Why TSL4 Will be Even BETTER - Page 5

On May 26 2011 02:31 TheDougler wrote:
So today I decided to fill the gaping hole in my life that TSL3’s absense has givin me, by thinking about TSL4.

I realized as I dragged myself out of bed to do all the “real life” things people claim exist, that as incredably fantastic and mindblowingly awesome as TSL3 was, TSL4 will be even better. Here’s why:

1. The Hype

TSL3 was the most hyped up thing I’ve ever seen in my life and it was AWESOME for it. Seriously, even the men’s gold medal olympic hockey game in Victoria (about 60 minutes from Vancouver) weren’t as hyped as TSL 3 was. As the proud owner of an “Expand Your Horizons” ringtone (the TSL3 intro music), I can tell you that I really REALLY appreciated the hype. And it’s just gonna keep getting better. Next time around we won’t just have “and european you haven’t heard of X who played warcraft is gonna take on former brood-war player Y” We have a STARCRAFT 2 BACKSTORY. How well they did last time, and the player who defeated them is going to be far more relevant than it was for TSL 2 vs TSL 3. Many of us started watching e-sports after starcraft 2’s release, and now we have seen the awesomeness that it can be. Not only that, but with the MLG-GSL player exchange there’s a great chance of some epic rivalries popping up between some of the koreans and our own foriegners, which brings me to my next point.



2. The World will be Ready

The sweet taste of Thorzain’s victory over Fruitdealer gradually turned to ash in my mouth as Korean after Korean went down in the first round. Admittedly, they were all EPIC games (Nestea vs Goody and QXC vs Genius especially IMO), but one way or another it seemed that the Koreans were not prepared. Fortunately by the RO 16 MC was acutely aware of what the foriegners were capable of and pushed on to that glorious series against ThorZain. But MC and Boxer were the last of their kind by the Round of 8, all others having fallen early in the tournament and I'm sure that those who went quickly are hungry for their revenge, so the Koreans will be ready.

Meanwhile, you know what’s going on right now? China is hosting their first big SC2 tournament since Beta... and they’ve beat us. I now find myself cheering for MC against the red menace -jk, I <3 China- that has defeated all of the foreigners in the Gigabyte Starwars tournament. It seems that China too is on the rise, and with them will come new names and awesome stories.

With pros from China and Korea being more prepared, you can expect more fans to join in. Even though 70k fans watching the finals was pretty fricken sweet, can you IMAGINE if there had been a korean in the finals!? And soon the Chinese players will have a following too. Yes, as amazing as TSL 3 was, TSL 4 will be out of this world due to the ever growing fan-base.

3. The game will be more balanced OR it'll be more awesome

Have you watched PvP lately? How many archons were used in PvP a month ago? Not a heck of a lot. The times, they are a changing my friends, and by the time TSL4 rolls around hopefully every matchup is balanced and exciting. If it’s not quite balanced yet, then there’s an equally awesome reason for that: Bolding that because apparently I need to. Just saying that there is no downside tho, either it'll be more balanced, or it'll be new and exciting due to HoTS

4. (Maybe) Heart of The Swarm will be released

There’s a significant chance that TSL 4 will in fact be the first big SC2 HoTS tournament. Think about that for a second. It’s a long-shot, but timing wise it could happen. And it would be glorious! New units, strategies, and who knows what. Now, this is Blizzard we’re talking about, so who know’s when HoTS will come out but I’m just saying, if it’s a year off then the times could work out nicely.

5. It has huge shoes to fill

There’s no denying that TSL 3 was some of, if not unequivocally the BEST sc2 tournament play we’ve seen. But from the sounds of it, TSL is always like that. Perhaps its the open qualification process, perhaps its the prestige of being THE foriegner tournament. Probably some combination of the above, but no one can deny that TSL 3 was fantastic, players played their absolute best, and when times looked bleak called upon the gods themselves to give them the strength to succeed. (cough, seriously, Thorzain seemed like he had a touch of divinity to him in game 6 of the finals). TSL 4 is gonna have big shoes to fill, and I believe that it will indeed exceed even our wildest expectations.


I’m one of the guys who voted “maybe wait a bit” for TSL 4. As much as I want to watch it right this second I realize that given more time it can only be better and better.




Edit: I'm actually going to keep a little section updated here because some fascinating things are happening right now.

Rivalries
IdrA vs Protoss (and the world)
Obviously IdrA has several rivalries, but none are more prominent at the time of writing as two protoss... And possibly soon to be a third.

We all remember the infamous from Cruncher, as he defeated IdrA in TSL3.
Not long after that, this happened:

Dunno if I can embed that here somehow, but that's HuK Hallucinating Voidrays and causing IdrA to leave the game and the resulting exchange of words.

Currently MLG Columbus, Cruncher lurks in the open bracket about to take on IdrA's teammate EGAxSlav. More importantly however, HuK's Korean Brotoss MC has been 2-0d by IdrA. In an interview afterwards MC said he wasn't playing his best and that he will still go on to win this tournament. Could we see a potential third protoss rival of IdrA forming? Lets hope so! As an IdrA anti fan --though he is playing PHENOMENALLY this MLG tournament-- I yearn to see MC take a game off of him and then in the next game say: "you realize of course, half my army was halluc"

Meanwhile, MC does have a very busy week ahead of him. After MLG collumbus he has to fly to China for the Star Wars tourny. Will Korea's best be able to defeat China's best? Could there be a new regional rivalry there? First of all, will the MLG champion this time be Korean, European, or North American? Only time will tell.

Team Liquid FIGHTING!!!

On June 27 2011 08:10 krosmatic wrote:




Theres a little problem though. Blizzard have publically announced that heart of the swarm and all other expansions will ONLY affect the single player, cause otherwise there would be shitloads of new units and things to come. Maps and unit changes will definetly come, but not any other units then the one's created since the starcraft 2 engine we're beginning it's design. It have taken to long to make the multiplayer units fully functional and unbugged, during just the beta section there we're ONLY testings about the units, so that would need a whole new beta stage for the multiplayer section for new units to come + they all need to be balanced and have a nice input/output of damage for the whole already existing multiplayer scene, and ofcourse it would take a new unit for ALL races to be fair for every race, or there would probably be a big race switch for top tier players that would use the new unbalanced unit to their advantage in new strategy's that havent already been nerfed by Blizzard.

So m8, please dont think there will be new multiplayer units, it wont. And check out the new Beta realases of Heart of the swarm, its not so exciting as you think. The units existing in it is about the same but with new features, just like if a good map maker did make a really long MMORPG.

On August 02 2011 22:04 p4NDemik wrote:

Considerable effort goes into making sure that TSL players are accommodated to play at times that are agreeable to all parties involved. Situations can't always be perfect with players split on different continents, but the conditions players played in during TSL3 were not as bad as you make it out to be. The issues with latency were complicated even more by the earthquake at the time and while some still remains I don't see reason to discredit all online play.

edit: Keep in mind games were cast off of replays allowing for flexibility in players scheduling games at reasonable times that doesn't interfere with changing the broadcast date/time. This allowed us to not have one strict time based around one region when scheduling the matches. With mods/admins based around the globe available for reffing said matches that made accommodating players easier as well.

On August 04 2011 17:54 baoluvboa wrote:


Honestly TSL3 results were so different from other Lans (as in foreigners dominated) that I can't take it without a grain of salt.
TSL4's goal should be to have a Lan event even though it may not be possible but we can all dream right?