No good deed ever goes unpunished, an axiom that's true amongst most if not all scenes, not least of all SC2. Alongside the positivity of a new SHOUTcraft America tournament comes the usual negativity from those who do little but complain. Alongside the noise and bullshit though comes genuine misconception, like this post right here which I'd like to address.
"Doesn't anyone else find TB's hyper-nationalistic view on SC2 odd and out of place when every member of the America-based team he manages and owns are Koreans and the team house is located in Korea? Most importantly, while criticizing WCS for taking opportunities away from the regional players, his team has the largest number of Koreans playing in the WCS AM among the participating teams..."
This is in response to an interview I did with Ongamers about SHOUTcraft America and my strong belief in regional competition. Since I started talking about this, a few people have been quick to jump on the usual "GOTCHA!" train of trying to equate Axioms participation in WCS America with hypocrisy when it comes to my opinion on regional competition. That point of view is filled with flaws.
1) Axiom is not an "America-based team". Axiom is and always will be a Korean team. They live in a Korean house, they are all native Korean, they compete in Korean competition (GSTL), they train in the Korean style, they speak Korean, they eat Korean food, they're about as Korean as Korean gets. There is nothing "foreign" about Axiom. We are not EG, we don't have foreign players, we didn't start with foreign players and we have no intention of ever signing foreign players. EG and Teamliquid signed Korean players after their inception because they wanted to win tournaments. Axiom signed Korean players from day 1 because we wanted to help out the Korean scene and particular players within it who were not getting the opportunities they deserved. EG and Teamliquid are foreign teams, Axiom is a Korean team.
2) The term "hyper-nationalistic view" implies I'm the KKK of Starcraft. There is nothing hyper-nationalistic about wanting regional competition because this is entirely normal in every other sport, which should be obvious if you pay even the slightest bit of attention to other sports. American teams do not go and compete in other American football, basketball or baseball leagues in other countries because well, they would crush everybody. By staying the hell out of those leagues (not that the leagues would let them in to begin with), those countries have a chance to develop their own scenes and become competitive inside their region. For an English example, Italian football teams do not compete in the English Premier league. It's a bit of a funky comparison because English teams frequently hire foreign players to compete, but Barcelona or Juventus can't just go stomping into the Premier league or worse, the First Division and wipe everyone else off the map. Competitions where this stuff can happen exist, things like the Champions League, but the regional competition is left intact and strong as it should be. The view that this should be the case in Starcraft is not "hyper-nationalistic" and it is certainly not "racist" as a few of the less smart members of the community have suggested. It's common bloody sense and if we ignore the lessons of much more successful sports, than we are doomed to make some pretty stupid mistakes.
3) "his team has the largest number of Koreans playing in the WCS AM among the participating teams..."
EG has more members playing in WCS America than we have players in the team total. 4 of them are Korean. Impact is not competing in WCS America, he is competing in WCS Korea and we may very well have more members going back to compete in WCS Korea next year pending on Blizzards format announcements for 2014.
4) If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players. There are plenty lining up to do it. There may be more next year. Heck I think the only thing keeping a lot of them away from WCS America is the fact that it's becoming the strongest tournament outside of Korea. If it were easy to descend on the easiest WCS region, that being Europe, I'm sure they would, but massive RO32 lag disadvantage alongside travel costs and a lack of facilities in Europe for Korean players keep them at bay, for now. Pulling all of Axioms players from WCS America would not create opportunities for American players while the system remains as broken as it is.
5) We cannot legally tell our players where to play. Each of our players is an independent contractor who makes their own decisions about which tournaments they participate in. We cannot tell a player to go to a specific event and even if we could, we wouldn't because that's not how we treat our players. If they want to play in WCS America, that is their decision, not mine.
6) Why is it that Axiom is the only team getting criticised for sending Koreans to WCS America? Such a strange thing to do when we're also providing opportunities for Americans with the SCA tournaments. I suppose the loudest person is the easiest target, but it all strikes me as rather odd. I'm not in favour of any team getting flack for that but it does seem curiously silent when referring to EG or Teamliquid.
7) Let's talk business. My first priority as a responsible manager is the well-being of the team and its players. My personal beliefs about region-locking are secondary to that. Any suggestion otherwise would make me bad at my job, something that's actually worth criticising me over. When WCS America first came around, we had one player directly seeded into the tournament and preferential invites to the qualifiers for the rest. Of our 5 players at the time, 1 was seeded to Premier and 3 others qualified. At the time, none of them were in Code S, Ryung had just dropped to Code A prior to that and the others had failed to qualify for Code A. As a result they all wished to participate in WCS America and this was especially true after they all got into Premier. It is guaranteed money, guaranteed exposure, guaranteed points, you would have to be out of your mind to not allow them to play.
Jesus I mean I can't imagine how much you lot would have crucified me if it had got out that I'd stopped people like Ryung and Crank from taking guaranteed spots in Premier league just because I had some belief about region lock. My role as a team manager comes first, always. The needs of my players comes first. Guess what, we don't live in a fairytale world. Sometimes we have to make decisions we don't like. I don't like the fact that our guys play in WCS America, I'd rather see them rocking the GSL but that's not what they wanted and the opportunity was there for them in America. Anyone who wanted a shot at the finals and was not already in Code S when WCS was sprung on us was absolutely screwed. This is why a bunch of popular Korean players jumped to WCS America in Season 1 immediately, because otherwise they'd have had to go through Code A and would already be behind in WCS points. That's the system we were in and the game we had to play. HerO? Not in Code S, so jumped to America because if he didn't he could kiss any shot at the WCS Finals goodbye. Jaedong, Oz, Revival, Polt, take your pick, none of them were in Code S, they didn't stand a chance. IIRC, the only example of a player that managed to pull it off was Taeja and that's well, because he's Taeja. Hate the game not the player, we did what we had to do.
