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So, this topic is primarily for discussion. It's late here, and I feel the need to write this thread before I go to sleep, hence I won't mass link everything, but the content will be here.
Here's my thoughts, that I also encourage discussion on. There are somewhat foreign progamers, given that there is actually monetary success available in the foreign SC:BW scene. Players like Sziky, Ace, Heme (retired) who have all earned a respective amount of cash flow over the past 4 months or so. My thoughts on this derived from not only their continued success in anything they participate in, much like a progamer would have, but that after I tallied their numbers and how much time they actually put into creating them, they're very successful.
For instance,   Sziky: Total earnings over the past 4 months:Defiler Tournaments:#6 1st place: $40 #8 1st place: $40 #10 1st place: $60 #11 2nd place: $20 #12 1st place: $40 #13 3rd place: $10 #16 1st place: $40 #18 1st place: $40 #20 1st place: $40 #25 1st place: $70 #26 1st place: $40 Defiler TvZ Invitational; 2nd place: $50 Potentially $375 from Kaal's ISL2Total: $490Potential Total: $865
Ace: Total earnings over the past 4 months:Defiler Tournaments:#8 3rd place: $10 #9 2nd place: $20 #14 2nd place: $20 #17 1st place: $40 16 Man Invitational: $20 AoV ISL: $250 Potentially $375 from Kaal's ISL2Total: $360Potential Total: $735
With Kaal's International StarLeague ending in 2 weeks, both of these players are very likely going to take at least half of the $1500 prize pool, so you can potentially add that to their sums. More specifically, Sziky has been the favorite to win the entire tournament since the get-go, which would place his earnings from that tournament at $750.
I actually did not look up  Heme, but I know he won much more tournaments, including I think $200-250 in mine alone, and a lot of the Defiler tournaments. However, I'm positive that he earned more than Sziky and Ace, and possibly their totals combined.
Granted the above information, I realize this boils down to roughly $50 per week. But the strongest players left playing BW do not live in idealistic economies. I'm not saying $50/wk is a lot, but it is something. Notice, Sziky has only participated in _some_ Defiler tournaments, at his leisure, and Ace has participated in a total of 6 (2 where he didn't place in the prize pool). Heme was the only active player who constantly took money from prize pools. With that, BW is really a dying game, there is no rebuttal against it. While it's a perfect game, the most balanced in online gaming history, and that of which created e-sports, I would venture to say that if you averaged out top players individual earnings only outside of Korea before SC2's release over a long span, that there would be some very similar results.
This bring me to my next point: I'm really at a crossroads with my thoughts on upcoming gamers outside of Korea. I'm very well intune with the scene outside of Korea, and I can honestly say as the ex-leader of the best clan outside of Korea, and the biggest tournament organizer, that I see no new talent. This is primarily where I want the discussion on, because other than players like Michael and  SneazeL... I see relatively no one. The only up and coming names currently are just old names that weren't good enough to be acknowledged before SC2's release.
I'm not trying to take any credit away from these players, in specific I'm referencing players like fLip and KiDCaNaDa. My point is this: where is the new blood? I see a lot of newbies who have come to BW, but failed to develop greatly given the lack of a vast community support. I've seen mid-range players stay mid-range, but I have seen maybe three players go from average to commendable. I must be missing something, someone has have gotten to slip right past my radar.
In conclusion, I'd like to see who other TL users think are up and comers, or players that are already here that maybe I don't value as highly as I should.
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Don't forget Bibiane in there too! He's just as good as Michael imo.
Sadly, amateur BW has really taken a hit since SC2's release. There are few to no players that are completely new blood and thriving. iCCup itself doesn't have anyone higher than maybe a 1300-ish fish rank. Even the new Koreans we're seeing are actually fish/brainclan transfers that feel they can't be with the 1600-2100 point players, and so they choose to excel in the small pond that is iCCup.
I hope others can produce some more names that aren't KR server transfers/old names that only can get higher ranks because all the old pros left, making it easier.
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Unfortunately, I haven't stayed up to date with foreign bw players, something I used to spend a lot of time on. What I can comment on though is the abscence of new blood. I disagree that there is a lot of money to be made outside of Korea for bw and I think that it's not tempoary. I think we will see a constant rise and fall of new players (ie: people coming from sc2 and then some not liking it (very rare for them not to).. But overall, I think really none of any new players will be able to compete and it will become more of a hobby and not a source of income nearly as much... When if you look at it, is that completely bad? I think people confuse players playing the game (Starcraft in general) as a job making it a "professional sport" with "demotivation" in alot of cases To be honest. While it should be recognized as a profession(which it obviously is) I feel that for a player to think of the game only as a job and a source of income, is a completely negative but seemingly common attitude... It basically throws out the entire mental aspect going into the game that is extremely important. I'm writing this on my itouch and extremely tired,
so I may need to revise this but I honestly think that the source of income outside of Korea has nearly completely transferred over to sc2 but what has remained is pretty good. A tight-knit community who plays because of their passion is not a bad thing to have. There will definitely be players like you mention rise up, but these are all people hve been involved in brood war for a while in almost every case.
