He talks about incentives available only to westerners, twice no less.
Says there should be a separation of the two scenes.
And states that separating out Koreans and providing incentives to westerners is the only way to grow an environment where western gamers can exceed Korean gamers.
That's literally the definition of protectionism; you'll have to pardon me the liberty of applying an absurdly appropriate adjective.
Dude worked very hard to create a reasonable sounding argument, where at its core he's appealing to xenophobia and economic illiteracy for the sake of making his own career easier.
I have no idea what you are talking about but it sounds like he does make a pretty good argument, I know in BW a lot of players were probably discouraged from playing competitively and a lot of people probably didn't even care about the scene because it was all Koreans and in Korea. Also this makes the NASL unique, and stands out. There are plently of of other leagues and tournies out there, the NASL did something to be unique.
Here's a random discussion: Since the ladder reset happens tomorrow, how do we think this will change the leagues and overall play?
With one placement match, we'll weed out the inactive players. Do you think this will make the leagues harder to get promoted to and easier to get demoted from? Or do you think it may actually make it easier to get a promotion (from a leaner playerbase, the better players will actually make wide strides right out of the gate)?
I'm just interested in how losing 10%+ of the laddering community will effect the overall skew of the MMR system.
He talks about incentives available only to westerners, twice no less.
Says there should be a separation of the two scenes.
And states that separating out Koreans and providing incentives to westerners is the only way to grow an environment where western gamers can exceed Korean gamers.
That's literally the definition of protectionism; you'll have to pardon me the liberty of applying an absurdly appropriate adjective.
Dude worked very hard to create a reasonable sounding argument, where at its core he's appealing to xenophobia and economic illiteracy for the sake of making his own career easier.
uhh what
First, he doesn't say "koreans should be excluded" anywhere (he says "I am not saying koreans should be just excluded from all international events" but in context it's pretty clearly a grammatical error). Nor did he ever directly say that "providing incentives to westerners is the only way to grow an environment where western gamers can exceed Korean gamers." He may be implying that, but you seem to be interpreting his statements with some kind of racist/supremacist angle.
second, that's not "literally the definition of protectionism" by any stretch. Protectionism is primarily concerned with international trade and the levying of tariffs and quotas on foreign imports. Is Korea somehow dominating our domestic market of "esports" and putting our local esports manufacturers out of business? did he mention that he wanted to bar koreans from competing in non-korean events?
Explain exactly how wanting to keep North American and European progamers competing within their home countries instead of having to fly out to the other side of the world constitutes "xenophobia" and "economic illiteracy," and explain how building non-korean SC2 leagues and communities is any different from, say, Japanese baseball and MLB, or European basketball leagues and the NBA.
He talks about incentives available only to westerners, twice no less.
Says there should be a separation of the two scenes.
And states that separating out Koreans and providing incentives to westerners is the only way to grow an environment where western gamers can exceed Korean gamers.
That's literally the definition of protectionism; you'll have to pardon me the liberty of applying an absurdly appropriate adjective.
Dude worked very hard to create a reasonable sounding argument, where at its core he's appealing to xenophobia and economic illiteracy for the sake of making his own career easier.
uhh what
First, he doesn't say "koreans should be excluded" anywhere (he says "I am not saying koreans should be just excluded from all international events" but in context it's pretty clearly a grammatical error). Nor did he ever directly say that "providing incentives to westerners is the only way to grow an environment where western gamers can exceed Korean gamers." He may be implying that, but you seem to be interpreting his statements with some kind of racist/supremacist angle.
second, that's not "literally the definition of protectionism" by any stretch. Protectionism is primarily concerned with international trade and the levying of tariffs and quotas on foreign imports. Is Korea somehow dominating our domestic market of "esports" and putting our local esports manufacturers out of business? did he mention that he wanted to bar koreans from competing in non-korean events?
