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On December 16 2018 04:08 Dazed. wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2018 03:17 Charoisaur wrote:On December 16 2018 02:53 Dazed. wrote:On December 15 2018 07:08 Anc13nt wrote:On December 15 2018 00:20 Brutaxilos wrote:On December 14 2018 18:32 MockHamill wrote: I like the region lock. I remember how awful SC2 was back when there were only Koreans in the top 8 in every tournament, Western players going extinct.
I suspect the Korean dominance, combined the SwarmHost/Infestor is what caused the decline of SC2.
Now when SC2 is slowly getting more popular again thanks to FTP letting Koreans into WCS would introduce an unnecessary risk.
SC2 is declining in Korea but not in the rest of the world. The Koreans have themselves to blame, they prioritize other games and are now reaping the consequences. I will say this again, when the foreign scene was on life support, Blizzard swooped in and added the region lock. Now that the roles are reversed, you want to pull the plug on the Korean scene? What kind of weird-ass double standard is that? Exactly. I think this is why there is animus between foreigner fans and Korean fans. And honestly, I hope the statement "The Koreans have themselves to blame" was poor choice of words because it honestly irritates me. I struggle to see what the Koreans fans and players have done to deserve blame for the decline of the scene. Some (very few, to be clear).foreigner fans honestly do not really care about supporting the Korean scene. You mean apart from the korean netziens attacking progamers online a lot, and a lot of korean progamers...cheating? Agreed. Foreign netizens never attack progamers and foreign progamers never cheat. Do you know what scale is? Rather important to this conversation, yeah? The korean pros' who cheated were substantial, and it rocked the scene. Nothing equivalent happened in the foreign scene, ditto for online drama. Your a joke.
I believe matchfixing and trolling are bigger problems in Korea than in the foreign scene and, of course, some Korean progamers and fans are at fault. I have heard about some of the trolling among Korean fans and it is vicious and horrible to say the least. I'll admit, it would be absurd to think that no Korean fan or progamer did any wrong, just as it would be ridiculous to think such about the foreigners. But this reality does not erase the fact that the trolling and match fixing are not the fault of the majority of Korean progamers and fans, so to place blame on them for the actions of the few is unfair. I do not even think I am taking MockHamill's quote out of context, which is an intellectually lazy defense that seems more common on the internet nowadays. "The Koreans have themselves to blame." Is this supposed to only imply that the matchfixers and trolls are at fault? Or was it intentionally inflammatory and overly generalizing in that it was trying to blame the Korean scene as a whole? I think it's the latter.
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On December 16 2018 04:24 Nakajin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2018 04:08 Dazed. wrote:On December 16 2018 03:17 Charoisaur wrote:On December 16 2018 02:53 Dazed. wrote:On December 15 2018 07:08 Anc13nt wrote:On December 15 2018 00:20 Brutaxilos wrote:On December 14 2018 18:32 MockHamill wrote: I like the region lock. I remember how awful SC2 was back when there were only Koreans in the top 8 in every tournament, Western players going extinct.
I suspect the Korean dominance, combined the SwarmHost/Infestor is what caused the decline of SC2.
Now when SC2 is slowly getting more popular again thanks to FTP letting Koreans into WCS would introduce an unnecessary risk.
SC2 is declining in Korea but not in the rest of the world. The Koreans have themselves to blame, they prioritize other games and are now reaping the consequences. I will say this again, when the foreign scene was on life support, Blizzard swooped in and added the region lock. Now that the roles are reversed, you want to pull the plug on the Korean scene? What kind of weird-ass double standard is that? Exactly. I think this is why there is animus between foreigner fans and Korean fans. And honestly, I hope the statement "The Koreans have themselves to blame" was poor choice of words because it honestly irritates me. I struggle to see what the Koreans fans and players have done to deserve blame for the decline of the scene. Some (very few, to be clear).foreigner fans honestly do not really care about supporting the Korean scene. You mean apart from the korean netziens attacking progamers online a lot, and a lot of korean progamers...cheating? Agreed. Foreign netizens never attack progamers and foreign progamers never cheat. Do you know what scale is? Rather important to this conversation, yeah? The korean pros' who cheated were substantial, and it rocked the scene. Nothing equivalent happened in the foreign scene, ditto for online drama. Your a joke. I mean a good part of the 2014-15 online scene was funded by illegal gambling, and yes it was not match fixing by the player but most of these tournament were put on by foreign organizations and foreign player played in it (plus all the "team" that never payed their player or other random tournament never paying prize pool). And also just open any twitch chat/browse twitter for 5 min, we do a fine job harassing people on our own.