If you couldn't tell, I'm a bit tired of this. Sometimes I look at this scene and want to scream "WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LOVE YOU?". I guess the only thing to do is keep moving forward. Maybe after enough events people might forgive me for whatever capital sin I committed. Until then I guess wallowing in self pity will have to do.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Axiom's players playing in WCS America. I might feel the rules should be changed so they aren't allowed to, but until that occurs it's silly for anyone to criticize players for following the rules to give themselves the best opportunity possible.
While I agree with the general intent behind everything you said (and am too lazy to fact check it, but it looks fine), it will never cease to amaze me how much effort you put into answering small groups of trolls. 90% of the time I see a big defensive post or a line of defensive tweets, I never see the dumbass comments that spurred it.
On November 15 2013 12:46 deth2munkies wrote: While I agree with the general intent behind everything you said (and am too lazy to fact check it, but it looks fine), it will never cease to amaze me how much effort you put into answering small groups of trolls. 90% of the time I see a big defensive post or a line of defensive tweets, I never see the dumbass comments that spurred it.
The misconception is that I'm answering trolls when what I'm actually trying to do is educate a wider audience on the realities of the industry right now. Someone's posting bullshit? Take it as an opportunity to spread more information among people who may not otherwise have access to it. Turn that negativity into something useful.
If the majority of the scene (read: 60-40 [that's my guess at the lowest it could go, I'd assume many more are happy about shoutcraft and all of the opportunities presented with it]) let you love them, would you still feel the need to want to love the 40%?
How can you love people who are unwilling to love themselves first?
Edited: Perhaps you should make a series of blogs entitled "No @#*$ing bullshit" and put stuff like this in there?
I appreciate what you do for the community, even if other people don't. You shouldn't expect everyone on the internet to be intelligent and kind anyways. Keep doing what you are doing, so far nobody has come up with a legitimate argument that you are a bad manager.
On November 15 2013 12:54 Pandain wrote: Yeah this informs me.
So I guess my question is would you believe in region locking even if it hurt your players.
Yes I do. Here's the thing about WCS, it's not actually that much fun. The costs associated with WCS are massive, the travel budget is being completely blown on WCS flights for a tournament that the players don't really enjoy that much anyway. Our players much prefer things like Dreamhack or various regional IEMs and we can send them to more of those events next year if we spend less money flying them to WCS America. It's not like MLG, ESL and NASL aren't trying to make the best with what they have but the WCS format doesn't lend itself well to a really fun competition whereas those weekend tournaments do. I think our guys have proven they can fight with the best in GSTL, and it's not like they escaped fighting tough players by going to WCS America, they ran into some of the top-tier Koreans in their journey through the tournament this year.
However, if region-locking were to come into effect, I feel Korean competition must be stimulated further. The talent pool in Korea is massive and there aren't enough tournaments for them to play in. You might say "oh, well just send em to the other regions", well good luck doing that. The teams doing that are the ones that have the budget for it, everyone else is just kinda stuck languishing in Code A or B. Korea has such a massive talent pool that it needs more tournaments to accommodate it. I'm constantly flabbergasted by the lack of Korean tournaments outside of WCS and Proleague. I'd like to see Blizzard can the grand-slams and use that budget to put on another regular event in Korea to give those pros something to fight for. Maybe we wouldn't have so many great Korean players retiring if they actually had place to play.
I think TB's main problem is simple: He cares. A very rare attribute these days; a lot people pretend but actually they are only hiding behind etiquette labeled falsely as manners.
SC2 is in a little bit of a crisis IMHO right now. The community didn't grow (in numbers and quality), the organizational side is lacking badly (be it tournaments or simple game support for esport). I partially blame Blizzard that SC2 is not DotA ... they leeched money (licensing) out of the scene instead of investing (see Riad, Valve). Hopefully things turn around 180° next year cause I feel like a lot of this frustration is just targeted into the wrong direction right now.
Slight correction for the last paragraph, TaeJa was actually seeded into WCS KR Season 1 and placed top 16 to earn some WCS points before he jumped to America. Ironically, JD actually didn't qualify for WCS until season 2 and still ended up as the #3 seed in Blizzcon.
Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said. That said, I guess it's easy to criticise when you know you're in a place where I won't call you on it. Surprise!
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
On November 15 2013 13:06 smashlloyd20 wrote: Slight correction for the last paragraph, TaeJa was actually seeded into WCS KR Season 1 and placed top 16 to earn some WCS points before he jumped to America. Ironically, JD actually didn't qualify for WCS until season 2 and still ended up as the #3 seed in Blizzcon.
Ahh yes you're right.
EG also spent unholy amounts of money sending Jaedong to every possible WCS-accredited tournament they could in order to compensate for his lack of appearance in Season 1, something a lot of teams can't even afford to do.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do from a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works. There's a bunch of laws I don't like either but I have to abide by em. Welcome to real life.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
What? I think there's much more positivity than negativity when it comes to TB and Axiom. You guys have been nothing but supporting the scene for so long! Never forget that.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
can i just say that amongst a lot of trolls and negativity, the fact that you are using your own money to support a sc2 team makes you a personal hero of mine. and Junho.C, he may not support it, but as he said in his post (if you bothered to read it) is that attending WCS NA was his own player's choices, not his. just because he doesn't support WCS NA doesn't mean he's going to stop his players from playing if they wish too.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
the analogy would be better if TB was encouraging people not to exploit the system while exploiting the system this is quite different
On November 15 2013 13:27 Junho.C wrote: There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Look, your argument is pretty flawed.