Explain exactly how wanting to keep North American and European progamers competing within their home countries instead of having to fly out to the other side of the world constitutes "xenophobia" and "economic illiteracy," and explain how building non-korean SC2 leagues and communities is any different from, say, Japanese baseball and MLB, or European basketball leagues and the NBA.
whitepeoplelololol
Seriously though, this whole NASL debate is really making people into idiots. Why can't we just wait until it comes out and see how it does? Writing off the whole event because their twitter looks bad is idiotic.
He talks about incentives available only to westerners, twice no less.
Says there should be a separation of the two scenes.
And states that separating out Koreans and providing incentives to westerners is the only way to grow an environment where western gamers can exceed Korean gamers.
That's literally the definition of protectionism; you'll have to pardon me the liberty of applying an absurdly appropriate adjective.
Dude worked very hard to create a reasonable sounding argument, where at its core he's appealing to xenophobia and economic illiteracy for the sake of making his own career easier.
I have no idea what you are talking about but it sounds like he does make a pretty good argument, I know in BW a lot of players were probably discouraged from playing competitively and a lot of people probably didn't even care about the scene because it was all Koreans and in Korea. Also this makes the NASL unique, and stands out. There are plently of of other leagues and tournies out there, the NASL did something to be unique.
You have Catz, Pokebunny and several other NASL competitors offering up explanations as to why esports will grow and improve faster in the west if they're shielded from competing with MC, NesTea, Mvp, etc.
And I'm of the opinion that you will not somehow magically outpace your strongest competitors if you don't, uh... compete with them.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
It is just the NASL though, its not like over night every single non-Korean player just voted to never play a Korean again. One league decided not to invite 40 Koreans and 10 foreigners and now everyone is whining about how the league sucks.
He talks about incentives available only to westerners, twice no less.
Says there should be a separation of the two scenes.
And states that separating out Koreans and providing incentives to westerners is the only way to grow an environment where western gamers can exceed Korean gamers.
That's literally the definition of protectionism; you'll have to pardon me the liberty of applying an absurdly appropriate adjective.
Dude worked very hard to create a reasonable sounding argument, where at its core he's appealing to xenophobia and economic illiteracy for the sake of making his own career easier.
I have no idea what you are talking about but it sounds like he does make a pretty good argument, I know in BW a lot of players were probably discouraged from playing competitively and a lot of people probably didn't even care about the scene because it was all Koreans and in Korea. Also this makes the NASL unique, and stands out. There are plently of of other leagues and tournies out there, the NASL did something to be unique.
You have Catz, Pokebunny and several other NASL competitors offering up explanations as to why esports will grow and improve faster in the west if they're shielded from competing with MC, NesTea, Mvp, etc.
And I'm of the opinion that you will not somehow magically outpace your strongest competitors if you don't, uh... compete with them.
But isn't that what this current World vs. Korea stuff GSL is doing is about?
I sort of agree with keeping a North American Star League more focused on North America and non-Korean players, because at the end of the day, Korea lives and dies by GSL as their premiere showcase.
The players in Korea are so consistently strong that it won't make sense having three or four foreigners playing in GSL tournaments every month, yet after they get Ro16 (or Ro4 if you're Jinro), have nothing comparable in other countries.
Korea will always be the premiere place for Starcraft, and MLG/WCG/NASL won't change that, probably ever.
There is nothing more satisfying than scouting a terran's double gas with your drone, and then double tech lab starport with a well timed overlord, and then killing their 6 cloaked banshees with queens and one spore crawler per hatch.
Then expanding 3 times while keeping them contained with roaches, speedling runbys and fungal growth. That'll teach them for messing with the hive queens' babies!
Anzekay on
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
It is just the NASL though, its not like over night every single non-Korean player just voted to never play a Korean again. One league decided not to invite 40 Koreans and 10 foreigners and now everyone is whining about how the league sucks.
Yeah I don't have any problem with the NASL or its player composition. I'm excited for the league and I'm sure it will be fun to watch.
It's just obnoxious of these players to elaborately explain that it somehow raises the level of competition if you shield them from playing against the most competitive players in the world.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
It is just the NASL though, its not like over night every single non-Korean player just voted to never play a Korean again. One league decided not to invite 40 Koreans and 10 foreigners and now everyone is whining about how the league sucks.
