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On August 30 2018 03:08 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2018 02:51 Vutalisk wrote:
Gap closing or not I feel Korean scene is just falling apart (IMO dying). Zero new bloods and several old faces are on the way out to military service. They can't even fill Ro32 of GSL anymore. Pretty much same faces every single tournament. Many of them seem to have a hard time this year (some already retired). Maru is god and all but he seems to benefit so much from such a weak battlefield. I never thought Korean scene comes down to the point Maru needed to proxy rax twice in a row to win vs KeeN. Maru vs Zest GSL final is the worst final in years. The Stats/TY/sOs group was nothing but a battle of cheeses. There is new blood but we don't see them because they have to compete for the remaining Code S spots with ~10 foreign pros.
You are so biased it's actually incredible. Because yes there are 10 foreigners that are qualifying each Code S, and there was a lot of new blood coming before the foreigner/Noregret teamhouse took place. /s
There are enough Korean mid-tier players to ensure there's no new blood in the competition. That won't change. What korea could use for example, aside people magically wanting to play Sc2 instead of BW, is
- Prizepools redistributed towards lower places instead of rewarding only the top tier achievers. That GSL top tier distribution of prizepool has to stop. 36k for 1st and 14k for 2nd is absurd and dumb. You could make miracles by taking a slight bit of it and redistribute it more towards lower rank and give a reason for people to tryhard. Same can be said for blizzcon or even WCS tournaments.
- This same money could otherwise be used to finance a lower league, that would only be accessible to people not qualifying to Ro32 of GSL. And of course this lower league would have earnings that are lower than what you get by qualifying for Ro32 code S, but that would still motivate a lot more people to play, and not be negative for people qualifying for Code S.
It's really desillusional to think that someone could suddenly begin to play starcraft 2, and in a matter of months or in 1 year being Ro32 lvl player. That's stupid and that won't happen today when the competition is so stack (and yes the skill level of korea is stacked af). And don't forget that BW and Sc2 are in direct competition in Korea.
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Czech Republic12132 Posts
On August 30 2018 05:31 Fbaby wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2018 03:08 Charoisaur wrote:On August 30 2018 02:51 Vutalisk wrote:
Gap closing or not I feel Korean scene is just falling apart (IMO dying). Zero new bloods and several old faces are on the way out to military service. They can't even fill Ro32 of GSL anymore. Pretty much same faces every single tournament. Many of them seem to have a hard time this year (some already retired). Maru is god and all but he seems to benefit so much from such a weak battlefield. I never thought Korean scene comes down to the point Maru needed to proxy rax twice in a row to win vs KeeN. Maru vs Zest GSL final is the worst final in years. The Stats/TY/sOs group was nothing but a battle of cheeses. There is new blood but we don't see them because they have to compete for the remaining Code S spots with ~10 foreign pros. You are so biased it's actually incredible. Because yes there are 10 foreigners that are qualifying each Code S, and there was a lot of new blood coming before the foreigner/Noregret teamhouse took place. /s There are enough Korean mid-tier players to ensure there's no new blood in the competition. That won't change. What korea could use for example, aside people magically wanting to play Sc2 instead of BW, is - Prizepools redistributed towards lower places instead of rewarding only the top tier achievers. That GSL top tier distribution of prizepool has to stop. 36k for 1st and 14k for 2nd is absurd and dumb. You could make miracles by taking a slight bit of it and redistribute it more towards lower rank and give a reason for people to tryhard. Same can be said for blizzcon or even WCS tournaments. - This same money could otherwise be used to finance a lower league, that would only be accessible to people not qualifying to Ro32 of GSL. And of course this lower league would have earnings that are lower than what you get by qualifying for Ro32 code S, but that would still motivate a lot more people to play, and not be negative for people qualifying for Code S. It's really desillusional to think that someone could suddenly begin to play starcraft 2, and in a matter of months or in 1 year being Ro32 lvl player. That's stupid and that won't happen today when the competition is so stack (and yes the skill level of korea is stacked af). And don't forget that BW and Sc2 are in direct competition in Korea.