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On September 26 2011 17:08 sCCrooked wrote:
Don't forget Bibiane in there too!
Bibiane's TvZ in fact did impress me. But afaik he's a one matchup player? Meaning that he only excels in one match up. However, so did Heme actually...
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I don't really follow foreign BW so I don't know really know anyone that might be an up and coming top foreigner. However, I think the problem is related to the fact that people are pretty casual these days and play for the social aspects.
Most people don't want to get on Fish because they don't like laddering and would rather play with friends or can't communicate with the Koreans. The newer players switching from SC2 to Broodwar might be turned away by the difficulty of Fish server and/or the inactivity of ICCup.
There just isn't much to motivate someone to grind out tons of ladder games and improve their play these days.
Although I'm not really good, I was laddering on Fish/Brainclan a LOT to get better but then basically quit for League of Legends 
Oh, an out of date Liquipedia and no other good resources for modern builds or maps could be another contributing factor.
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Well when iccup was more active I was trying to improve(somewhere around ISL1, like the start of it). Yea C/C+ toss looking for some good clan or players willing to help me since I had no idea what to do anymore to get better. And I played a ton. So first I tried to join some good clans. Forget it, unless you're B- or higher, GTFO. Then the top players even in those top clans play today more casually. And tbh most of these b+/a- players play like shit(I say it not as good player, just as spectator that watched ton ton of replays/foreigner tours in 2008/2009). They play like C/C+ Fish. They are nowhere near top korean amateur level. Remember when iccup was full of B teamers and some progamers? Full of korean amateurs? That were some fun times to ladder right? Well they are gone so your B/B+/A- rank that you have to grind vs your friends is that much less worth. And when I first saw ISL player list I was like who the fuck are these people lol. I've only known polish/or old gosus that play from time to time that participated. Another thing iccup is dead. It's like that bad. It's dead. 1 month into the season and there's 4 B players? PFT. < Now I wrote for good 5 minutes why's that but I deleted this part to don't get ip banned again >
There's ton of people on C/C+ on iccup(D/D+ fish) that have no real way of improving once their reach that limit. There are no people to help them. There will be no new players. There's no platform to improve. No CLANs like before. Scene is split. Maybe if everyone was like yea let's do it together and shit you know on 1 server, let's bring competitive play back into it. Let's make laddering more attractive and shit. And top players are not very helpful with the scene at all. Like maybe KC was a bit. They are not doing anything to make people come over to BW other then play tours. Ok maybe stream 2-3 hours once or twice in a week(And that's like what? 4-5 of them). I don't see them writing strategy guides. I don't see them releasing replay packs. Anything. So yea I edited it for like 30 minutes and had to delete 50% of it because there was ton of more shit. Maybe I'll write about that stuff in some counterarguments.
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I think a lot of it may have to be with how the bw community works outside of Korea.
I think you know that over the last few months there has been tons of drama and a lot of things going on that prevents new blood from coming in and discourages new people to try things out. The lack of a community feeling is something that can be shown often in posts from both sides. Its like trying to trying to walk between a dmz (in this case the dmz being tl).
Making the entire community closer and have the feeling of being apart of something. Which would mean everyone has to rally together and make that happen.
Things don't get better when for a newbie player. They are toled to go to fish and brain. Where they get smashed over and over again. Its never encouraging to see yourself to get beaten like that over and over again. and then the only other place where noobies can play together or with somewhat similar level players is iccup. Which is often discouraged as a place to play on by some people in the community.
I think nymph's 2nd paragraph is also very correct. Its not like it was. there are not any fun casual clans like there were before. there are a bunch of Korean clans like that. Where its a bunch of people who play together and have fun playing together. and end up forming a clan, or just hanging out in the same channel. This makes it fun, regardless wether you're winning or losing. You get to have fun with your firends on bnet. This is not the case with the foreign scene anymore. This doesn't happen, you only have competitve clans now for the most part. There is not much of a fun aspect outside of the auctual playing. Unless you have the motivation to play (be it friend, winning tournaments) you won't play.