Yes, I notice that the twitch chat for smaller streams is usually civilized. However, in large streams, the trolls will congregate in great enough numbers and ruin everything. That is why the twitch chat often looks like the cesspool of humanity. Of course, this doesn't speak to the character of most of the Starcraft viewers (hopefully, at least).
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On December 16 2018 02:53 Dazed. wrote: [You mean apart from the korean netziens attacking progamers online a lot, and a lot of korean progamers...cheating? Yeah, korean is just a bad nation, so they all deserve to be separated from decent white people that never do anything wrong. You make me sick.
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So I have definitely missed some things. Can someone fill me in on what these "attacks" on progamers have been like? This is honestly the first I'm hearing of this
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On December 16 2018 03:37 207aicila wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2018 02:24 Nebuchad wrote: Region lock has always been an obvious mistake. The only question is whether we'd rather correct it - probably way too late - or pretend we did everything right. Unfortunately a number of people still left in this community love sticking their heads in the sand and pretending that Blizzard knows best and has never made any mistakes with respect to anything.
We got the region lock because of the community, not because of Blizzard. They didn't come up with that in a vacuum. An absurd amount of people thought this was a great idea around 2013.
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On December 16 2018 06:50 StasisField wrote: So I have definitely missed some things. Can someone fill me in on what these "attacks" on progamers have been like? This is honestly the first I'm hearing of this
I'm not sure about SC2 tbh but a lot of people insulted and trolled Last when he won KSL in BW remastered. Of course, as a Jaedong fan, I was very disappointed that he lost but many Korean fans (presumably Jaedong fans) took things way too far, especially considering that Jaedong took his loss gracefully. Even though this is just one example. I think what Dazed. said is probably true but he put it in a bit of snarky tone which evidently annoyed people. My earlier comment was meant to clarify that, even though I can agree with what Dazed. said, it does not contradict my main point that you should not blame the Korean scene as a whole for its decline.
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On December 16 2018 04:07 Karpfen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2018 17:37 dummy1 wrote:On December 13 2018 17:21 deacon.frost wrote: We can discuss why the prominent figures of the English side of SC2 are pretending this is a fair system
Two-faced people. Paid by Blizzard. User was warned for this post This has been phrased aggresively but is essentially true. You cannot expect people who gain considerable advantages from the status quo to be honest while defending it, especially when it is blatantly unfair. I agree with another poster who said that the system is unfair and it is just about how much it being unfair actually helps sc2 as a whole. In my opinion this should not have been implemented anyway and I believe that the considerable closing in the gap between kr and nonkr was not due to region lock but rather due to most serious teamhouses shutting down in korea. I'm not surprised by their position either. But they should stay off the discussion about this topic unles they won't to be seen as hypocrites(at best) or something worse.
On December 16 2018 08:04 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2018 03:37 207aicila wrote:On December 16 2018 02:24 Nebuchad wrote: Region lock has always been an obvious mistake. The only question is whether we'd rather correct it - probably way too late - or pretend we did everything right. Unfortunately a number of people still left in this community love sticking their heads in the sand and pretending that Blizzard knows best and has never made any mistakes with respect to anything. We got the region lock because of the community, not because of Blizzard. They didn't come up with that in a vacuum. An absurd amount of people thought this was a great idea around 2013. In 2013 it was the only way. US scene was nonexistant thanks to the rules. Europe was protected by the great wall of distance and bad internets Anyway, that was when KeSPA teams were in the SC2. Without the teams the region lock had to be changed(e.g. locking the Korea). But nothing changed and when the foreigner house was established nothing happened either. 2 cornerstones where the region lock should have been updated.
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On December 14 2018 06:21 Nakajin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2018 06:03 narusensei22 wrote: I agree. I haven't seen any pro tournaments in both sports and esports with a system called 'Region lock'.....
Basically, means protecting their players because their skill is way worse than Koreans...
Is this really a pro scene? How embarrassing...
If you are far behind in terms of skill level, plz just get better.
