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On November 09 2019 20:47 dalecooper wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2019 18:00 Parser wrote:On November 09 2019 17:17 dalecooper wrote:On November 09 2019 16:54 Parser wrote:On November 09 2019 14:53 dalecooper wrote: If you want so see a growing scene then there is no need to have region lock. But if you are concerned about who is gonna win and what country is it... well then probably you are heavy addicted to region lock. I have heard enough about pros and cons from people ... even something like "i hate koreans or i hate foreginers they are sucks, they are took all money" and especially from casters (like ZG, Catz, NoRegret, etc). And it look like they are all preoccupied to their own business and concerned only about cash for themselves.
With region lock we have lost number of teams. There is no place to stability. We have lost big sponsors and environment as like as decent number of tournaments. We have lost dozen names. It's a stagnation. It's a stagnation under our present rules but also it's a degradation of human nature.
"The only way to get smarter is by playing a smarter opponent.” with open scene you can learn and be a teacher. Scene where is place to rule to not give a player a place to play just because he is better and have a passion is absurd.
I do not want to be rude but i think that you are not on point. To see a growing scene you need interest from public. You get interest if the game is appealing and if the public get engaged in the support mechanic (ie: finding someone to root for). About the appeal of the game there are few things that can be done, we are talking of a great game, but still it is 9 years old: there is not a great possibility it will appeal hundreds of thousands people that it has not appealed yet. About the supporting mechanic, like it or not, it is fundamental that there will be local heroes: we have seen (until the region lock was applied) that the koreans fails to appeal the western fans like foreigners. But to have real foreigners heroes they need to be on par with koreans, but to reach this objective, they have to have an incentive to become good, an incentive that nowadays is given by the wcs system, where the competition in the lower stages is far from the GSL level and so newer players can rise (a few names that come to my mind are Time and Clem). I firmly believe that the improvement in skill level in foregneirland is due to the WCS system. About team losses and such: we did not have proper teams anymore in WCS from ages, so i imagine you are speaking about korean team. Here the hard truth is simple that there is no support (or too small support) for SC2 in the korean audience, but this is not fault of the WCS system: they had the totality of the better players but they did not like the game (or they prefer other games, that in this reasoning is the same) so teams disbanded because of financial susteinability. So i would mantain the current system. If there is money available i will add more cross region tournaments. If you want to be "fair" i would exclude foreigners from GSL, but what i surely would not do is open the WCS to korean: it will not save korean scene and will falter foreigner scene. TLDR: WCS system has at least stabilized the foreigner scene, improving its skill level a lot. Korean scene is dieing not because the region lock but because lack of interest for the game there. See, nothing more than this. You have been stuck. You need to up your education. Have you tried to read Nietzsche "beyond good and evil"? chapter II. the free spirit. go and try. Ok, so it is simply a question of education. You have been stuck in an ideal world. Nothing wrong with that but i still prefer a quantitative/pragmatic vision. I think the fact here is that there is no new blood in korea since the kespa arrival, so their stagnation is indepent from the WCS. Furthermore, since WCS stating the foregneirs level of play has grown up. The only possible effects that i see in removing the lock is to stop the improvement of foreigners. So, keep the lock like it is. - Number of tournaments heavily decreased. No more Zotac cups, Corsair cups, ESL cups. Only one IEM, only one ASUS ROG (and it was only in 2019, and it was an international tournament). Environment is dead. - No more teams. Only mercenaries. Every single 3 month you can see a "new team". No stability. Teams with the story and legacy are dead. mYi, DP, EG, Millenium, EURONICS, Acer. No one want to invest or to have a starcraft 2 team today. - Sponsors. Where are the sponsors? Only chinese investors doing some great support. But where is your power ohh mighty foreigner hype companies? - Brownbear not so long ago at the PylonShow proved with some statistics that there is no hype even at GSL. Foreigners or Koreans it doesnt matter. And btw Noregret he was caught lying like you. Where is your numbers? You can go and check statistics. The best numbers at international tournaments when koreans playing vs non-korean players. - Back in 2014-2015. Have you remember number of viewers at twitch/justin? Dragon had 2k viewers. MC, INno, Polt were on top. - Even today, who can gather an audience? Who can be more real? Honestly. Maru, INno, ByuN, Polt, Zest. it's a self-damage. You have trying to protect yourself. This is human nature. You hiding your personal reasons and hate but telling people that's bad to have open scene. While simply you can't even count numbers. I'm sorry if i am too harsh. I'm not a fan of it at all.