Your mentioned zealot (which is a good choice for a unit, I may add) has a choice. TB is only a team manager and cannot change the ruleset of WCS - he has literally no choice, except for boycott. But that would achieve nothing.
There is nothing wrong stating a system is wrong while using it. I don't like specialized templates in C++ because I consider them flawed, that doesn't mean I'm not using the tools I'm given to do my job. That's the difference between a dreamer and a professional.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
the analogy would be better if TB was encouraging people not to exploit the system while exploiting the system this is quite different
This man actually understands what hypocrisy is. I've never condemned any Korean player for competing in WCS America. Times are hard, you do what you gotta do. You have to play within the bounds of the rules we have.
Genuinely surprised people are silly enough to come up with ridiculous scenarios and give you shit for things they've made up. But hey, internet gonna internet. Keep on doing what you're doing and try not to bite too much of the bait trolls are dangling in front of you.
Secondly, I read this in your voice and it was like pouring chocolate over my brain.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises he's made before he became the President. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSport have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
I don't see why people are being dramatic about this at all. Just a vocal minority seizing out-of-context quotes, they'd be shitting on you no matter what you said.
Thank you for supporting the Korean and American Starcraft scenes TB, it doesn't get said enough.
wtf? Axiom is a fan favorite for many. Don't let the haters get to you. Thanks for addressing some points surrounding the little amount of negativity directed towards your team. As always, thanks for doing what you do in esports!
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
On November 15 2013 13:53 Junho.C wrote: Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Wow, you have actually no idea what's going on ... never watched any of his videos or State of the Game ?
On November 15 2013 13:53 Junho.C wrote: Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Wow, you have actually no idea what's going on ... never watched any of his videos or State of the Game ?
No, I have not. I do not have time to watch all his videos that are not very publicized. I do know, however, that he has been extremely vocal about WCS and those have gotten the most attention. Therefore, I'm inclined to reach the conclusion that he has criticized other tournaments far less.
On November 15 2013 13:53 Junho.C wrote: Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Wow, you have actually no idea what's going on ... never watched any of his videos or State of the Game ?
Despite all your hard work TB, there's just no pleasing some people. I think what you're doing is great and we need more opportunities like this for the NA scene. People forget so easily that the whole professional BW scene was initially built off of a few people working really really hard to grow something they believed in. SC2 benefits a ton from these events, in NA in particular, and I'm looking forward to Shoutcraft!
On November 15 2013 13:53 Junho.C wrote: Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Wow, you have actually no idea what's going on ... never watched any of his videos or State of the Game ?
Despite all your hard work TB, there's just no pleasing some people. I think what you're doing is great and we need more opportunities like this for the NA scene. People forget so easily that the whole professional BW scene was initially built off of a few people working really really hard to grow something they believed in. SC2 benefits a ton from these events, in NA in particular, and I'm looking forward to Shoutcraft!
I'm not criticizing his work. I'm only criticizing TB criticism on WCS and Blizzard, who has done far more work and spent more money in SC2 while his team is taking advantage of the tournament format he's criticizing.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
Blizzard, who has done far more work and spent more money in SC2
Creator of the game and multi-national billion dollar developer/publisher in spending more money than some British guy working out of a home office shocker. I'm actually beginning to see what your agenda is. It's not actually against me, it's in defense of Blizzard and you're shuffling the logic and facts around to fit with that defense. Well let me stop you right there. You're not Blizzards PR guy.
On November 15 2013 13:53 Junho.C wrote: Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Wow, you have actually no idea what's going on ... never watched any of his videos or State of the Game ?
Despite all your hard work TB, there's just no pleasing some people. I think what you're doing is great and we need more opportunities like this for the NA scene. People forget so easily that the whole professional BW scene was initially built off of a few people working really really hard to grow something they believed in. SC2 benefits a ton from these events, in NA in particular, and I'm looking forward to Shoutcraft!
I'm not criticizing his work. I'm only criticizing TB criticism on WCS and Blizzard, who has done far more work and spent more money in SC2 while his team is taking advantage of the tournament format he's criticizing.
Holy shit your ridiculous arguments are starting to make my head hurt.
TB, What you do for the scene is amazing. We all need to appreciate that. At the same time, people will always criticize, especially on the Internet.... It's okay. Unless there is a legitimate swell of criticism, I'd honestly ignore it, confident that good work and good intentions win in the end. Godspeed.
On November 15 2013 13:53 Junho.C wrote: Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Wow, you have actually no idea what's going on ... never watched any of his videos or State of the Game ?
Despite all your hard work TB, there's just no pleasing some people. I think what you're doing is great and we need more opportunities like this for the NA scene. People forget so easily that the whole professional BW scene was initially built off of a few people working really really hard to grow something they believed in. SC2 benefits a ton from these events, in NA in particular, and I'm looking forward to Shoutcraft!
I'm not criticizing his work. I'm only criticizing TB criticism on WCS and Blizzard, who has done far more work and spent more money in SC2 while his team is taking advantage of the tournament format he's criticizing.
