
Proleague is something special, it's something else in its own. It's downright entertaining, not only because of the games, but because it's fun to cheer for a team (rather than just a player). I'm a Jinair fanboy because I love my boy Maru, but I'm still cheering for Jinair players whenever they play.
Also, for sure the Korean scene gets its share of shitty games. Look at Zest's most recent PL match. I still don't get it and this is the current GSL champion we're talking about here. Was that high level play? Fuck no. In fact many, many Korean games are bops. They're shitty games which end in less than 5 minutes because one player fucked up. Why is that, you ask?
Most likely because Koreans win to play the game, foreigners play to not lose. So you get cutting edge matches out of Koreans, down to the wire because they're doing everything they can to cinch a win. When I watch a foreigner game (granted, I haven't seen any in a while) I don't get the same vibes at all.
In the mean time, I'm not going to get vibes or nerd chills watching foreign Starcraft if I know that right off the bat, tournaments are hosted in a way to keep out of overall best players in the world. Are you telling me I'm supposed to get excited for tournaments which have been explicitly watered down to protect foreigners from Koreans? Maybe YOU can get excited for that and maybe YOU can tell yourself that you're watching amazing Starcraft. Me? I can't.
These are my views and remarks. I hope tournament organizers read this and think things over. There's nothing wrong with regional tournaments, on the contrary, that's a good idea. However having ONLY regional tournaments is stupid as fuck, you'd want still at least 2 or 3 international, open events. Of which this year we're going to get 2, I believe. Homestory Cup and Kespa Cup. One got cock-blocked by Blizzard in that it can't give WCS points, the other interferes with Copa America (whatever it's called, also why the fuck are Euros playing in it??) so that it's not a realistically good tournament for foreigners to attend.
There's no IEM Global event or Dreamhack Open and I will rightfully lament that.
On September 08 2016 18:15 opisska wrote:Unless you are a prodigy like Stephano or Polt, you need to train full time to be even remotely good
Are you telling me that Team Liquid is NOT paying for airline tickets and NOT allowing their players to practice full time? Are TL players required to work part-time sewing TL t-shirts to be allowed to practice? Does Millenium ask that players specifically limit the amount of practice they get, so as to save money on internet bills? Does Euronics not pay players their rent?
Serious question: are players salaried at all? Korean or foreigner?
I don't know. I think it's a bit cheap to say that foreigners don't have the same opportunities to practice as Koreans. Especially when LOTV came out and a kind of soft-reset took place.
I would say that the best foreigners are easily Code S level. The reason I say that is because the players who were beaten in Code A are people like Bunny, Trust, jjakji, Symbol, Stork, Sorry, Billowy, Armani, Pet, and Reality, These are all players that I think the top foreigners can beat or have already beaten.
not sure about that. maybe foreigners have improved this year (online results are different than offline results) but last year some of the worst koreans could still dominate foreign tournaments. wiki.teamliquid.net wiki.teamliquid.net
And that's why I'm saying that the foreigners have improved this year. Also, the Asus one actually proves my point because drogo won against lower level Koreans, and he also won versus Code A Koreans. Yes, he lost to Losira (Code S), but a 4-2 score isn't bad, and I don't really think that drogo was the best foreigner last year either. So when you have lower level Koreans and Code A level Koreans instead of top 16/8 Code S Koreans, foreigners don't do so poorly.
I was more referring to the fact that B4 and Keen (2 Prime players who couldn't win a single map in proleague) and apocalypse (who?) got to the playoffs ahead of Snute, Lilbow, Bunny (the 3 top foreigners at the time) Uthermal and Mlord.
Right, but the only thing is that uThermal lost against drogo and then to Keen, so he lost against a Code A level player, who, by the way, was 3-4 in proleague around that time. Lilbow lost to Fantasy and TRUE, who were both good players at that time despite not making it into Code S.
Then yes, Bunny and MarineLorD lost against Apocalypse, so that is a bit of a surprise there. But the thing is that Bunny was in a bit of a slump at that time, having done fairly poorly in a number of tournaments, and he never made it into WCS season 3.
And yes, Snute lost to B4, so that was a decently big surprise. Let's recap:
Lilbow lost to 2 Code A players (who were definitely Code S level) Bunny was in a slump and lost to Apocalypse Snute lost to B4 (Definite upset) Uthermal lost to runner up and Keen (3-4 proleague, Code A) MarineLorD lost to Apocalypse (Decent upset)
So was it that much of a surprise? I'd say it was somewhat unexpected for Lilbow to not get further, but I'd say the odds were not really for him, and I'd not really take this tournament as example of weak Koreans dominating the top foreigners.
So... let me get this straight. You guys have been arguing for like 5 pages with a guy that doesn't think that foreigner SC2 players are any good this year despite the fact that he has clearly said multiple times that he does even watch them because he thinks they're not any good.
Now, I'm not the sharpest tool in the drawer but there seems to be something inherently illogical about this whole thing.
On September 09 2016 12:32 breaker1328 wrote: So... let me get this straight. You guys have been arguing for like 5 pages with a guy that doesn't think that foreigner SC2 players are any good this year despite the fact that he has clearly said multiple times that he does even watch them because he thinks they're not any good.
Now, I'm not the sharpest tool in the drawer but there seems to be something inherently illogical about this whole thing.
What's wrong with some healthy discussion?
I also just need to look at some liquipedia and judge from there. Then there's also foreigners THEMSELVES whining that Koreans are too good and shouldn't be allowed to play in international tournaments.
Doesn't take a sharp tool to figure out that foreigners aren't very good at the game. I'll literally just take them up on their word.
On September 09 2016 14:27 Hok wrote: I have a genuine question...