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United Kingdom1666 Posts
TBH, I don't think there's enough incentive for people to practice as hard as it takes to be that extremely good. SC2 has the power of big corporations to push SC2 globally. We as a community really don't have that power, and if we do then we would have to be pretty epic at marketing to pull off any big exposure for BW.
Many people who see it and play it do enjoy it. But not enough people are exposed to it- it doesn't have that critical mass in the gaming community. Ever heard of 1000 fan theory? The idea that if you have 1000 REAL fans (to BW that would be people who play the game very regularly, watch all of the tournament streams, possibly chip in the odd dollar), then things will snowball, and certainly remain at a good level. I think we're too confined to TeamLiquid as a BW community, with all the same people.
Seems I'm talking myself round here. You have to remember that 99.999% of people on this planet have never played BW. To them it is still entirely 100% fresh. To them it is not dying, it is not something they stopped doing ages ago, it's not something they moved on from. The way to get people playing is simply to get a greater fanbase. TeamLiquid is not the place to acquire one, it is simply a place for the community to congregate. So think, where else can we go? Where else can we push our events, guides, streams, all this stuff. Where else can we advertise our game? And then, how do we make it attractive? If we can successfully answer these, then I think we could do a lot better.
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United Arab Emirates5090 Posts
SC BW was never about the money. It's basically bragging rights because it's the most hardcore game in existence. I don't think there are many up and coming people.
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United Arab Emirates5090 Posts
On September 26 2011 18:41 ImbaTosS wrote:
TBH, I don't think there's enough incentive for people to practice as hard as it takes to be that extremely good. SC2 has the power of big corporations to push SC2 globally. We as a community really don't have that power, and if we do then we would have to be pretty epic at marketing to pull off any big exposure for BW.
Many people who see it and play it do enjoy it. But not enough people are exposed to it- it doesn't have that critical mass in the gaming community. Ever heard of 1000 fan theory? The idea that if you have 1000 REAL fans (to BW that would be people who play the game very regularly, watch all of the tournament streams, possibly chip in the odd dollar), then things will snowball, and certainly remain at a good level. I think we're too confined to TeamLiquid as a BW community, with all the same people.
Seems I'm talking myself round here. You have to remember that 99.999% of people on this planet have never played BW. To them it is still entirely 100% fresh. To them it is not dying, it is not something they stopped doing ages ago, it's not something they moved on from. The way to get people playing is simply to get a greater fanbase. TeamLiquid is not the place to acquire one, it is simply a place for the community to congregate. So think, where else can we go? Where else can we push our events, guides, streams, all this stuff. Where else can we advertise our game? And then, how do we make it attractive? If we can successfully answer these, then I think we could do a lot better.
Actually most people know about both starcraft1 and starcraft2. Most people also like better graphics and HD video and more prize money. There really is not enough incentive to go for sc1 when you can just go straight to sc2.
It would probably take an average person 1 year's practice to get to C level on iccup, 2 years to get to B and probably 3-4 years to get to A level if he hasn't given up already, and then they are still no where near the level of the korean enthusiasts averaging 350apm trying to get a shot at the offline qualifiers with 1/500 odds.
The only way would be white guys only tournaments for people to even scratch the lottery ticket, and then there's not enough money for anyone to even give a shit. Working at mcdonalds would yield more money and more free time.
SC1 is just a hardcore time sucking black hole that no one outside the SCBW community gives a shit about.
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Has Koll stopped playing? Or does he simply not participate in tournaments?
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United Kingdom1666 Posts
On September 26 2011 18:56 pyrogenetix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 18:41 ImbaTosS wrote:
TBH, I don't think there's enough incentive for people to practice as hard as it takes to be that extremely good. SC2 has the power of big corporations to push SC2 globally. We as a community really don't have that power, and if we do then we would have to be pretty epic at marketing to pull off any big exposure for BW.
Many people who see it and play it do enjoy it. But not enough people are exposed to it- it doesn't have that critical mass in the gaming community. Ever heard of 1000 fan theory? The idea that if you have 1000 REAL fans (to BW that would be people who play the game very regularly, watch all of the tournament streams, possibly chip in the odd dollar), then things will snowball, and certainly remain at a good level. I think we're too confined to TeamLiquid as a BW community, with all the same people.