Even UEFA champions league didn't region lock Real Madrid or FC Barcelona in their prime times for being too good... Most professional sports league have some kind of hard of soft region lock, from the Olympic limiting the number of athlete from each country, to most of the national sport league necessitating a require number of national player on the team: MLS, CFL, KHL, even the Premier League has it. And I mean if we take your example FCB can't decide to join the Ligue 1 next season or go play in CONCACAF, they are literally region lock of every single other league outside of the Spanish championship and the inter-European club championship. Region locking is a very common practice to facilitate the grow and the economic viability of a pro sport league. Not saying it should be this way in sc2 necessarily but it's not uncommon at all
Your example is totally wrong compared to region lock in sc2. They are only about each nations' or continents' system, their lock only decides about subordination to country and continents, which is not about discrimination to 'one country' for being superior than any others in pure skills.
The funny part here is that Korea is the 'only' country that are not allowed in WCS Circuit even when rest of other Asian countries can. How funny is that? The only clear reason here is that 'Korea is just simply better than rest'.
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On December 16 2018 11:45 Anc13nt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2018 06:50 StasisField wrote: So I have definitely missed some things. Can someone fill me in on what these "attacks" on progamers have been like? This is honestly the first I'm hearing of this I'm not sure about SC2 tbh but a lot of people insulted and trolled Last when he won KSL in BW remastered. Of course, as a Jaedong fan, I was very disappointed that he lost but many Korean fans (presumably Jaedong fans) took things way too far, especially considering that Jaedong took his loss gracefully. Even though this is just one example. I think what Dazed. said is probably true but he put it in a bit of snarky tone which evidently annoyed people. My earlier comment was meant to clarify that, even though I can agree with what Dazed. said, it does not contradict my main point that you should not blame the Korean scene as a whole for its decline. So your example of what bad people Koreans are is the behavior of JAEDONG FANS, when JAEDONG gets upset in his last Final of his pro career (this is most likely true, as Jaedong has been hinting at retirement).
Not a good argument.
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On December 22 2018 05:04 narusensei22 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2018 06:21 Nakajin wrote:On December 14 2018 06:03 narusensei22 wrote: I agree. I haven't seen any pro tournaments in both sports and esports with a system called 'Region lock'.....
Basically, means protecting their players because their skill is way worse than Koreans...
Is this really a pro scene? How embarrassing...
If you are far behind in terms of skill level, plz just get better.
Even UEFA champions league didn't region lock Real Madrid or FC Barcelona in their prime times for being too good... Most professional sports league have some kind of hard of soft region lock, from the Olympic limiting the number of athlete from each country, to most of the national sport league necessitating a require number of national player on the team: MLS, CFL, KHL, even the Premier League has it. And I mean if we take your example FCB can't decide to join the Ligue 1 next season or go play in CONCACAF, they are literally region lock of every single other league outside of the Spanish championship and the inter-European club championship. Region locking is a very common practice to facilitate the grow and the economic viability of a pro sport league. Not saying it should be this way in sc2 necessarily but it's not uncommon at all Your example is totally wrong compared to region lock in sc2. They are only about each nations' or continents' system, their lock only decides about subordination to country and continents, which is not about discrimination to 'one country' for being superior than any others in pure skills. The funny part here is that Korea is the 'only' country that are not allowed in WCS Circuit even when rest of other Asian countries can. How funny is that? The only clear reason here is that 'Korea is just simply better than rest'. That's the issue with obsolete systems. When the region lock was created, top 40 players was fully Korean. Only then there were some foreigners. Sure, sometimes people were able to upset, but generally speaking top40 was Korean, top60 was heavy Korean and only after then it wasn't a Korean next to another Korean.
The issue is, that from that time several things happen: 1) Most of the 40-60 players retired/went into the army and some top players retired too(MC, Polt, Taeja, Parting, Bomber, Dream... etc) 2) KeSPA disbanded 3) Foreigner house was created
Nor community nor Blizzard was able to react properly on this. Most of the community - prominent figures like Artosis included - still didn't get enough satisfaction & vengeance from this system so they support the current region lock which suffocated the Korean scene.
And since there are cutbacks in front of us, Korean scene dies this year if the ROE are the same.