Yeah I don't have any problem with the NASL or its player composition. I'm excited for the league and I'm sure it will be fun to watch.
It's just obnoxious of these players to elaborately explain that it somehow raises the level of competition if you shield them from playing against the most competitive players in the world.
Yeah that part is pretty wish-washy
But can you imagine how well North American players would be if 'Starcraft houses' were a norm instead of the exception? If we formatted training leagues and teams the same way Korea has, the level of play WOULD improve, especially considering we could send stronger versions of our best players overseas to GSL, to see better results.
The World vs. Korea stuff is showing that Korea's actually being surprised left and right by 'creative play', as Cella said. I still think the skill ceiling is higher in Korea from a purely mechanical standpoint, but there's something fantastic about different regions having different strengths and weaknesses: That's the appeal of MMA or K1 fighting, as well.
It is just the NASL though, its not like over night every single non-Korean player just voted to never play a Korean again. One league decided not to invite 40 Koreans and 10 foreigners and now everyone is whining about how the league sucks.
Yeah I don't have any problem with the NASL or its player composition. I'm excited for the league and I'm sure it will be fun to watch.
It's just obnoxious of these players to elaborately explain that it somehow raises the level of competition if you shield them from playing against the most competitive players in the world.
I'm only going off of Catz's post (that anzekay pasted in the last thread) so I don't know what the other players have said, but Catz did not mention "shielding" from playing against Koreans at any point whatsoever.
My personal opinion as to why no GSL Code S players will be invited to NASL is because they cannot guarantee that they can make it to the NASL finals in the US. There is a reason that Huk and Jinro didn't submit applications and that Idra felt that he had to be in the US to be able to compete in international tournaments. The Code S schedule is pretty brutal there is always something going on.
The real reason there is controversy is that players are invited to play and are not forced to qualify. People got mad when all the people in Korea were invited to play in the TSL while everyone else had to qualify. They were mad that Moonglade, Huk, Haypro, and Loner got automatic invites to Code A. People just like to complain about invites. It goes both ways.
It is just the NASL though, its not like over night every single non-Korean player just voted to never play a Korean again. One league decided not to invite 40 Koreans and 10 foreigners and now everyone is whining about how the league sucks.
Yeah I don't have any problem with the NASL or its player composition. I'm excited for the league and I'm sure it will be fun to watch.
It's just obnoxious of these players to elaborately explain that it somehow raises the level of competition if you shield them from playing against the most competitive players in the world.
I'm only going off of Catz's post (that anzekay pasted in the last thread) so I don't know what the other players have said, but Catz did not mention "shielding" from playing against Koreans at any point whatsoever.
Catz calls for "a separation" of the two scenes and for "incentives and prizes" just for westerners, and claims that this is the best way for the western environment to become as good as the Korean environment.
He literally asks for separation from and special benefits over top Korean players. I don't know what else to say.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Catz calls for "a separation" of the two scenes and for "incentives and prizes" just for westerners, and claims that this is the best way for the western environment to become as good as the Korean environment.
He literally asks for separation from and special benefits over top Korean players. I don't know what else to say.
We're clearly interpreting his post differently. His use of "separation" is vague at best, and while you're understanding it as "barring koreans from playing with non-koreans," I see it as "create a non-korean league in which playing against Koreans/moving to Korea isn't the ultimate end goal." I'm also not sure where you're getting "special benefits over top Korean players."
He also generally urges an incentive for western players to stay around. What did you think he meant by that? How are you interpreting the word "incentive" such that it has negative connotations?
Kellymilkies is live right now with the Foreigner House, talking with Sen right now
Morrow is apparently training with Squirtle for the upcoming matchup :O :O
Wow I had to turn that off, she giggles way too much. Her english isn't terrible, really good compared to most Koreans but it sounds like she has a bit of an Australian accent or something, kind of annoying.
Now I would love to offend Australians and tell them that I hate their accent, but I don't. Rescuers Down Under assured that I wouldn't, but I do hate her hybrid accent.