Holy shit your ridiculous arguments are starting to make my head hurt.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention. You can dismiss my example as poor one, but you still get the jist of what I'm talking about. You can downplay my example as a poor one, but it is still valid and so is the point I'm addressing. You may not have the power to region lock, but you perpetuated the process while criticizing the system you are taking advantage of. If WCS AM had 4 less major Koreans(Axiom) and they were in EU, Blizzard and WCS may not even be facing as strong outcry for region lock at all.
The definition of hypocrisy is: the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.
You claim that you are for region lock(while enjoying the publicity your videos and other medium got you), yet you sent your players to WCS AM, knowing that it would deprive of regional player's exposure within WCS AM. You proclaim that you can not legally tell the players where they can play. This is true, but you supplied the funds to send them to WCS AM. Many Korean players want to play in WCS AM, but do not because their teams won't supply the funds. Therefore, while you MIGHT not have told them to play in WCS AM, you were complacent as your sponsors and you(Youtube), are based in foreign scenes.
On November 15 2013 13:53 Junho.C wrote: Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Wow, you have actually no idea what's going on ... never watched any of his videos or State of the Game ?
Despite all your hard work TB, there's just no pleasing some people. I think what you're doing is great and we need more opportunities like this for the NA scene. People forget so easily that the whole professional BW scene was initially built off of a few people working really really hard to grow something they believed in. SC2 benefits a ton from these events, in NA in particular, and I'm looking forward to Shoutcraft!
Ehm ... thanks ? But I honestly think you are mixing me up with someone (I was blushing till I read Shoutcraft) ;-).
It's funny. The guy who did the most for the NA SC2 pro scene is (was?) British and managing a Korean team.
Okay, that's a little far fetched, cause they are many others - but he's the one still sitting in the line of fire by those he supports. US is a strange place ...
On November 15 2013 13:12 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
Creator of the game and multi-national billion dollar developer/publisher in spending more money than some British guy working out of a home office shocker. I'm actually beginning to see what your agenda is. It's not actually against me, it's in defense of Blizzard and you're shuffling the logic and facts around to fit with that defense. Well let me stop you right there. You're not Blizzards PR guy.
If what blizzard is doing is so wrong and you work with them often, isn't it more logical for you to talk to them privately? Why all the circus? It just comes off as you trying to capitalize on their mistakes, or on what some fans view as their mistakes, so that people will identify themselves with you. Seems a little backstabby to take advantage of the negative public opinion of your occasional employer/business partner. Specially when you continue to work with them.
On November 15 2013 13:53 Junho.C wrote: Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Wow, you have actually no idea what's going on ... never watched any of his videos or State of the Game ?
No, I have not. I do not have time to watch all his videos that are not very publicized. I do know, however, that he has been extremely vocal about WCS and those have gotten the most attention. Therefore, I'm inclined to reach the conclusion that he has criticized other tournaments far less.
See, my point is, you are accusing someone publicly of something, but you have no idea what this person said about this topic in the past. I recommend you watch at least the State of the Game episode with TB about WCS before you jump to conclusions.
You claim that you are for region lock(while enjoying the publicity your videos and other medium got you), yet you sent your players to WCS AM, knowing that it would deprive of regional player's exposure within WCS AM. You proclaim that you can not legally tell the players where they can play. This is true, but you supplied the funds to send them to WCS AM. Many Korean players want to play in WCS AM, but do not because their teams won't supply the funds. Therefore, while you MIGHT not have told them to play in WCS AM, you were complacent as your sponsors and you(Youtube), are based in foreign scenes.
How does taking advantage of a broken system remove his right to say that the system is broken?
If the Axiom guys hadn't decided to play in WCS AM, it wouldn't be North American players receiving the prize money that they won. It would be other Koreans. They were looking out for themselves, which is the smartest thing to do in a scene where many players don't get payed a salary, and receive zero monetary compensation other than prize money. I'd bet you that most of the Koreans who lacked the finances to send them selves to play in WCS AM would have done so in a heartbeat, had they been on a team with the means to send them. The Axiom players had those means, so they took advantage of it.
Creator of the game and multi-national billion dollar developer/publisher in spending more money than some British guy working out of a home office shocker. I'm actually beginning to see what your agenda is. It's not actually against me, it's in defense of Blizzard and you're shuffling the logic and facts around to fit with that defense. Well let me stop you right there. You're not Blizzards PR guy.
If what blizzard is doing is so wrong and you work with them often, isn't it more logical for you to talk to them privately? Why all the circus? It just comes off as you trying to capitalize on their mistakes, or on what some fans view as their mistakes, so that people will identify themselves with you. Seems a little backstabby to take advantage of the negative public opinion of your occasional employer/business partner. Specially when you continue to work with them.
Blizzard is not my employer, I have no obligation to them outside of the bounds of the event contracts they give me as an independent contractor. You make the assumption that I have not talked to them privately. Ask me, or indeed any of the major team owners how much we've actually talked to Blizzard about this issue in private. Answer is a shitload.
Asking someone with some insight to share to stop talking publicly when the rest of the community is free to bleet away about things they don't understand is counterproductive. My entire job relies on getting my opinion out there, that's what I'm paid to do. I've resisted the urge (and advice from others) to stop engaging with the community because I believe eventually, that with enough information and insight, they can become better. That won't stop.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner? All you do is make your argument weaker. Few people here may agree with me here because I'm not a known member on TL and you are quite well known. But I'm sure there are some less vocal people who do agree. Many people just jump on the band wagon because you are a famous personality. You will find that many people on reddit would agree with me, which was why my post was able to catch your attention instead of being downvoted to oblivion.