We disagree about the causes of the present situation. For you is because of the lock, for me is simply because the natural decline of a 9 yrs old game and the lock has managed to at least stabilize the foreign scene.
-Tournament decreased because they are not profitable anymore, but their decrease started way before the region lock. The decrease of the total audience started around 2012, with MOBA great rise and i do not see how can you revert it. The fact is that RTS are a niche genre, too hard for the majority of the public and this won't change anytime soon. -Teams follow the same reasoning above: it is not 2011 anymore, there are other games that gather more attention by public and the money go to that games, simple as that. Again, it is not because of the lock. Furthermore, games that are currently on top of the esports scene (for example LOL) use a similar lock system (with the same good results in increasing the skill level of the "weaker" regions". -Sponsor: same as the above -Decaying viewers numbers is simple a consequence of decaying player number. It cannot realistically be stopped. Stop blaming the lock for this and maybe praise it for the kind of stable numbers that we are getting in 2018/2019 -I would say that there is no hype in GSL because there is no interest in SC2 in korea and because there is not a great interest for the same (highly skilled, but always the same) korean in the foreigner scene. -About the statistics i cannot found it now, but i am pretty certain that someone showed here on TL a viewers number statistics that showed that viewers numbers dip when there aren't foreigners remaining in a tournament. -I do not think that Maru, INno, ByuN, Polt, Zest and such gather great audiences (proof: the GSL is not flourishing at all). The only player I have said recently gathering an audience is Serral: the ASUS Rog 2019 has been possible only because of the interest raised by his success.
If a flow of korean will take 50-75% of the top positions in the WCS tournaments (percentage that i think is more than likely with the current skill level of the top pros) you only obtain to destroy the foreigner up and coming players that will not have any actual incentives to become better (because noone wants to train 8 hrs a day to be good at a game in which he is not earning nothing) and still you don't save the korean scene, because there has not been new player there for ages and is unlikely they will appear now.
So in a way you are right. There is a giant (korean scene) that is dying, but the cure is not to permit at that giant to slain the little fellow (foreigner scene) that is becoming stronger. To be more direct: if there will not be new programers there, the korean scene is going to die by lack of high level players. To revert this you would need an unlikely regrowing interest about SC2 in korea. So if it has to be, let that scene die and keep the scene that has shown glimpses of vitality.
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it's fucking pointless. As long as illiteracy exists we will heavily stagnate. Trying to prove a point to block the whole fucking country from global tournaments it's a fucking something from outer space. And it's only because we need to protect "non-korean" players. Jesus, even god can't help us. "The ONLY player that recently gathering an audience is Serral". That man is fucked up and still trying to prove that we need to believe in region lock. Damn he is good.
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Canada8764 Posts
I'd say yes cause it's the only thing keeping GSL alive, if korean players start to fly away to WCS event we will soon enough not have enough player in GSL. It's already hard to have a good round of 32
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On November 09 2019 22:54 dalecooper wrote: it's fucking pointless. As long as illiteracy exists we will heavily stagnate. Trying to prove a point to block the whole fucking country from global tournaments it's a fucking something from outer space. And it's only because we need to protect "non-korean" players. Jesus, even god can't help us. "The ONLY player that recently gathering an audience is Serral". That man is fucked up and still trying to prove that we need to believe in region lock. Damn he is good. I can not understand how can you not see that the koreans already have (and halways have had) an home tournaments, that is in a way softly locked to foreigners, because to compete in GSL you have to commit to stay in korea for month. So korean (a single country) do have 3 tournaments a year. The rest of the world has the same amount of prizepool split in 4 events (i would like to remark: one country as at its disposal around the same prizepool of the rest of the world). Plus there are a few cross region tornaments (where the korean tipically get the majority of the prizes, because they are still better than foreigners, at least in average). So you would like to destroy the opportunity of the foreigners pros (and the future one, because there is up and coming talent there) to sustain their careers in order to feed the koreans (that are going to disappear as long they reach their compulsory military age).