He didn't write there are 10 foreigners in the GSL ro32, he said they are in the qualifications 
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On August 30 2018 05:31 Fbaby wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2018 03:08 Charoisaur wrote:On August 30 2018 02:51 Vutalisk wrote:
Gap closing or not I feel Korean scene is just falling apart (IMO dying). Zero new bloods and several old faces are on the way out to military service. They can't even fill Ro32 of GSL anymore. Pretty much same faces every single tournament. Many of them seem to have a hard time this year (some already retired). Maru is god and all but he seems to benefit so much from such a weak battlefield. I never thought Korean scene comes down to the point Maru needed to proxy rax twice in a row to win vs KeeN. Maru vs Zest GSL final is the worst final in years. The Stats/TY/sOs group was nothing but a battle of cheeses. There is new blood but we don't see them because they have to compete for the remaining Code S spots with ~10 foreign pros. You are so biased it's actually incredible. Because yes there are 10 foreigners that are qualifying each Code S, and there was a lot of new blood coming before the foreigner/Noregret teamhouse took place. /s There are enough Korean mid-tier players to ensure there's no new blood in the competition. That won't change. What korea could use for example, aside people magically wanting to play Sc2 instead of BW, is - Prizepools redistributed towards lower places instead of rewarding only the top tier achievers. That GSL top tier distribution of prizepool has to stop. 36k for 1st and 14k for 2nd is absurd and dumb. You could make miracles by taking a slight bit of it and redistribute it more towards lower rank and give a reason for people to tryhard. Same can be said for blizzcon or even WCS tournaments. - This same money could otherwise be used to finance a lower league, that would only be accessible to people not qualifying to Ro32 of GSL. And of course this lower league would have earnings that are lower than what you get by qualifying for Ro32 code S, but that would still motivate a lot more people to play, and not be negative for people qualifying for Code S. It's really desillusional to think that someone could suddenly begin to play starcraft 2, and in a matter of months or in 1 year being Ro32 lvl player. That's stupid and that won't happen today when the competition is so stack (and yes the skill level of korea is stacked af). And don't forget that BW and Sc2 are in direct competition in Korea.
What has that to do with bias? It's just the truth. If you don't believe me then just take a look at the recent gsl qualifiers.
There is new blood and with the decreasing number of korean pros they would have a shot at qualifying if it weren't for the foreign pros who take all the remaining spots.
 2018 Global StarCraft II League Season 1/Qualifier
Dandy, Rookie, Prince and Natural are the names I recognize and know that they are high-ish GM on KR.
Because yes there are 10 foreigners that are qualifying each Code S, and there was a lot of new blood coming before the foreigner/Noregret teamhouse took place.
I mean, yes. In the first GSL 2017 DRGling and Nightmare qualified and since then there have been more retirements so even more newcomers would have a shot at qualifying.
But to fit the narrative that the one-sided regionlock isn't hurting anyone I guess it's just better to close the eyes and pretend like there's 0 newcomers in korea.
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I really can't empathize with people that say that region lock is a success because they feel better about watching region locked events. A lot of people will not watch SC2 anymore if the Korean scene dies - have fun with your dead game after Maru and Innovation move to BW. The arrogance is astounding - I'm never going to watch a WCS event (other than Blizzcon), and that will never change.
BW is back, and real RTS fans always have a place to go if SC2 goes down the drain.
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On August 30 2018 08:20 Rodya wrote:
A lot of people will not watch SC2 anymore if the Korean scene dies .
This might sadly be true
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maru and innovation will never move to BW and i can't see you joking about that either.
if the rest of your opinions follow that line of logic then you can continue to miss out the great WCS events you could have been watching because they're very much enjoyable each time.
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On August 30 2018 02:51 Vutalisk wrote:
I never thought Korean scene comes down to the point Maru needed to proxy rax twice in a row to win vs KeeN.
You can't be serious right? Maru proxy raxes everyone, regardless of how good they are. Out of his 10 games in gsl this season, i think 7 or 8 have been proxies. Just because he does it doesn't mean he needs to.
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On August 30 2018 08:20 Rodya wrote:
I really can't empathize with people that say that region lock is a success because they feel better about watching region locked events. A lot of people will not watch SC2 anymore if the Korean scene dies
But the opposite is true. When foreigners perform better, the viewership has gone up. Viewership for WCS Valencia and GSL vs the World have been off the charts compared to previous years.
This belief that SC2 has to have a thriving scene in Korea is nonsense. Other successful games out there don't require a single country to keep the popularity of the game up. What matters is total viewership.
SC2 always had poor Korean viewership. If foreigners take over the SC2 scene, it may possibly lead to higher SC2 viewership numbers overall.