If everything in the post was debunked, why don't you tell me why? I've read your post and I can't see a clear point that goes against what I wrote. That's why I wrote it in the first place.
On November 15 2013 13:18 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner? All you do is make your argument weaker. Few people here may agree with me here because I'm not a known member on TL and you are quite well known. But I'm sure there are some less vocal people who do agree. Many people just jump on the band wagon because you are a famous personality. You will find that many people on reddit would agree with me, which was why my post was able to catch your attention instead of being downvoted to oblivion.
If everything in the post was debunked, why don't you tell me why? I've read your post and I can't see a clear point that goes against what I wrote. That's why I wrote it in the first place.
your not nearly as good at making arguments as you think you are. your supposed "points" are giving me a headache
On November 15 2013 13:18 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
On November 15 2013 13:18 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner? All you do is make your argument weaker. Few people here may agree with me here because I'm not a known member on TL and you are quite well known. But I'm sure there are some less vocal people who do agree. Many people just jump on the band wagon because you are a famous personality. You will find that many people on reddit would agree with me, which was why my post was able to catch your attention instead of being downvoted to oblivion.
If everything in the post was debunked, why don't you tell me why? I've read your post and I can't see a clear point that goes against what I wrote. That's why I wrote it in the first place.
No not really, if you took the names and post counts away I still wouldn't take your position seriously.
Creator of the game and multi-national billion dollar developer/publisher in spending more money than some British guy working out of a home office shocker. I'm actually beginning to see what your agenda is. It's not actually against me, it's in defense of Blizzard and you're shuffling the logic and facts around to fit with that defense. Well let me stop you right there. You're not Blizzards PR guy.
If what blizzard is doing is so wrong and you work with them often, isn't it more logical for you to talk to them privately? Why all the circus? It just comes off as you trying to capitalize on their mistakes, or on what some fans view as their mistakes, so that people will identify themselves with you. Seems a little backstabby to take advantage of the negative public opinion of your occasional employer/business partner. Specially when you continue to work with them.
Blizzard is not my employer, I have no obligation to them outside of the bounds of the event contracts they give me as an independent contractor. You make the assumption that I have not talked to them privately. Ask me, or indeed any of the major team owners how much we've actually talked to Blizzard about this issue in private. Answer is a shitload.
Asking someone with some insight to share to stop talking publicly when the rest of the community is free to bleet away about things they don't understand is counterproductive. My entire job relies on getting my opinion out there, that's what I'm paid to do. I've resisted the urge (and advice from others) to stop engaging with the community because I believe eventually, that with enough information and insight, they can become better. That won't stop.
Well, I didn't ask you to stop talking publicly, that is your decision, and talking about relevant things is, like you said, your job. I just find the act of publicly badmouthing institutions that one has a business relationship with, very strange (even if that relationship is not an employer-employee thing). You know? It's just not something I would do. Maybe you could change your message a tad so if doesn't feel so backstabby? I don't know, just some feedback from me. At any rate, thank you for addressing my post.
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
On November 15 2013 13:32 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
No, he was angry and he was saying that he hoped that there were consequences for publicizing private conversations.
On November 15 2013 13:47 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
No, he was angry and he was implying that he hoped that there were consequences for publicizing private conversations.
I'm pretty sure he said "i could sue you for this" or something among those lines.
Basically, if i can get this right, Junho_C is saying that TB is being a hypocrite by criticising the system by having his own players join WCS America (which potentially stifles the growth of 'American' players, which is what TB wants to do).
TB is saying don't hate the player, hate the way the whole thing is set out? He also brings up the point that if his players did not do WCS America, some other Koreans would in their place. Also, he doesn't like the system, but his players are set up in such a way that they do what they want to do, as in edit #2 below.
I'm a reddit lurker (your previous flair was FXO when it was the bull), but i'm more inclined to agree with TB on this one.
You're mad that he's using this criticism as publicity for his own tournament correct? But couldn't one argue that criticising the tournament draws more attention to Shoutcraft America which in turn, supports local regional gaming?
EDIT: i'm not trying to come across as condescending, I just want to clear it up a little so i know where to aim my pitchfork >:
EDIT #2: THANKS partydude89!
On November 15 2013 15:06 partydude89 wrote: I also believe that he said in his opening statement that his players were free to do as they wish, and they WISHED to participate in WCS NA. He's not going to stop them if thats what they want to do, even if he doesn't like the system. he's allowed to be critical of the system because he's not participating into it, not even going into the fact that it has obvious flaws.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
Yes, and actually without any reason. Legally electronic communication in Germany/Austria is always public as long as it's not declared explicit private. Even then it's more a common practice than rule.
HOWEVER TB did his usual protective overreacting - cause he never listens when I'm telling him to go to bed ;-).
On November 15 2013 15:02 sunneh wrote: Basically, if i can get this right, Junho_C is saying that TB is being a hypocrite by criticising the system by having his own players join WCS America (which potentially stifles the growth of 'American' players, which is what TB wants to do).
TB is saying don't hate the player, hate the way the whole thing is set out? He also brings up the point that if his players did not do WCS America, some other Koreans would in their place.
I'm a reddit lurker (your previous flair was FXO when it was the bull), but i'm more inclined to agree with TB on this one.
You're mad that he's using this criticism as publicity for his own tournament correct? But couldn't one argue that criticising the tournament draws more attention to Shoutcraft America which in turn, supports local regional gaming?