I guess that's a source of confusion, Drag, his vagueness. He's calling for "a separation" between the scenes and for "incentives and prizes" just for westerners. Not very specific, sure.
At the very least, to me that says he wants fewer strong Korean players in his western leagues and comparatively stronger financial incentives, of whatever kind, for the western players. You have to take at least that much from his post.
And at that point the degrees of separation and specific incentives don't matter, so much as the fact that you have a professional gamer advocating a system where you limit his competition and increase his demographic's comparative payout for the sake of growing western esports.
Strikes me as disingenuous, irrational, selfishly motivated.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
I guess that's a source of confusion, Drag, his vagueness. He's calling for "a separation" between the scenes and for "incentives and prizes" just for westerners. Not very specific, sure.
At the very least, to me that says he wants fewer strong Korean players in his western leagues and comparatively stronger financial incentives, of whatever kind, for the western players. You have to take at least that much from his post.
And at that point the degrees of separation and specific incentives don't matter, so much as the fact that you have a professional gamer advocating a system where you limit his competition and increase his demographic's comparative payout for the sake of growing western esports.
Strikes me as disingenuous, irrational, selfishly motivated.
Well let's look at his post again
On March 28 2011 21:15 CatZ.root wrote:
lets hope people actually start supporting and respecting international players instead of idolizing and making excuses for whenever koreans lose against forgeiners... this isn't broodwar, the gap is way smaller at the top level.
People in the western hemisphere have brains too, and don't need to just blindly copy builds to get by. It'd be really nice to see people actually wanting to make esports a reality outside of korea, but the way a lot of people think is really discouraging and depressing.
Koreans are not invincible! -YET- why do I say YET? its simple, they are pulling ahead, not far ahead, just ahead. Because of events like GSL they can train a lot and have reachable goals that make it worth while for them to commit to the game. No one seems to complain that there isn't enough forgeiners in GSL, However, everyone likes complain and cry to make sure that Koreans are invited to events like TSL or NASL (NORTH AMERICAN STARLEAGUE).
I am not saying koreans should be just excluded from all international events, but the truth is, the only way to make esports successful is to create a competitive enviroment, where I am scared of playing KiWiKaKi not MC. Need our own 'stars' our own prizes and our own incentives on this side of the world. Need to create an enviroment where people aren't looking to move to korea, but instead move to this side of the map, like IdrA did.
There should be events like this one or WCG or many others where there are opportunities for people all over the world to face each other, but we need to create some sort of separation as an incentive to "foreigners" to train and improve in a similar enviroment as they have setup in korea.
You reading this are a 'foreigner'...but why are you the 'foreigner', is your brain less capable of producing quality strategy, are your hands too fat and slow by nature's default?
ffs lets stop being the foreigners.
i know you're being sarcastic when you say 'gee drag look at these individual words out of context, i guess it's vague' but i'm pretty sure you're interpreting it completely incorrectly.
He's taking issue with the fact that some of the biggest competitions that we've had recently/will have in the future are arbitrarily inviting Koreans just for the sake of having Koreans in the line-ups. Then when they lose, everyone finds a way to make excuses for their losses beyond skill or strategic failures.
Regardless of whether they lost because they were worse or because they were done in by the lag, do you think that they provided better "competition"? The vast majority of tournaments, including the biggest Korean Brood War tournaments, either seed you in based on your performance at the previous iteration of the tournament or you have to slog your way through the qualifiers and round robins to advance. It doesn't matter if you're Bisu or Jaedong or whoever.
So, I'm interpreting his post as something of a message of frustration in that North America's biggest tournaments somehow feel obligated to invite Koreans to their tournaments simply by virtue of their being Korean, without having had to compete. In essence, it removes the "competition" aspect and simply makes it a matter of popularity. (I personally take issue with the NASL's structure because of this.) He's making the case, "why should we seed Koreans directly into our round of 32 when everyone else had to work to get there?" The recent TSL games are at least an indication that maybe they shouldn't be quite as highly revered as they are.