Edit> I honestly don't believe that foreign scene can survive without good Koreans, because the Korean vs. Foreigner is the major viewership boost. If Korean scene dies SC2 dies with it, because WCS viewership cannot cover the expenses(otherwise the cuts wouldn't be happening )
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i think ultimately it is necessary to region lock gsl as well. not just for fairness, but for the health of the Korean scene outside the top 10 guys. I think combined with more cross regional tournaments would be swell
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with the ways it sounds there isnt going to be a scene next time around. We are just going to hope that the community and other sponsors keep up the esport
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i put myself in their shoes for just a moment, and i think a lot of pros don't describe this grieving in public because it is in fact their jobs.
considering nothing else: if i am training avg. 5 hours a day and i know there are dangerous foreigners to play against, let alone my korean peers, is this year going to be me putting my best effort in as a top player? as someone who gets opportunities? as someone who has to struggle to qualify and make the event? as someone who can try and see what happens?
obviously a lot more emotions go into the situation, but i think now is the time to arbitrarily change the ruling now that the scene can be tighter and more focused than ever.
blizzard esports needs to treat their progamer employees better by announcing the new circuit as soon as possible. good start with WCS Winter and announcing plans for WCS Korea. they've tried their best to expand the current playerbase and viewership, and it has really kind of worked. but this is no longer the game that people will choose to play over any other, it will never be.
not to knock on either game, but people would rather play a game like rocket league than starcraft. a hearthstone match. net deck something meta in mtga. and any one of the fortnite, lol games simply because there's friends there regularly. a lot of starcraft's base is now in viewers who may play sporadically.
but through that they've become more sustainable, and they need to think about their korean players who were given up (less opportunity to win even their own events) so we could get to this point.
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On December 15 2018 01:35 TrashEconomy wrote: Korea is a tiny country and I don't understand the fixation on keeping them relevant. Would anyone care if Norwegian SC2 was dying? No? So why do we care about Korea dying, if they aren't even investing into the game themselves? Korea has a population of over 51 million while Norway has a population under 6 million.
any country of 50+ million with a culture that lends itself to the massive consumption of interactive entertainment will always be on ATVI's radar. the Marketing Analytics people call it "Fishing Where The Fish Are".
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Region lock hinders competition and this one-sided lock is unfair. Good arguments to unlock.
But is that the overall best option? GSL and WCS address different skill sets. Having different entry rules might not be the worst idea. The locked WCS allows local heroes to develop. While that comes at a cost, it could be worth it. The Blizzard sponsored SC2 esports is designed to provide both competition and entertainment. Having the esports scene appeal to a larger audience could help to keep it a commercially viable endeavor.
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On December 26 2018 21:46 [F_]aths wrote: Region lock hinders competition and this one-sided lock is unfair. Good arguments to unlock.
But is that the overall best option? GSL and WCS address different skill sets. Having different entry rules might not be the worst idea. The locked WCS allows local heroes to develop. While that comes at a cost, it could be worth it. The Blizzard sponsored SC2 esports is designed to provide both competition and entertainment. Having the esports scene appeal to a larger audience could help to keep it a commercially viable endeavor. It's not just about unlocking WCS but we can, for example, lock the GSL. To help develop the Korean scene. Why all the people just see unlocking as the only option?
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On December 27 2018 16:46 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2018 21:46 [F_]aths wrote: Region lock hinders competition and this one-sided lock is unfair. Good arguments to unlock.
But is that the overall best option? GSL and WCS address different skill sets. Having different entry rules might not be the worst idea. The locked WCS allows local heroes to develop. While that comes at a cost, it could be worth it. The Blizzard sponsored SC2 esports is designed to provide both competition and entertainment. Having the esports scene appeal to a larger audience could help to keep it a commercially viable endeavor. It's not just about unlocking WCS but we can, for example, lock the GSL. To help develop the Korean scene. Why all the people just see unlocking as the only option?
It would hardly help developing the korean scene, instead of some foreigner we would get oldschool koreans in code s and maybe once or twice some amateur player who still wouldn't have any motivation to go fulltime on sc2. If you want to develop a scene you need an actual amateur scene with lots of people loving the game simply because they like playing it and competing (without monetary incentive). If you have that then there is most likely an amateur scene which helps players to get to the lvl required to push to become a proplayer. Sc2 simply doesn't have the interest of young people who can spend countless hours of their daily life to become good at the game while being in school. These kids play lol or overwatch or whatever else is en vogue in korea. By removing foreigners from GSL you could potentially lose out on viewership for the english broadcast though. As far as we know afreeca and gomtv before simply think that adding foreigners to gsl is actually beneficial to them. That wasn't the case the other way around with foreign tournament organizers. I would rather have them do what they think is best for the overall scene, because what is best for the scene is also best for anyone in that scene (at least in cases which are not totally loopsided one way or another, which isn't the case atm)
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Disclaimer: I stopped following SC2 in around 2013, right before the region lock was implemented, but still read about it when it was first implemented.