I also believe that he said in his opening statement that his players were free to do as they wish, and they WISHED to participate in WCS NA. He's not going to stop them if thats what they want to do, even if he doesn't like the system. he's allowed to be critical of the system because he's not participating into it, not even going into the fact that it has obvious flaws.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
No, he was angry and he was implying that he hoped that there were consequences for publicizing private conversations.
I'm pretty sure he said "i could sue you for this" or something among those lines.
No, it was just an angry banter and he was basically saying there were real consequences for publicizing private conversations. TB overreacted and used social media to try to crucify TaKe. After the negative shitstorm that ensued for both sides, TB apologized, but the damage was already done to both.
On November 15 2013 13:47 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
Yes, and actually without any reason. Legally electronic communication in Germany/Austria is always public as long as it's not declared explicit private. Even then it's more a common practice than rule.
HOWEVER TB did his usual protective overreacting - cause he never listens when I'm telling him to go to bed ;-).
Hey, in my opinion, when it's your wife being threatened, the chains are off.
On November 15 2013 14:07 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
No, he was angry and he was implying that he hoped that there were consequences for publicizing private conversations.
I'm pretty sure he said "i could sue you for this" or something among those lines.
No, it was just an angry banter and he was basically saying there were real consequences for publicizing private conversations. TB overreacted and used social media to try to crucify TaKe. After the negative shitstorm that ensued for both sides, TB apologized, but the damage was already done to both.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
Yes, and actually without any reason. Legally electronic communication in Germany/Austria is always public as long as it's not declared explicit private. Even then it's more a common practice than rule.
HOWEVER TB did his usual protective overreacting - cause he never listens when I'm telling him to go to bed ;-).
Hey, in my opinion, when it's your wife being threatened, the chains are off.
Yeah, but that's not the point. It's not professional to behave like that and he apologized for it. The reddit community never did so tho, even they were the main reason why this all blow up at all. But OTOH, that's what reddit is good for ... and as a TYCSR (temporary youtube comment system replacement).
On November 15 2013 14:07 TotalBiscuit wrote: [quote]
Oh man you are so bad at this whole debate thing. Your false equivalency is so glaring I'm shocked you can't see it yourself when everyone else has no problem spotting it miles away. Obama criticized surveillance then when coming to power he commited surveillance. TotalBiscuit criticised the lack of region-lock and when coming to power (lol) did not region-lock.... wait... he didn't have the power to region lock. The mental gymnastics you're having to go through to reach the conclusion that I'm somehow doing the very thing I'm criticising, which as a team-owner not a tournament provider is literally impossible (and I'm actually like the only tournament operator who IS region-locking his tournaments) are olympic level. I'd give you a solid 9 if you hadn't botched the landing.
Let's repeat for the class. Criticising a tournament for lack of region lock while having your Korean players play in it is not hypocrisy, it is not double-standards and it is not ethically questionable. It is not a region-locked tournament. I might as well be sending them to Dreamhack, it'd have the exact same effect. They're all non-region locked events, there is currently no difference. Why am I not criticising other tournaments? Well gee that's not exactly a hard one, maybe it's because WCS is the dominant weekly format whereas all these other events are weekend warrior or online. The entire SC2 scene now revolves around WCS, everyone else has to play musical chairs with them in time to the music or be left out in the cold. WCS dictates how this scene now operates and has the biggest influence by far. Why would I criticize other tournaments? It's not their job to stimulate the regional scenes (yet there are plenty of them that do anyway btw, especially in Europe). It is WCS job and it's failing at it.
The more I speak to you the more I'm convinced you're grasping at straws to desperately try and resolve some weird cognitive dissonance stuff in your head.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
No, he was angry and he was implying that he hoped that there were consequences for publicizing private conversations.
I'm pretty sure he said "i could sue you for this" or something among those lines.
No, it was just an angry banter and he was basically saying there were real consequences for publicizing private conversations. TB overreacted and used social media to try to crucify TaKe. After the negative shitstorm that ensued for both sides, TB apologized, but the damage was already done to both.
Dude I like that you have an opinion and everything but unless you were the one being threatened your opinion means pretty much dick. The chatlog is open for everyone to see. Gloves come off when you threaten my family, express or implied. You do not wish "something to happen legally" to someones wife and expect them to politely say "oh yes, that's an entirely reasonable reaction". Do I regret that shitstorm? Absolutely, it was damaging to both sides. Did I apologise? Absolutely, because it was the right thing to do and so did he. Do I stand by the idea that defending my family was the right thing to do? Fuck yes. I would take a bullet for my family, I can sure as hell take a few shitbirds trashtalking me on the internet.
I'm still waiting for the apology from the community. It will never come. The "community" (and I use that term loosely because that really means the vocal minority) is very good at smashing the people who build the pillars they stand on and then wondering why things have become less stable.
On November 15 2013 15:02 sunneh wrote: Basically, if i can get this right, Junho_C is saying that TB is being a hypocrite by criticising the system by having his own players join WCS America (which potentially stifles the growth of 'American' players, which is what TB wants to do).
TB is saying don't hate the player, hate the way the whole thing is set out? He also brings up the point that if his players did not do WCS America, some other Koreans would in their place.
I'm a reddit lurker (your previous flair was FXO when it was the bull), but i'm more inclined to agree with TB on this one.
You're mad that he's using this criticism as publicity for his own tournament correct? But couldn't one argue that criticising the tournament draws more attention to Shoutcraft America which in turn, supports local regional gaming?