On a personal note: your continuous reference to illiteracy and such is frankly inappropriate, especially since you do not seem to have better argument than "the koreans are better, let them take all the prize pool".
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On November 09 2019 12:49 imstupidhahalolpants wrote: 2. The GSL must become a weekend tournament
Yeah I have actually been thinking about this question for a few days now, and have come to the conclusion that ideally region lock would be dismissed in favor of “subsidizing”, for a lack of a better word, the foreign scene.
However some indirectly related problems arise. Number one is how does the GSL exist in this world? You can’t expect all professional players to live in Korea if they are to be pro. And doing away with the current GSL format would make no one happy (eXcEpT ZeRgS lUl). I wish I could move past this hurdle to start considering all the other things that would need to be worked out, but this problem alone seems way too difficult to resolve.
I want both the GSL and no region lock, but those two things seem to not be able to coexist fairly.
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On November 09 2019 23:21 Parser wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2019 22:54 dalecooper wrote: it's fucking pointless. As long as illiteracy exists we will heavily stagnate. Trying to prove a point to block the whole fucking country from global tournaments it's a fucking something from outer space. And it's only because we need to protect "non-korean" players. Jesus, even god can't help us. "The ONLY player that recently gathering an audience is Serral". That man is fucked up and still trying to prove that we need to believe in region lock. Damn he is good. I can not understand how can you not see that the koreans already have (and halways have had) an home tournaments, that is in a way softly locked to foreigners, because to compete in GSL you have to commit to stay in korea for month. So korean (a single country) do have 3 tournaments a year. The rest of the world has the same amount of prizepool split in 4 events (i would like to remark: one country as at its disposal around the same prizepool of the rest of the world). Plus there are a few cross region tornaments (where the korean tipically get the majority of the prizes, because they are still better than foreigners, at least in average). So you would like to destroy the opportunity of the foreigners pros (and the future one, because there is up and coming talent there) to sustain their careers in order to feed the koreans (that are going to disappear as long they reach their compulsory military age). On a personal note: your continuous reference to illiteracy and such is frankly inappropriate, especially since you do not seem to have better argument than "the koreans are better, let them take all the prize pool". I'm sorry i was harsh,'cause i had read your post back from 2013. Kinda feels bad. I'm sorry once again, you have your opinion.
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Bisutopia19033 Posts
The only way to save Korea is the return of booth girls and kpop performances between games.
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On November 09 2019 16:54 Parser wrote: TLDR: WCS system has at least stabilized the foreigner scene, improving its skill level a lot. Korean scene is dieing not because the region lock but because lack of interest for the game there. This is fundamentally untrue and spread far too often by defenders of Region Lock. SC2 is about as popular in Korea as it is in most other countries. See the Whispers of Doom section in Brownbear's deep dive into Regionlocking issue: https://www.root4root.com/news/david-vs-goliath-an-in-depth-look-at-region-lock-in-starcraft-ii
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On November 09 2019 12:49 imstupidhahalolpants wrote:
2. The GSL must become a weekend tournament
I hate this idea.
The GSL as it is structured gives players opportunities to study each other and prepare for matches. That's why it is the hardest and most prestigious tournament out there. I'm fine with developing more weekend tourneys, but don't destroy what makes the GSL, and the Korean scene, special by turning the GSL into another foreigner-style blitz tournament.
EDIT:
I do want to support your first point, that prize pools need to be more evenly distributed. Junior-league tournaments wouldn't be a bad idea either.