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I definitely think the gap has closed a lot, it's just a weird position now since the scene really isn't that big any more. I think it might be best to just have it totally open at this point. GSL and WCS can still run similarly, but anyone can play anywhere. I don't think tons of Koreans are going to fly across the globe for a small shot at winning. Maybe the top 8 koreans?
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Not only the gap has closed, but in case of European vs Korean Zergs it exceeded Koreans. Esoecially after this season of Code S, I feel like foreign Zergs understand the meta much better. Serral is the main proof, but the rest of Foreing Zergs still look much better than soO, Dark or Rogue. In Rogue vs Neeb series at GSL, Rogue, who's supposed to be the best Zerg in Korea just looked clueless. Sad but true.
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On August 30 2018 04:59 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2018 04:08 IshinShishi wrote:On August 30 2018 02:45 Bagration wrote:On August 30 2018 01:25 Waxangel wrote:
You could come up with all sorts of statistical evidence to prove the gap has closed or not.
But for the purposes of most StarCraft II viewers, it just doesn't FEEL as shitty to be a fan of foreign pros anymore, which is what really matters at the end of the day. That's right - nowadays, if you were to watch a WCS event or other foreign tournament, it doesn't feel like watching a minor league anymore, when you know that players like Serral and Neeb are top players. Back during peak Korean dominance, if you couldn't get a few Koreans, there was little interest in a tournament made up of just foreigners. It's all about perception, and now the perception is shifting towards NA / EU not having an inferior product to KR The problem is that the product is now homogenized, and its a shitty one, the level of play has been on a consistent decline, almost to a point where a diehard fan just doesn't feel like watching it anymore. Huh? The skill level is higher than ever. All players are constantly improving.
For foreigners? Sure, I can see that perspective. I feel like we're even seeing a bit of an established hierarchy where it's easier than ever to pinpoint the top players of their respective races with Serral and Neeb having an arguably even higher peak than Stephano.
Korea though? Absolutely not, it's almost inarguable if you ask me. Players are not constantly improving. For instance, Bogus has yet to go on his usual rampage this year and soO is now going out in the ro32 to the likes of Keen (only made one ro8 in his career) and Special (who he destroyed at Blizzcon). Every year of HotS was far more competitive than this; Ryung making a GSL semis in HotS would've been unheard of (who hadn't had any notable results since 2012). I'd even go as far to say that from q3 2011 onward, pre-Kespa WoL was more cutthroat than what we have now.
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On August 30 2018 15:32 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2018 04:59 Charoisaur wrote:On August 30 2018 04:08 IshinShishi wrote:On August 30 2018 02:45 Bagration wrote:On August 30 2018 01:25 Waxangel wrote:
You could come up with all sorts of statistical evidence to prove the gap has closed or not.
But for the purposes of most StarCraft II viewers, it just doesn't FEEL as shitty to be a fan of foreign pros anymore, which is what really matters at the end of the day. That's right - nowadays, if you were to watch a WCS event or other foreign tournament, it doesn't feel like watching a minor league anymore, when you know that players like Serral and Neeb are top players. Back during peak Korean dominance, if you couldn't get a few Koreans, there was little interest in a tournament made up of just foreigners. It's all about perception, and now the perception is shifting towards NA / EU not having an inferior product to KR The problem is that the product is now homogenized, and its a shitty one, the level of play has been on a consistent decline, almost to a point where a diehard fan just doesn't feel like watching it anymore. Huh? The skill level is higher than ever. All players are constantly improving. For foreigners? Sure, I can see that perspective. I feel like we're even seeing a bit of an established hierarchy where it's easier than ever to pinpoint the top players of their respective races with Serral and Neeb having an arguably even higher peak than Stephano. Korea though? Absolutely not, it's almost inarguable if you ask me. Players are not constantly improving. For instance, Bogus has yet to go on his usual rampage this year and soO is now going out in the ro32 to the likes of Keen (only made one ro8 in his career) and Special (who he destroyed at Blizzcon). Every year of HotS was far more competitive than this; Ryung making a GSL semis in HotS would've been unheard of (who hadn't had any notable results since 2012). I'd even go as far to say that from q3 2011 onward, pre-Kespa WoL was more cutthroat than what we have now.
Sorry, I forgot the /s.
I was making fun of the crowd around Artosis who always repeat this "highest skilled era" thing.