Seems I'm talking myself round here. You have to remember that 99.999% of people on this planet have never played BW. To them it is still entirely 100% fresh. To them it is not dying, it is not something they stopped doing ages ago, it's not something they moved on from. The way to get people playing is simply to get a greater fanbase. TeamLiquid is not the place to acquire one, it is simply a place for the community to congregate. So think, where else can we go? Where else can we push our events, guides, streams, all this stuff. Where else can we advertise our game? And then, how do we make it attractive? If we can successfully answer these, then I think we could do a lot better. Actually most people know about both starcraft1 and starcraft2. Most people also like better graphics and HD video and more prize money. There really is not enough incentive to go for sc1 when you can just go straight to sc2. It would probably take an average person 1 year's practice to get to C level on iccup, 2 years to get to B and probably 3-4 years to get to A level if he hasn't given up already, and then they are still no where near the level of the korean enthusiasts averaging 350apm trying to get a shot at the offline qualifiers with 1/500 odds. The only way would be white guys only tournaments for people to even scratch the lottery ticket, and then there's not enough money for anyone to even give a shit. Working at mcdonalds would yield more money and more free time. SC1 is just a hardcore time sucking black hole that no one outside the SCBW community gives a shit about.
Wow, um, have you never enjoyed a game of BW in your life? Or a game of anything- have you ever played football (soccer), or gone for a game of squash (racketball) with some friends, or even gone for a swim lol, and thought "why am I doing this? I'll never be an olympic swimmer". You fixated on minutiae, and drew the wrong conclusions from my reasoning.
I love playing BW in my free time, and being a valuable part of my team. I'm not gonna win any money or great accolades, but being a tiny cog in a great machine is good enough for me as far as a casual hobby goes. Like when I play football. Player of the season at Totnes and Dartington. I bet you never heard of that club eh, but fuck it felt good to win that award. FYI, it was a free beer from a bunch of friends whom i would never have otherwise met, and were genuinely grateful to me for being part of their team.
Extrapolate to BW.
EDIT: the more I think about it the more absurd your argument is. I'm honestly not meaning to be rude here. I played guitar pretty much for 10 years before I though about being professional, and working to attain mastery.
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I think any talk about a "foreign BW scene" ended with TSL2. I appreciate the effort with ISL1 and 2 but under no circumstances did the quality of games compare to TSL1 and 2. The roster of capable foreigners almost disappeared after SC2.
Also, monetary success is an illusion. What happens when Defiler Tours end? Will there be an ISL3? Probably; but after that? There is no stability and no continuity in the foreign BW scene. And either way, the money at stake is just not enough to talk about "monetary success".
The "foreign progamers" are just casual players, who play in casual tournaments with small cash prizes. And even so, there are a lot of players not showing up, walkovers, postponed games, awful games, cheating, lag issues, more cheating, etc.
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United Arab Emirates5090 Posts
On September 26 2011 19:13 ImbaTosS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 18:56 pyrogenetix wrote:On September 26 2011 18:41 ImbaTosS wrote:
TBH, I don't think there's enough incentive for people to practice as hard as it takes to be that extremely good. SC2 has the power of big corporations to push SC2 globally. We as a community really don't have that power, and if we do then we would have to be pretty epic at marketing to pull off any big exposure for BW.
Many people who see it and play it do enjoy it. But not enough people are exposed to it- it doesn't have that critical mass in the gaming community. Ever heard of 1000 fan theory? The idea that if you have 1000 REAL fans (to BW that would be people who play the game very regularly, watch all of the tournament streams, possibly chip in the odd dollar), then things will snowball, and certainly remain at a good level. I think we're too confined to TeamLiquid as a BW community, with all the same people.
Seems I'm talking myself round here. You have to remember that 99.999% of people on this planet have never played BW. To them it is still entirely 100% fresh. To them it is not dying, it is not something they stopped doing ages ago, it's not something they moved on from. The way to get people playing is simply to get a greater fanbase. TeamLiquid is not the place to acquire one, it is simply a place for the community to congregate. So think, where else can we go? Where else can we push our events, guides, streams, all this stuff. Where else can we advertise our game? And then, how do we make it attractive? If we can successfully answer these, then I think we could do a lot better. Actually most people know about both starcraft1 and starcraft2. Most people also like better graphics and HD video and more prize money. There really is not enough incentive to go for sc1 when you can just go straight to sc2. It would probably take an average person 1 year's practice to get to C level on iccup, 2 years to get to B and probably 3-4 years to get to A level if he hasn't given up already, and then they are still no where near the level of the korean enthusiasts averaging 350apm trying to get a shot at the offline qualifiers with 1/500 odds. The only way would be white guys only tournaments for people to even scratch the lottery ticket, and then there's not enough money for anyone to even give a shit. Working at mcdonalds would yield more money and more free time. SC1 is just a hardcore time sucking black hole that no one outside the SCBW community gives a shit about. Wow, um, have you never enjoyed a game of BW in your life? Or a game of anything- have you ever played football (soccer), or gone for a game of squash (racketball) with some friends, or even gone for a swim lol, and thought "why am I doing this? I'll never be an olympic swimmer". You fixated on minutiae, and drew the wrong conclusions from my reasoning. I love playing BW in my free time, and being a valuable part of my team. I'm not gonna win any money or great accolades, but being a tiny cog in a great machine is good enough for me as far as a casual hobby goes. Like when I play football. Player of the season at Totnes and Dartington. I bet you never heard of that club eh, but fuck it felt good to win that award. FYI, it was a free beer from a bunch of friends whom i would never have otherwise met, and were genuinely grateful to me for being part of their team. Extrapolate to BW. EDIT: the more I think about it the more absurd your argument is. I'm honestly not meaning to be rude here. I played guitar pretty much for 10 years before I though about being professional, and working to attain mastery.