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On November 09 2019 22:29 Parser wrote:
So in a way you are right. There is a giant (korean scene) that is dying, but the cure is not to permit at that giant to slain the little fellow (foreigner scene) that is becoming stronger. To be more direct: if there will not be new programers there, the korean scene is going to die by lack of high level players. To revert this you would need an unlikely regrowing interest about SC2 in korea. So if it has to be, let that scene die and keep the scene that has shown glimpses of vitality.
"Their scene is dying but they are still too good so we should choke them out instead of making us face them on the battlefield."
Ruthless. This is why I can't stand the foreigner scene. Like, why not, as a fan, celebrate the highest level of play attainable? Why, as fans of StarCraft, should we be punishing the best in the world for being too good, just so that players who look like us and talk like us can win? Yet here it is, the logical conclusion of region lock. It is worth it to choke out the best players so that we can finally win.
This is what has always bothered me about the region lock. I love the idea of local tournaments and there should be more of them. But if these "local" tournaments are going to be worth "points" that ultimately determine the best player in the world, it feels so cheap to ban the best players in the world.
There should be more local tournaments that are relegated to players of local scenes. But for WCS matches, get rid of the region lock.
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On November 10 2019 01:27 Brutaxilos wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2019 16:54 Parser wrote: TLDR: WCS system has at least stabilized the foreigner scene, improving its skill level a lot. Korean scene is dieing not because the region lock but because lack of interest for the game there. This is fundamentally untrue and spread far too often by defenders of Region Lock. SC2 is about as popular in Korea as it is in most other countries. See the Whispers of Doom section in Brownbear's deep dive into Regionlocking issue: https://www.root4root.com/news/david-vs-goliath-an-in-depth-look-at-region-lock-in-starcraft-ii I read the Brownbear text. It seems to support Parser, not disprove. Brownbear writes that Korean SC2 had decreased interest independent of region lock. So does Parser. Brownbear writes that foreigner top players are being rewarded more since the region lock. That is a sign of stabilizing the foreign scene, as Parser stated. Brownbear says that top-top foreigners are gaining on the Koreans a little bit, while Parser said that the skill level imrpoved a lot. Absolute skill level is not the same as relative skill level, but I think that they both mean relative to Koreans. Anyhow, Parser and Brownbear seem to say similar things. One say "a lot" and the other say "considerably".
Parser did not say anything about the popularity of SC2 in Korea relative to other countries. Parser's argument does not rely on relative popularity between nations. The argument is reliant on Korea now vs Korea before. Brownbear is not explicit, but seems to agree with Parser. Brownbear used number of price earners and wrote "the scene's sharpest decline occurred two years prior to region lock".
TL;DR Brutaxilos is wrong and supplied a source.
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On November 10 2019 02:43 Drfilip wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2019 01:27 Brutaxilos wrote:On November 09 2019 16:54 Parser wrote: TLDR: WCS system has at least stabilized the foreigner scene, improving its skill level a lot. Korean scene is dieing not because the region lock but because lack of interest for the game there. This is fundamentally untrue and spread far too often by defenders of Region Lock. SC2 is about as popular in Korea as it is in most other countries. See the Whispers of Doom section in Brownbear's deep dive into Regionlocking issue: https://www.root4root.com/news/david-vs-goliath-an-in-depth-look-at-region-lock-in-starcraft-ii I read the Brownbear text. It seems to support Parser, not disprove. Brownbear writes that Korean SC2 had decreased interest independent of region lock. So does Parser. Brownbear writes that foreigner top players are being rewarded more since the region lock. That is a sign of stabilizing the foreign scene, as Parser stated. Brownbear says that top-top foreigners are gaining on the Koreans a little bit, while Parser said that the skill level imrpoved a lot. Absolute skill level is not the same as relative skill level, but I think that they both mean relative to Koreans. Anyhow, Parser and Brownbear seem to say similar things. One say "a lot" and the other say "considerably". Parser did not say anything about the popularity of SC2 in Korea relative to other countries. Parser's argument does not rely on relative popularity between nations. The argument is reliant on Korea now vs Korea before. Brownbear is not explicit, but seems to agree with Parser. Brownbear used number of price earners and wrote "the scene's sharpest decline occurred two years prior to region lock". TL;DR Brutaxilos is wrong and supplied a source.