EDIT: i'm not trying to come across as condescending, I just want to clear it up a little so i know where to aim my pitchfork >:
I'm not mad. I just think it's wrong to criticize a system he's taking advantage of so much for his personal gain. Even before the current Shoutcraft, he's criticize the WCS and Blizzard for views and attention all year. I wouldn't have a problem with it if he did it rarely or did it just to promote this tournament, which may support the regional NA gaming.
On November 15 2013 15:02 sunneh wrote: Basically, if i can get this right, Junho_C is saying that TB is being a hypocrite by criticising the system by having his own players join WCS America (which potentially stifles the growth of 'American' players, which is what TB wants to do).
TB is saying don't hate the player, hate the way the whole thing is set out? He also brings up the point that if his players did not do WCS America, some other Koreans would in their place.
I'm a reddit lurker (your previous flair was FXO when it was the bull), but i'm more inclined to agree with TB on this one.
You're mad that he's using this criticism as publicity for his own tournament correct? But couldn't one argue that criticising the tournament draws more attention to Shoutcraft America which in turn, supports local regional gaming?
EDIT: i'm not trying to come across as condescending, I just want to clear it up a little so i know where to aim my pitchfork >:
I'm not mad. I just think it's wrong to criticize a system he's taking advantage of so much for his personal gain.
Apparently "my personal gain" is $10k in the hole every month.
My concern is the gain of my players. My personal gain is not a factor. SC2 as a whole is a gigantic loss for me and it has been since Day 1, I'd be better off from a business standpoint abandoning it entirely. I won't though, primarily because I love this game too much to do that but also because I'm a stubborn fucker and won't be shoved out by anyone.
Someone said that before you criticise someone you should walk a mile in their shoes, but I'm pretty convinced that all some people such as yourself want to do is steal my shoes.
If I was so bad at this whole debate thing, as you say. My post would not have gotten your attention.
Ahh yes the good old housefly fallacy. "I'm good at this because you're paying attention to me!". No, you're no more better at holding my attention than a housefly is. It has my attention until I squash it, not because it has anything worthwhile to teach me. Also the assumption that making you see the error of your ways is the goal of this post and discussion. It isn't, you'll never convince someone on the internet that they're wrong. The aim of an argument online is to convince everyone else watching that the opposition is wrong, to discredit them in the eyes of the community. So far so good, since literally nobody here is agreeing with you so far.
Everything else in your post was previously debunked, so you're wasting your time repeating it. See original post for counterargument to the whole "if your players weren't there" speculation. See previous definitions of hypocrisy and explanations as to why you're using the term incorrectly as well as reasoning why other tournaments are not comparable to WCS.
How about you respond to what I write without resulting to a condescending manner?
Well it's mostly because you're awful and horribly accusatory. Maybe if you hadn't thrown out wild accusations from the outset you'd have been treated with respect.
I wouldn't have been the first person who accused you of something. Your incident with TaKe comes to mind... I can't really recall anyone who accused you of something that you treated with respect. Even someone like TaKe who has done so much for the scene.
Didn't take threaten to sue his wife? if i was TB, i'd be upset as well.
No, he was angry and he was implying that he hoped that there were consequences for publicizing private conversations.
I'm pretty sure he said "i could sue you for this" or something among those lines.
No, it was just an angry banter and he was basically saying there were real consequences for publicizing private conversations. TB overreacted and used social media to try to crucify TaKe. After the negative shitstorm that ensued for both sides, TB apologized, but the damage was already done to both.
Dude I like that you have an opinion and everything but unless you were the one being threatened your opinion means pretty much dick. The chatlog is open for everyone to see. Gloves come off when you threaten my family, express or implied. You do not wish "something to happen legally" to someones wife and expect them to politely say "oh yes, that's an entirely reasonable reaction". Do I regret that shitstorm? Absolutely, it was damaging to both sides. Did I apologise? Absolutely, because it was the right thing to do and so did he. Do I stand by the idea that defending my family was the right thing to do? Fuck yes. I would take a bullet for my family, I can sure as hell take a few shitbirds trashtalking me on the internet.
I'm still waiting for the apology from the community. It will never come. The "community" (and I use that term loosely because that really means the vocal minority) is very good at smashing the people who build the pillars they stand on and then wondering why things have become less stable.
Why couldn't handle the argument within closed doors like normal people? Instead you even used that argument for publicity.
On November 15 2013 15:15 Junho.C wrote: I'm not mad. I just think it's wrong to criticize a system he's taking advantage of so much for his personal gain.
You know that team Axiom is a financial loss for TB, right ? And shoutcraft is paid by his twitch subscriber income ?
No offense part two, but you make no sense. Like at all.
BTW, junho is not worth the attention until he specifies a better way to behave that benefits more people and improves the system as a whole. And even then, his negative attitude toward TB certainly isn't warranted. Even if TB hasn't acted optimally, he's still acted positively to the best of his abilities. As far as I can tell, with Axiom he (and Genna) took "faceless Koreans" and made them recognizable personalities, which is a net positive for the SC2 scene as a whole. With Shoutcraft America, he's fostering competition in the US, which is a net positive for the SC2 scene as a whole. With his criticism of WCS, he's doing his duty as a knowledgeable member of the community to contribute to the discussion of what's best for the scene, which is a net positive for the SC2 scene as a whole. That's all he does is contribute to the SC2 scene when he could be making more money and gaining more fans with non-SC2 endeavors. It is absurd to look for contradictions within his contributions to the SC2 scene as if we should care at all.