He's saying that there should be separation because we shouldn't have to constantly give undeserved nods to players who people have an inflated opinion of because the country was good at the prequel. A genuinely competitive and legit league in the west should stand on its own and give rise to its own great players, rather than having pulling them from across the world to give it some sense of "authenticity."
I don't think I'm making any more assumptions of his stance on the issue than you are, in my interpretation.
Legitimate question here, not trying to be snarky or anything. But in the infancy and growing years of SC tournament play, how many times did the 'Korean scene' reach out to US players to make sure they were invited to their tournaments? Is that something that was done?
It is just the NASL though, its not like over night every single non-Korean player just voted to never play a Korean again. One league decided not to invite 40 Koreans and 10 foreigners and now everyone is whining about how the league sucks.
Yeah I don't have any problem with the NASL or its player composition. I'm excited for the league and I'm sure it will be fun to watch.
It's just obnoxious of these players to elaborately explain that it somehow raises the level of competition if you shield them from playing against the most competitive players in the world.
I'm only going off of Catz's post (that anzekay pasted in the last thread) so I don't know what the other players have said, but Catz did not mention "shielding" from playing against Koreans at any point whatsoever.
Catz calls for "a separation" of the two scenes and for "incentives and prizes" just for westerners, and claims that this is the best way for the western environment to become as good as the Korean environment.
He literally asks for separation from and special benefits over top Korean players. I don't know what else to say.
Much like what the GSL has? Where you have to be IN Korea in order to compete in it? None of this online playoffs stuff.
This is the meat of the issue. Regardless of Catz initial intent re: separation, it really would benefit e-sports to make meat space an issue.
Two things to keep in mind before thinking about what Catz said specifically:
1. A "gaming scene" is a business first and a game second. It has to be, or it cannot self-sustain.
2. The Blizzard-system of internet-only play forces business model that has no previous parallel.
I'll try and explain this in a bit more detail:
If you look at traditional sports like Tennis and Golf, money is made not just from having Tiger Woods win on TV every week, but from people attending the tournament, following local heroes, and playing on their local courses. This is good, since, because of travel limitations, it's not actually possible for Tiger to be at every tournament. This improves competition among the other players, who can choose their own tournament schedule to occasionally avoid the top tier players. While these tournaments aren't the best, it allows those players to make enough money to continue to play at the higher levels, while encouraging the local fan base attending that tournament to find new heroes. The physical, meat-space nature of these games makes play-without-travel impossible.
Switching over to strategy / video games, including Halo, Magic, poker, and of course Starcraft, internet play is an option for all of these games, but the tournaments at the highest level all require in-person participation. Starcraft it the only one drifting away from this, and it hurts their ability to generate revenue. Magic sells physical cards, Halo is played at conventions that hawk new games and energy drinks, and poker rakes in huge advertising revenues on television, in addition to tournament entry fees. Starcraft doesn't even sell spin-off games, and people don't spend as much money on keyboards as on golf clubs.
Even if you overlook the business side of these games, on a game level it can be argued that the in-person tournament structure provides a superior environment to determine the better player beyond who gets the on-stage jitters, in terms of reading your opponent or whatever, but that's not as true for Starcraft (or Halo) because you have separate screens anyway. Because Blizzard has removed every in-game advantage for in-person play, even lag reduction, the top players are not willing to travel to make money, especially where current player revenues and prizes cannot support their travel requirement. The players are actually acting against their own best interest by doing this, because a strong local scene puts more money and interest into that scene.
In summary, it is possible and even a good idea to set up a system where ANY player would be rewarded for physical presence in North America, regardless of the "home training camp" of that player. The physical separation is sufficient to create a new market.
Maybe I'm wrong, and there should never be meat-space SCII games ever again, but I think games and sports thrive better when they have local heroes at every level of play.
Dropping Loads on
Sceptre: Penny Arcade, where you get starcraft AND marriage advice.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
**big snip** He's making the case, "why should we seed Koreans directly into our round of 32 when everyone else had to work to get there?" The recent TSL games are at least an indication that maybe they shouldn't be quite as highly revered as they are.