You have just anticipated me. Furthermore i would like to specify that I have nothing against korean. I simply think that they have the GSL and its prize pool goes almost completely to korean pros because the long duration of the tournament soft locks foreigners out. So my point is that to not have foreigners scene die it need its own tournament series (WCS in this case) to provide an incentive to train and get better. In the last years this has worked out. Finally, if we the scene had the money to state local tournaments to foster the scenes I would not have anything against letting the koreans compete in WCS. But, in our current situation moneywise (situation that is not likely to change) WCS is the local tournament to make the rest of the world grow, while GSL is the tournament to sustain the korean scene. If we want to be completely fair we could lock the GSL to foregneirs, but i cannot see how let them take also the WCS pool could invigorate their scene because it has not shown new blood in years despite their pros continue success.
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Fairness should not be the only factor considered when discussing changes, but also what will help the scene grow. I too, think it is not fair that GSL players cannot participate in WCS events, but WCS players can in GSL. But locking both regions from one another is not going to help the esport scene of sc2 grow imo. And people calling it racist, is plain stupid. The Koreans used to stomp the foreign scene so hard, if there was no lock from GSL players, there would be no foreign scene. But it is no longer needed.
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On November 10 2019 02:43 Drfilip wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2019 01:27 Brutaxilos wrote:On November 09 2019 16:54 Parser wrote: TLDR: WCS system has at least stabilized the foreigner scene, improving its skill level a lot. Korean scene is dieing not because the region lock but because lack of interest for the game there. This is fundamentally untrue and spread far too often by defenders of Region Lock. SC2 is about as popular in Korea as it is in most other countries. See the Whispers of Doom section in Brownbear's deep dive into Regionlocking issue: https://www.root4root.com/news/david-vs-goliath-an-in-depth-look-at-region-lock-in-starcraft-ii I read the Brownbear text. It seems to support Parser, not disprove. Brownbear writes that Korean SC2 had decreased interest independent of region lock. So does Parser. Brownbear writes that foreigner top players are being rewarded more since the region lock. That is a sign of stabilizing the foreign scene, as Parser stated. Brownbear says that top-top foreigners are gaining on the Koreans a little bit, while Parser said that the skill level imrpoved a lot. Absolute skill level is not the same as relative skill level, but I think that they both mean relative to Koreans. Anyhow, Parser and Brownbear seem to say similar things. One say "a lot" and the other say "considerably". Parser did not say anything about the popularity of SC2 in Korea relative to other countries. Parser's argument does not rely on relative popularity between nations. The argument is reliant on Korea now vs Korea before. Brownbear is not explicit, but seems to agree with Parser. Brownbear used number of price earners and wrote "the scene's sharpest decline occurred two years prior to region lock". TL;DR Brutaxilos is wrong and supplied a source.
I'm not addressing the claim that region lock is killing the Korean scene. I'm addressing the claim that SC2 is unpopular in Korea. It's not.
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My take on this issue is the money mainly going into the pocket of the best. It doesn't matter if the top foreigners or the top Koreans are winning. The bad thing with releasing the region lock would be that the non-top foreigners will receive less money, making it hard to support a professional gaming career. If organizers would make the prize money a lot less top heavy, the region lock wouldn't matter as much. In the GSL this year, the winner got about 18% of the totalt prize pool, 35% to the top 4. 28 players split the remaining 65%. The WCS Spring, Summer and Fall had 20% to the winner, 42% to top 4. The 28 remaining money earners split 58%. As it is, the top players in both regions are raking in money and they also get a lot of circuit points for the global finals. In the Global Finals the best players will face the worst players, gaining even more money when winning. Global finals is the worst of this year with the first prize of $210,000, 30% of the total prize pool. The top 4 got 51%, meaning that 28 players split 49% between them. If we only count the 16 players actually playing at the event, then the winner got 35% of the total, and the top 2 got 51% of the money.14 people split 49%.