I think, at this point, there isn't much to be done about the korean scene. First of all, SC2 was already not that popular in korea due to various other circumstances surrounding it, and second, this was basically the goal of the region lock in the first place. You can make a case for the region lock being racist or unfair, but that was the point of the region lock anyway; to allow foreigners to compete with koreans. It was never about fostering the most competitive scene and allowing survival of the fittest, but rather to increase the numbers of people playing in North America and Europe. In this regard, it was successful, and there's really no reason to change policies at this point, just because the korean scene is in a floundering state. Looking at it practically, its probably best to run with the status quo until the korean scene actually dies, then reinvesting however much money that was being dumped into GSL into WCS. That way, at least, you can focus more on the two regions that Blizzard decided to focus on: North America and Europe.
Back in 2013 I stopped watching SC2 around when people started suggesting region locking and such to help foreigners stay in their own little bubbles and fighting it out, because at that point, the game was not about pure competition anymore, but isolating regions so that they could feel better about themselves. When WCS actually region locked, I knew at that point the Korean scene was probably going to die off at some point. I won't say it was planned to kill of the korean scene, but definitely it was possible to see from back then something like this could have happened, but still, this was the route Blizzard chose. That's why they should just see it to the end, and allow the korean scene to die. Keep their goals and policies aligned so at least they can support the other two scenes they chose to support for longer.
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On December 27 2018 18:20 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2018 16:46 deacon.frost wrote:On December 26 2018 21:46 [F_]aths wrote: Region lock hinders competition and this one-sided lock is unfair. Good arguments to unlock.
But is that the overall best option? GSL and WCS address different skill sets. Having different entry rules might not be the worst idea. The locked WCS allows local heroes to develop. While that comes at a cost, it could be worth it. The Blizzard sponsored SC2 esports is designed to provide both competition and entertainment. Having the esports scene appeal to a larger audience could help to keep it a commercially viable endeavor. It's not just about unlocking WCS but we can, for example, lock the GSL. To help develop the Korean scene. Why all the people just see unlocking as the only option? It would hardly help developing the korean scene, instead of some foreigner we would get oldschool koreans in code s and maybe once or twice some amateur player who still wouldn't have any motivation to go fulltime on sc2. If you want to develop a scene you need an actual amateur scene with lots of people loving the game simply because they like playing it and competing (without monetary incentive). If you have that then there is most likely an amateur scene which helps players to get to the lvl required to push to become a proplayer. Sc2 simply doesn't have the interest of young people who can spend countless hours of their daily life to become good at the game while being in school. These kids play lol or overwatch or whatever else is en vogue in korea. By removing foreigners from GSL you could potentially lose out on viewership for the english broadcast though. As far as we know afreeca and gomtv before simply think that adding foreigners to gsl is actually beneficial to them. That wasn't the case the other way around with foreign tournament organizers. I would rather have them do what they think is best for the overall scene, because what is best for the scene is also best for anyone in that scene (at least in cases which are not totally loopsided one way or another, which isn't the case atm) It was just an example of another solution. With the recent cust cotting in Blizzard and thus in WCS I don't think there's any point in trying to save anything. It's just ICU-ing the state so we can longer watch SC2.
The reaction should have come when KeSPA teams had left the scene. Didn't happen, didn't happen years later, now it's pointless even more as we can expect lower money flow into the scene which means no new blood can raise.
Actually I wonder what is the Afreeca's plan when the Koreans go into the army and no good players will remain except few. Because then the viewership goes directly to hell and Afreeca(GOM TV) are responsible too with their top heavy prize pools and foreigners in GSL.
Edit> Scratch that, what's Tastosis plan, because Afreeca will survive, but I wonder what these two will do. I don't think BW scene alone can keep them alive.
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On December 27 2018 16:46 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2018 21:46 [F_]aths wrote: Region lock hinders competition and this one-sided lock is unfair. Good arguments to unlock.
But is that the overall best option? GSL and WCS address different skill sets. Having different entry rules might not be the worst idea. The locked WCS allows local heroes to develop. While that comes at a cost, it could be worth it. The Blizzard sponsored SC2 esports is designed to provide both competition and entertainment. Having the esports scene appeal to a larger audience could help to keep it a commercially viable endeavor. It's not just about unlocking WCS but we can, for example, lock the GSL. To help develop the Korean scene. Why all the people just see unlocking as the only option? Locking GSL would make it a South-Korean SL. It would also take away from the nimbus being the unquestionable hardest league. That is a price probably only few spectators are willing to pay. This in turn could impact the "G"SL price money and make it unattractive for Koreans even with region lock.
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