**snip**
It always takes me too many words to say something I should say in less . This is excellent. Can you imagine the uproar if they let 4 pros start at the final table in the World Series of Poker? Maybe poker isn't the best model for how to run a Starcraft League, but they should be looking for something other than "Top seeds and famous pros only, no studio games, no local qualifiers."
Edited for clarity.
Dropping Loads on
Sceptre: Penny Arcade, where you get starcraft AND marriage advice.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
See, I'm not happy the NASL is trying to be a "best league in the world" and then ignore the best players in the world.
BUT, there is a serious lack of knowledge of some great players from non-korea. I am certain there are amazing players out there that don't have the fanbase they should have because the foreign scene is really focused on a handful of individuals. Getting more names out there showcasing who the best foreigners actually are is important.
Posts
With one placement match, we'll weed out the inactive players. Do you think this will make the leagues harder to get promoted to and easier to get demoted from? Or do you think it may actually make it easier to get a promotion (from a leaner playerbase, the better players will actually make wide strides right out of the gate)?
I'm just interested in how losing 10%+ of the laddering community will effect the overall skew of the MMR system.
B.net: Kusanku
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-3ZrXOrz_0
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
uhh what
First, he doesn't say "koreans should be excluded" anywhere (he says "I am not saying koreans should be just excluded from all international events" but in context it's pretty clearly a grammatical error). Nor did he ever directly say that "providing incentives to westerners is the only way to grow an environment where western gamers can exceed Korean gamers." He may be implying that, but you seem to be interpreting his statements with some kind of racist/supremacist angle.
second, that's not "literally the definition of protectionism" by any stretch. Protectionism is primarily concerned with international trade and the levying of tariffs and quotas on foreign imports. Is Korea somehow dominating our domestic market of "esports" and putting our local esports manufacturers out of business? did he mention that he wanted to bar koreans from competing in non-korean events?
Explain exactly how wanting to keep North American and European progamers competing within their home countries instead of having to fly out to the other side of the world constitutes "xenophobia" and "economic illiteracy," and explain how building non-korean SC2 leagues and communities is any different from, say, Japanese baseball and MLB, or European basketball leagues and the NBA.
whitepeoplelololol
Seriously though, this whole NASL debate is really making people into idiots. Why can't we just wait until it comes out and see how it does? Writing off the whole event because their twitter looks bad is idiotic.
You have Catz, Pokebunny and several other NASL competitors offering up explanations as to why esports will grow and improve faster in the west if they're shielded from competing with MC, NesTea, Mvp, etc.
And I'm of the opinion that you will not somehow magically outpace your strongest competitors if you don't, uh... compete with them.
But isn't that what this current World vs. Korea stuff GSL is doing is about?
I sort of agree with keeping a North American Star League more focused on North America and non-Korean players, because at the end of the day, Korea lives and dies by GSL as their premiere showcase.
The players in Korea are so consistently strong that it won't make sense having three or four foreigners playing in GSL tournaments every month, yet after they get Ro16 (or Ro4 if you're Jinro), have nothing comparable in other countries.
Korea will always be the premiere place for Starcraft, and MLG/WCG/NASL won't change that, probably ever.
Then expanding 3 times while keeping them contained with roaches, speedling runbys and fungal growth. That'll teach them for messing with the hive queens' babies!
kambing takes it for today with his lovely ling/bling strategies ZvP
Yeah I don't have any problem with the NASL or its player composition. I'm excited for the league and I'm sure it will be fun to watch.
It's just obnoxious of these players to elaborately explain that it somehow raises the level of competition if you shield them from playing against the most competitive players in the world.
Yeah that part is pretty wish-washy
But can you imagine how well North American players would be if 'Starcraft houses' were a norm instead of the exception? If we formatted training leagues and teams the same way Korea has, the level of play WOULD improve, especially considering we could send stronger versions of our best players overseas to GSL, to see better results.