The GSL and the foreigner counterpart shouldn't be so top heavy in prize money. The winners are already getting their WCS points. It is better if more players can sustain a professional gaming career, fostering the lower tier players for the future. People are struggling to qualify for these events. Qualifying should be rewarded. There are litteraly houndreds of players trying to qualify to WCS Fall alone. What do they get for it? 16 out of the 32 players got $1,250 + qualifiers winnings. We can take Vindicta as an example. Vindicta went 5W-2L in the NA qualifier, failing to qualify. Vindicta went to the group stages and tried to qualify through them. 2W-1L in the first stage, 0W-2L in the second and therefore going to the knockout bracket. Vindicta got a 3W-1L record there, taking the 25-32 place. 10W-4L, a 71% win rate. 14 games with 70%+ win rate and the prize Vindicta got was $1,250 and 100 WCS points. Where I live, $1,250 is about the minimum to survive on your own for a month. You are just hoping to not needing to make any unusual investments, like buying new shoes. Placing similarly in all 4 WCS events of the year would yield $1,250 three times and $675 once, i.e. a total of $4,425. That is not enough for a year. The players would need other sources of income. Back to the example of Vindicta: Aligulac says that Vindicta has earned $5,829 by participating in 44 different events this year. $5,829 is still not nearly enough. More money is needed. I doubt that all of the rest comes from playing StarCraft 2. Working a full time job, 40 hours a week for 52 weeks with federal minimum wage in the USA, you'll earn a little more than $15,000. Vindicta is almost two fifths of the way to yearly income of minimum wage in his home country.
If 8 Koreans come to the region, there will be a lot less money to the current 9-16 place finishers and no money for the current 25-32 (last places with prize money).
To sum it up: the tournaments are too top heavy in prize money, Sprinkle it out more! The WCS events could just as well have the prizes as 1st: 10,000 2nd: 8,000 3rd-4th 6,000 5th-8th: 4,000 9th-16th: 3,000 17th-24th: 2,250 25th-32nd: 1,500
Current prizes are 1 20,000 2 10,000 3-4 6,000 5-8 4,000 9-16 2,750 17-24 1,250 25-32 1,250
I don't know why the 17-24 and 25-32 get the same amount when there is a distinct difference in how far they've come in the competition.
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On November 10 2019 04:21 Brutaxilos wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2019 02:43 Drfilip wrote:On November 10 2019 01:27 Brutaxilos wrote:On November 09 2019 16:54 Parser wrote: TLDR: WCS system has at least stabilized the foreigner scene, improving its skill level a lot. Korean scene is dieing not because the region lock but because lack of interest for the game there. This is fundamentally untrue and spread far too often by defenders of Region Lock. SC2 is about as popular in Korea as it is in most other countries. See the Whispers of Doom section in Brownbear's deep dive into Regionlocking issue: https://www.root4root.com/news/david-vs-goliath-an-in-depth-look-at-region-lock-in-starcraft-ii I read the Brownbear text. It seems to support Parser, not disprove. Brownbear writes that Korean SC2 had decreased interest independent of region lock. So does Parser. Brownbear writes that foreigner top players are being rewarded more since the region lock. That is a sign of stabilizing the foreign scene, as Parser stated. Brownbear says that top-top foreigners are gaining on the Koreans a little bit, while Parser said that the skill level imrpoved a lot. Absolute skill level is not the same as relative skill level, but I think that they both mean relative to Koreans. Anyhow, Parser and Brownbear seem to say similar things. One say "a lot" and the other say "considerably". Parser did not say anything about the popularity of SC2 in Korea relative to other countries. Parser's argument does not rely on relative popularity between nations. The argument is reliant on Korea now vs Korea before. Brownbear is not explicit, but seems to agree with Parser. Brownbear used number of price earners and wrote "the scene's sharpest decline occurred two years prior to region lock". TL;DR Brutaxilos is wrong and supplied a source. I'm not addressing the claim that region lock is killing the Korean scene. I'm addressing the claim that SC2 is unpopular in Korea. It's not. I believe the issue that we've been dancing around is that the Korean scene is not popular enough. Comparing the WCS NA qualifiers versus the most recent qualifiers for the GSL, I can see that the number of qualifier participants who did not make challenger dwarfs the number of Koreans who did not make Code S. Remember, almost everyone from Code S has to requalify, whereas the WCS qualifiers are only for the challenger and not even for the main WCS tournament.