Actually I love BW and play it regularly with a friend (alffla who's on gfx team) and I have only tried sc2 a few times but lost interest very quickly. I think I came off as a jerk so I'm going to rephrase what I said.
There is very little incentive now for any foreigners (white guys) to be "up and coming". As much as I love BW to bits and would like it to be mandatory syllabus worldwide, it is a dying game just like the female partners in The Fountain were dying. The pain, longing and frustration expressed by hugh jackman in that movie is how I feel about BW's inevitable premature death.
Sc2 may be a fun game, but in reality it could have been Command and Conquer: Space Wars or something for all I know. It has more or less nothing to do with the core gameplay that made SCBW what it is.
Yes there are probably some people out there still playing BW, but the intensity and frequency is declining much too fast. It is such a phenomenal game being eclipsed by something that's just wearing its name.
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To me, BW isn't dead before nobody plays on fish, brain or iccup.
there will be tournaments, they'll be smaller. But, they'll be there, BW won't die, it will decrease.
Will, not, die. The competitive scene is small but it's there and if it isn't there and you want to have one I can't see how difficult it can be to arrange clanwars
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Are you missing something? hmmmmmmm
Try broodwar's release date(too ugly for modern kids), skill ceiling (too hard for - everyone), active foreign users (can't even play for fun to start your passion) and expected earnings (-.-)...
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United Kingdom1666 Posts
On September 26 2011 22:09 niteReloaded wrote:
Are you missing something? hmmmmmmm
Try broodwar's release date(too ugly for modern kids), skill ceiling (too hard for - everyone), active foreign users (can't even play for fun to start your passion) and expected earnings (-.-)...
Gaah, you're still looking at it wrong. This is the problem. I have to go to a class, I'll get a proper response down once I'm back.
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On September 26 2011 18:04 Nymph wrote:
They play like C/C+ Fish. They are nowhere near top korean amateur level. Remember when iccup was full of B teamers and some progamers? Full of korean amateurs? That were some fun times to ladder right? Well they are gone so your B/B+/A- rank that you have to grind vs your friends is that much less worth.
There's ton of people on C/C+ on iccup(D/D+ fish) that have no real way of improving once their reach that limit. There are no people to help them. There will be no new players. There's no platform to improve. No CLANs like before. Scene is split. Maybe if everyone was like yea let's do it together and shit you know on 1 server, let's bring competitive play back into it. Let's make laddering more attractive and shit. And top players are not very helpful with the scene at all.
I'm not sure I'd flatter them with a C/C+ fish. The absolute best of the best on iCCup can barely even reach the bottom rungs of C-/C much less compete with anyone in the Bs, As, or S ranks. A C+ fish would constitute a 1400 or higher. I don't know any foreigner that's ever managed to maintain a constantly-laddering average of that level. The highest I've ever seen as a legitimate "I don't just quit after getting lucky on my record" foreign player on fish has been 1200-1300 and not able to even maintain a strong 1300 average. This is also literally less than 5 people in the world (non-Korean).
Also I agree almost entirely with your second paragraph. Its incredibly accurate as to the specific reasons WHY no new blood is showing up. Its simple! ALL OUR TEACHERS LEFT. Not only did they leave, but when they left, everything collapsed behind them. There is an incredible slew of people on iCCup who are perpetually stuck at C/C+/B- in the limbo area (1100 fish or so) where we're too good to play vs any new people or clans, but we're still way too under-skilled vs those who consider themselves the new "top" foreign players.
**EDIT**
I've made a new blog for discussion of possible revival techniques for the scene. Please join in the discussion/suggestions in the thread. Thank you.
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=269463
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ImBaToSs, you sound deluded. Pyrogenetix was harsh, but honest: it's a rapidly-dying game. Why would anyone come here to be an, "up-and-comer"?
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EPT