The World vs. Korea stuff is showing that Korea's actually being surprised left and right by 'creative play', as Cella said. I still think the skill ceiling is higher in Korea from a purely mechanical standpoint, but there's something fantastic about different regions having different strengths and weaknesses: That's the appeal of MMA or K1 fighting, as well.
I'm only going off of Catz's post (that anzekay pasted in the last thread) so I don't know what the other players have said, but Catz did not mention "shielding" from playing against Koreans at any point whatsoever.
Guess I'll have to hold this epic masters showmatch for tomorrow then.
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
thanks so much I was just coming to whine that I couldn't find them
The real reason there is controversy is that players are invited to play and are not forced to qualify. People got mad when all the people in Korea were invited to play in the TSL while everyone else had to qualify. They were mad that Moonglade, Huk, Haypro, and Loner got automatic invites to Code A. People just like to complain about invites. It goes both ways.
Catz calls for "a separation" of the two scenes and for "incentives and prizes" just for westerners, and claims that this is the best way for the western environment to become as good as the Korean environment.
He literally asks for separation from and special benefits over top Korean players. I don't know what else to say.
We're clearly interpreting his post differently. His use of "separation" is vague at best, and while you're understanding it as "barring koreans from playing with non-koreans," I see it as "create a non-korean league in which playing against Koreans/moving to Korea isn't the ultimate end goal." I'm also not sure where you're getting "special benefits over top Korean players."
He also generally urges an incentive for western players to stay around. What did you think he meant by that? How are you interpreting the word "incentive" such that it has negative connotations?
Morrow is apparently training with Squirtle for the upcoming matchup :O :O
That is the most amazing bad timing I've ever seen. You can't even really blame the guy. Too funny!
Wow I had to turn that off, she giggles way too much. Her english isn't terrible, really good compared to most Koreans but it sounds like she has a bit of an Australian accent or something, kind of annoying.
Now I would love to offend Australians and tell them that I hate their accent, but I don't. Rescuers Down Under assured that I wouldn't, but I do hate her hybrid accent.
(Now away before the GSL World Championships are spoiled)
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/17tx/
http://i.imgur.com/xV9fz.jpg
At the very least, to me that says he wants fewer strong Korean players in his western leagues and comparatively stronger financial incentives, of whatever kind, for the western players. You have to take at least that much from his post.
And at that point the degrees of separation and specific incentives don't matter, so much as the fact that you have a professional gamer advocating a system where you limit his competition and increase his demographic's comparative payout for the sake of growing western esports.
Strikes me as disingenuous, irrational, selfishly motivated.
haha that first one is amazing
I cackled at the second one.
Well let's look at his post again
lets hope people actually start supporting and respecting international players instead of idolizing and making excuses for whenever koreans lose against forgeiners... this isn't broodwar, the gap is way smaller at the top level.
People in the western hemisphere have brains too, and don't need to just blindly copy builds to get by. It'd be really nice to see people actually wanting to make esports a reality outside of korea, but the way a lot of people think is really discouraging and depressing.
Koreans are not invincible! -YET- why do I say YET? its simple, they are pulling ahead, not far ahead, just ahead. Because of events like GSL they can train a lot and have reachable goals that make it worth while for them to commit to the game. No one seems to complain that there isn't enough forgeiners in GSL, However, everyone likes complain and cry to make sure that Koreans are invited to events like TSL or NASL (NORTH AMERICAN STARLEAGUE).
I am not saying koreans should be just excluded from all international events, but the truth is, the only way to make esports successful is to create a competitive enviroment, where I am scared of playing KiWiKaKi not MC. Need our own 'stars' our own prizes and our own incentives on this side of the world. Need to create an enviroment where people aren't looking to move to korea, but instead move to this side of the map, like IdrA did.
There should be events like this one or WCG or many others where there are opportunities for people all over the world to face each other, but we need to create some sort of separation as an incentive to "foreigners" to train and improve in a similar enviroment as they have setup in korea.