How does region lock make foreigners get better? Or was region lock done for a money thing.
Was having Koreans win tournaments not good for money?
I'm asking what the root thought process was behind tournament organizers doing this.
The region locking was done probably for money purposes, as helping foreign scene grow would only increase the amount of revenue coming in, but the region lock helps foreigners in two important ways.
First, they can now obtain a more sustainable income. A lot of the previous pros left because they were consistently stalled at a certain point in the tournaments, and so by enabling the remaining pros to earn a good living, they are more motivated to do well instead of being concerned with their financial situation.
Secondly, they can now play against people that are closer to their skill level. People will scoff and say that you can only become the best if you play the best, but they ignore the fact that you can't become the best if the best are miles ahead of you and will generally stomp all over you. If you're a junior hockey player, you don't generally play with the pros for the simple reason that you will usually get crushed. That's why playing people who are close or a little bit above you, the bar is more reachable.
For Koreans, the problem is that Sc2 is not like Sc1 or BW. There, the scene was primarily in Korea, whereas Starcraft 2 now is very global. The problem with having the Koreans dominating is that the rest of the scene dies, and this represents a serious loss for the sponsors of the competitive Starcraft 2 scene.
This is what I think they were considering when they decided to region lock everything. They knew the scene, especially the foreign one was dying, but the choice was to either super sponsor Korea (where it is far less popular) or sponsor it everywhere else (where it is like in the top ten of popular esports currently).
On September 09 2016 12:32 breaker1328 wrote: So... let me get this straight. You guys have been arguing for like 5 pages with a guy that doesn't think that foreigner SC2 players are any good this year despite the fact that he has clearly said multiple times that he does even watch them because he thinks they're not any good.
Now, I'm not the sharpest tool in the drawer but there seems to be something inherently illogical about this whole thing.
What's wrong with some healthy discussion?
I also just need to look at some liquipedia and judge from there. Then there's also foreigners THEMSELVES whining that Koreans are too good and shouldn't be allowed to play in international tournaments.
Doesn't take a sharp tool to figure out that foreigners aren't very good at the game. I'll literally just take them up on their word.
Also, I like arguing with people I may not disagree because it can lead to some good discussions, and it is also enlightening to hear people's points of view beyond simply "WCS welfare" or "foreigners suck" or "WCS sucks."
Also there's that implicit desire for a person to "win" a debate which has like never happened here.
On September 09 2016 14:27 Hok wrote: I have a genuine question...
How does region lock make foreigners get better? Or was region lock done for a money thing.
Was having Koreans win tournaments not good for money?
I'm asking what the root thought process was behind tournament organizers doing this.
To be honest, it was probably primarily a money thing. As incontrol claimed tournaments were pressuring blizzard into it in an attempt to raise viewership.
As far as improved play, uThermal mentioned how being in the ro32 and never advancing because of Koreans is not helpful. And to an extent I see where he comes from, but at the same time EU showed us that Koreans are the best things that can happen to foreigners. When Mvp and MC and MMA and First and all these great players were coming to live in EU, we saw several europeans become much better. Those skilled players and environments came to them! They had the ability to hone their skills against GSL winners on ladder and there was significant improvement.
Honestly it's a matter of how hard you want to work.
On September 09 2016 14:27 Hok wrote: I have a genuine question...
How does region lock make foreigners get better? Or was region lock done for a money thing.
Was having Koreans win tournaments not good for money?
I'm asking what the root thought process was behind tournament organizers doing this.
To be honest, it was probably primarily a money thing. As incontrol claimed tournaments were pressuring blizzard into it in an attempt to raise viewership.
As far as improved play, uThermal mentioned how being in the ro32 and never advancing because of Koreans is not helpful. And to an extent I see where he comes from, but at the same time EU showed us that Koreans are the best things that can happen to foreigners. When Mvp and MC and MMA and First and all these great players were coming to live in EU, we saw several europeans become much better. Those skilled players and environments came to them! They had the ability to hone their skills against GSL winners on ladder and there was significant improvement.
Honestly it's a matter of how hard you want to work.
I think that almost everyone acknowledges how 2013/2014 WCS improved EU, however the problem was that the same just didn't happen in America.
On September 09 2016 14:27 Hok wrote: I have a genuine question...
How does region lock make foreigners get better? Or was region lock done for a money thing.
Was having Koreans win tournaments not good for money?
I'm asking what the root thought process was behind tournament organizers doing this.
To be honest, it was probably primarily a money thing. As incontrol claimed tournaments were pressuring blizzard into it in an attempt to raise viewership.
As far as improved play, uThermal mentioned how being in the ro32 and never advancing because of Koreans is not helpful. And to an extent I see where he comes from, but at the same time EU showed us that Koreans are the best things that can happen to foreigners. When Mvp and MC and MMA and First and all these great players were coming to live in EU, we saw several europeans become much better. Those skilled players and environments came to them! They had the ability to hone their skills against GSL winners on ladder and there was significant improvement.
Honestly it's a matter of how hard you want to work.
I think that almost everyone acknowledges how 2013/2014 WCS improved EU, however the problem was that the same just didn't happen in America.
I think the issue was that the majority of Koreans didn't live there. They played in the qualifiers, but they didn't increase the competitive scene there unlike the Koreans in Europe.
Also, I think the key to words are "some" Koreans. Back in 2013, you had fewer Koreans coming over to play in WCS than in 2014. I don't think the European foreign scene improved as much during 2014 because of this. Also of note is that the best Koreans generally did not come over to the WCS regions. Yes, there were the Polts, Taejas, Bombers, and forGGs, but in general the best Koreans stayed in Korea.
The only system that worked well for both Koreans and foreigners was probably: "One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."
EPT