But now, it can't support its own scene. Currently, we have the rest of the world and Korea as its own scene. Korea easily has a greater percentage of top players, but they don't have enough up and coming players to support growth in their scene. The reason they removed Code A is because they had too few players to populate both Code A and Code S. Take the most recent qualifiers. If they had Code A, almost everyone who participated in the qualifiers would get into Code A.
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The GSL should certainly not be a weekend tournament.
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Remove region lock, end Blizzard funding for GSL and move one of the circuit events to Asia. Then it will be fair for everyone.
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Should I just make the "2021 SC2 regions thread" now?
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On November 10 2019 05:43 FrkFrJss wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2019 04:21 Brutaxilos wrote:On November 10 2019 02:43 Drfilip wrote:On November 10 2019 01:27 Brutaxilos wrote:On November 09 2019 16:54 Parser wrote: TLDR: WCS system has at least stabilized the foreigner scene, improving its skill level a lot. Korean scene is dieing not because the region lock but because lack of interest for the game there. This is fundamentally untrue and spread far too often by defenders of Region Lock. SC2 is about as popular in Korea as it is in most other countries. See the Whispers of Doom section in Brownbear's deep dive into Regionlocking issue: https://www.root4root.com/news/david-vs-goliath-an-in-depth-look-at-region-lock-in-starcraft-ii I read the Brownbear text. It seems to support Parser, not disprove. Brownbear writes that Korean SC2 had decreased interest independent of region lock. So does Parser. Brownbear writes that foreigner top players are being rewarded more since the region lock. That is a sign of stabilizing the foreign scene, as Parser stated. Brownbear says that top-top foreigners are gaining on the Koreans a little bit, while Parser said that the skill level imrpoved a lot. Absolute skill level is not the same as relative skill level, but I think that they both mean relative to Koreans. Anyhow, Parser and Brownbear seem to say similar things. One say "a lot" and the other say "considerably". Parser did not say anything about the popularity of SC2 in Korea relative to other countries. Parser's argument does not rely on relative popularity between nations. The argument is reliant on Korea now vs Korea before. Brownbear is not explicit, but seems to agree with Parser. Brownbear used number of price earners and wrote "the scene's sharpest decline occurred two years prior to region lock". TL;DR Brutaxilos is wrong and supplied a source. I'm not addressing the claim that region lock is killing the Korean scene. I'm addressing the claim that SC2 is unpopular in Korea. It's not. I believe the issue that we've been dancing around is that the Korean scene is not popular enough. Comparing the WCS NA qualifiers versus the most recent qualifiers for the GSL, I can see that the number of qualifier participants who did not make challenger dwarfs the number of Koreans who did not make Code S. Remember, almost everyone from Code S has to requalify, whereas the WCS qualifiers are only for the challenger and not even for the main WCS tournament. But now, it can't support its own scene. Currently, we have the rest of the world and Korea as its own scene. Korea easily has a greater percentage of top players, but they don't have enough up and coming players to support growth in their scene. The reason they removed Code A is because they had too few players to populate both Code A and Code S. Take the most recent qualifiers. If they had Code A, almost everyone who participated in the qualifiers would get into Code A. Yeah, but without an grassrot event for non Ro16 Koreans the scene is just going to shrink even further. Getting rid of the Region lockt wouldn t change that either. Koreans who can t get into Ro16 in GSL are 100% not going to break even in an all region events where top Koreans AND top foreigners compete. Removing Region lock would kill the bottom half of foreigner Pros and make the top 10 of Koreans rich, it wouldn t Help tue korean depth at all
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