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On August 30 2018 13:31 xelnaga_empire wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2018 08:20 Rodya wrote:
I really can't empathize with people that say that region lock is a success because they feel better about watching region locked events. A lot of people will not watch SC2 anymore if the Korean scene dies But the opposite is true. When foreigners perform better, the viewership has gone up. Viewership for WCS Valencia and GSL vs the World have been off the charts compared to previous years. This belief that SC2 has to have a thriving scene in Korea is nonsense. Other successful games out there don't require a single country to keep the popularity of the game up. What matters is total viewership. SC2 always had poor Korean viewership. If foreigners take over the SC2 scene, it may possibly lead to higher SC2 viewership numbers overall.
This so much. It is much more fun to watch now when the best foreigners can actually compete against the best koreans.
SC2 is actually in a better state than it has been for several years:
1. The number of players have not been this high for several years thanks to free to play.
2. The number of viewers is increasing due to free to play and better foreigner players.
3. The game is balanced and the meta is in a good place.
A sport being dominated by a single country is never healthy. It is like current situation where Norway is dominating cross-country skiing completely (like talking 80+% of the medals every time). The only result is that the rest of world completely lose interest in the sport.
SC2 declining in Korea but increasing in the rest of the World is good for the game.
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You don't know for a fact that better foreign players lead to more viewers.
WCS tournaments get more viewers because of the timezones.
In global tournaments you don't see a dropoff in viewers once only koreans are left.
When koreans where flooding WCS EU and NA the viewership was much higher than now.
Not saying good foreigners don't lead to more viewers but it's just speculation. We have no data that suggests this is true.
A sport being dominated by a single country is never healthy.
LoL is being dominated by koreans too.
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If the goal were prioritizing views over all else, it is not entirely obvious that focusing on the development of the foreign scene (especially at the cost of the Korean scene) would be a great idea. One may well argue that instead, Blizzard should mainly focus on expanding SC2 in China, as the viewership numbers are really high and there is, thus a lot of potential in the Chinese scene. I'm pretty sure most people here would not accept or at the very least, like this proposition.
Personally, I think that the Korean scene may be small but it is also particularly valuable.The Korean scene has been such an important part of the history, perception and competition of SC2 that I think ignoring its decline could risk dire, unintended consequences. For example, if the scene were to keep declining, the Korean vs Foreigner narrative would eventually no longer exist. No doubt, this would be disastrous, as this story provides a significant motivation for many (if not most) viewers to continue to watch SC2. Consequently, I think for the sake of the viewers, both scenes deserve support and in particular, we should try to halt the decline of the Korean scene.
That being said, I can't help feeling that the outlook for the Korean scene will be bad even if Blizzard more actively assists the scene, as many Korean pros will retire within a few years.
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On August 30 2018 16:44 Charoisaur wrote:LoL is being dominated by koreans too.
Most sports are dominated by one country. Or at least a lot of them are. It doesn't have anything to do with health, the only thing that does is popularity.
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On August 30 2018 16:44 Charoisaur wrote:
You don't know for a fact that better foreign players lead to more viewers.
WCS tournaments get more viewers because of the timezones.
GSL vs the World got twice the viewers as it did last year. The time zone was the same as last year.
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On August 30 2018 20:46 xelnaga_empire wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2018 16:44 Charoisaur wrote:
You don't know for a fact that better foreign players lead to more viewers.
WCS tournaments get more viewers because of the timezones.
GSL vs the World got twice the viewers as it did last year. The time zone was the same as last year.
And 2013 WCS Europe used to get peaks of over 100k viewers despite being dominated by a handful of Koreans every time.
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This is incorrect. The gap between foreigners and Koreans has not closed. The gap between the 'fantastic foreigner four' (Neeb, Reynor, Scarlett and Serral) has closed, but that is it.
Overall still, Korean talent is 10 x deeper than the talent in the foreigner scene.
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Removing region lock would only end up in having at least 10 Koreans in top 16 of every tournament, and mostly the same top foreigners making money. Meaning the others would lose interest.
Best would be to fully lock, even Korean zone. One player is only allowed one of the two circuit, WCS or GSL.
It's the only way new players can succeed in Korea, and still the only way to maintain the EU and NA developing.
Maybe having a lot more cross region tournament would be great like in the beginning of WCS, where there was a global tournament each time
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EPT