You reading this are a 'foreigner'...but why are you the 'foreigner', is your brain less capable of producing quality strategy, are your hands too fat and slow by nature's default?
ffs lets stop being the foreigners.
i know you're being sarcastic when you say 'gee drag look at these individual words out of context, i guess it's vague' but i'm pretty sure you're interpreting it completely incorrectly.
He's taking issue with the fact that some of the biggest competitions that we've had recently/will have in the future are arbitrarily inviting Koreans just for the sake of having Koreans in the line-ups. Then when they lose, everyone finds a way to make excuses for their losses beyond skill or strategic failures.
Regardless of whether they lost because they were worse or because they were done in by the lag, do you think that they provided better "competition"? The vast majority of tournaments, including the biggest Korean Brood War tournaments, either seed you in based on your performance at the previous iteration of the tournament or you have to slog your way through the qualifiers and round robins to advance. It doesn't matter if you're Bisu or Jaedong or whoever.
So, I'm interpreting his post as something of a message of frustration in that North America's biggest tournaments somehow feel obligated to invite Koreans to their tournaments simply by virtue of their being Korean, without having had to compete. In essence, it removes the "competition" aspect and simply makes it a matter of popularity. (I personally take issue with the NASL's structure because of this.) He's making the case, "why should we seed Koreans directly into our round of 32 when everyone else had to work to get there?" The recent TSL games are at least an indication that maybe they shouldn't be quite as highly revered as they are.
He's saying that there should be separation because we shouldn't have to constantly give undeserved nods to players who people have an inflated opinion of because the country was good at the prequel. A genuinely competitive and legit league in the west should stand on its own and give rise to its own great players, rather than having pulling them from across the world to give it some sense of "authenticity."
I don't think I'm making any more assumptions of his stance on the issue than you are, in my interpretation.
Rainbow
Ensnare
Squirtle
Ret
Zenio
This is the meat of the issue. Regardless of Catz initial intent re: separation, it really would benefit e-sports to make meat space an issue.
Two things to keep in mind before thinking about what Catz said specifically:
1. A "gaming scene" is a business first and a game second. It has to be, or it cannot self-sustain.
2. The Blizzard-system of internet-only play forces business model that has no previous parallel.
I'll try and explain this in a bit more detail:
Switching over to strategy / video games, including Halo, Magic, poker, and of course Starcraft, internet play is an option for all of these games, but the tournaments at the highest level all require in-person participation. Starcraft it the only one drifting away from this, and it hurts their ability to generate revenue. Magic sells physical cards, Halo is played at conventions that hawk new games and energy drinks, and poker rakes in huge advertising revenues on television, in addition to tournament entry fees. Starcraft doesn't even sell spin-off games, and people don't spend as much money on keyboards as on golf clubs.
Even if you overlook the business side of these games, on a game level it can be argued that the in-person tournament structure provides a superior environment to determine the better player beyond who gets the on-stage jitters, in terms of reading your opponent or whatever, but that's not as true for Starcraft (or Halo) because you have separate screens anyway. Because Blizzard has removed every in-game advantage for in-person play, even lag reduction, the top players are not willing to travel to make money, especially where current player revenues and prizes cannot support their travel requirement. The players are actually acting against their own best interest by doing this, because a strong local scene puts more money and interest into that scene.
In summary, it is possible and even a good idea to set up a system where ANY player would be rewarded for physical presence in North America, regardless of the "home training camp" of that player. The physical separation is sufficient to create a new market.
Maybe I'm wrong, and there should never be meat-space SCII games ever again, but I think games and sports thrive better when they have local heroes at every level of play.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
It always takes me too many words to say something I should say in less
Edited for clarity.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
sen > Anypro
sen > MKP
sen < sanZenith
TT1 > sanZenith
TT1 > Nada
World 4 - 2 Korea so far
Also, singles tournament draw happened:
BUT, there is a serious lack of knowledge of some great players from non-korea. I am certain there are amazing players out there that don't have the fanbase they should have because the foreign scene is really focused on a handful of individuals. Getting more names out there showcasing who the best foreigners actually are is important.