On November 15 2013 15:18 Junho.C wrote: Why couldn't handle the argument within closed doors like normal people? Instead you even used that argument for publicity.
This is not "educate Junho on everything he doesn't understand" evening. You're asking a bunch of dumb questions that you would know the answer to if you knew the situation surrounding what happened rather than just vague recollections or second-hand hearsay.
"You used that argument for publicity". Are you shitting me? We were fucking crucified for trying to be transparent with the community about the situation. Oh the calls for transparency, the community LOOOOVESSS transparency. They worship the ground Richard Lewis walks on because of all the transparency and accountability he's bringing to the scene but oh, when it happens to someone we like, then PRIVACY IS KING. You want to talk about double standards? Let's start right there. Using Skype conversations to provide context to a situation to make sure the community knew exactly what was going on, came back to bite us in the ass and taught us a very valuable lesson. The community only wants transparency when its convenient for them and some of them, yourself included, don't bother to avail yourself of the facts before making accusations of people.
I gotta ask, considering you've stated you don't have time to watch my videos, yet you seem to have plenty of time to argue with me, why you aren't devoting your energies to doing something positive and useful within the scene. You seem to have plenty of time to kill and you're convinced of your own expertise. Bloody well do something, makes a damn difference.
On November 15 2013 15:02 sunneh wrote: Basically, if i can get this right, Junho_C is saying that TB is being a hypocrite by criticising the system by having his own players join WCS America (which potentially stifles the growth of 'American' players, which is what TB wants to do).
TB is saying don't hate the player, hate the way the whole thing is set out? He also brings up the point that if his players did not do WCS America, some other Koreans would in their place.
I'm a reddit lurker (your previous flair was FXO when it was the bull), but i'm more inclined to agree with TB on this one.
You're mad that he's using this criticism as publicity for his own tournament correct? But couldn't one argue that criticising the tournament draws more attention to Shoutcraft America which in turn, supports local regional gaming?
EDIT: i'm not trying to come across as condescending, I just want to clear it up a little so i know where to aim my pitchfork >:
I'm not mad. I just think it's wrong to criticize a system he's taking advantage of so much for his personal gain.
Apparently "my personal gain" is $10k in the hole every month.
My concern is the gain of my players. My personal gain is not a factor. SC2 as a whole is a gigantic loss for me and it has been since Day 1, I'd be better off from a business standpoint abandoning it entirely. I won't though, primarily because I love this game too much to do that but also because I'm a stubborn fucker and won't be shoved out by anyone.
Someone said that before you criticise someone you should walk a mile in their shoes, but I'm pretty convinced that all some people such as yourself want to do is steal my shoes.
$10K in the hole every month from only the cost of running the team, perhaps. But your Youtube channel and other forms of revenue have also benefited much from it. I'm not saying that you may not be making a net profit, but if you claimed to want to support the NA scene, without personal gain, as much as you claimed to, why not form a team within U.S. and have few Korean players like other teams NA based teams do?
On November 15 2013 15:02 sunneh wrote: Basically, if i can get this right, Junho_C is saying that TB is being a hypocrite by criticising the system by having his own players join WCS America (which potentially stifles the growth of 'American' players, which is what TB wants to do).
TB is saying don't hate the player, hate the way the whole thing is set out? He also brings up the point that if his players did not do WCS America, some other Koreans would in their place.
I'm a reddit lurker (your previous flair was FXO when it was the bull), but i'm more inclined to agree with TB on this one.
You're mad that he's using this criticism as publicity for his own tournament correct? But couldn't one argue that criticising the tournament draws more attention to Shoutcraft America which in turn, supports local regional gaming?
EDIT: i'm not trying to come across as condescending, I just want to clear it up a little so i know where to aim my pitchfork >:
I'm not mad. I just think it's wrong to criticize a system he's taking advantage of so much for his personal gain.
Apparently "my personal gain" is $10k in the hole every month.
My concern is the gain of my players. My personal gain is not a factor. SC2 as a whole is a gigantic loss for me and it has been since Day 1, I'd be better off from a business standpoint abandoning it entirely. I won't though, primarily because I love this game too much to do that but also because I'm a stubborn fucker and won't be shoved out by anyone.
Someone said that before you criticise someone you should walk a mile in their shoes, but I'm pretty convinced that all some people such as yourself want to do is steal my shoes.
$10K in the hole every month, perhaps. But your Youtube channel and other forms of revenue have also benefited much from it. I'm not saying that you may not be making a net profit, but if you claimed to want to support the NA scene, without personal gain, as much as you claimed to, why not form a team within U.S. and have few Korean players like other teams NA based teams do?
Hi, you do not know a single thing about how my business operates, please stop pretending. My Youtube channel and "other forms of revenue" have not benefited at all from it. I had to move my Starcraft stuff off my main channel because it was actually harming it through content oversaturation and a niche interest in Starcraft vs my other stuff. Starcraft is a net, objective, quantifiable loss for my business, to the point where my accountant is asking me why the fuck I'm doing it.
This is actually really useful because you're playing the role of someone who quite literally seems to know nothing about what I do and I can use this for reference in future when anyone asks for specifics about how my business operates.
On November 15 2013 15:22 TotalBiscuit wrote: I gotta ask, considering you've stated you don't have time to watch my videos, yet you seem to have plenty of time to argue with me, why you aren't devoting your energies to doing something positive and useful within the scene.
Looks like you have a secret fan.
GLHF TB, I'm signing out - 07:24AM here and old people need at least some sleep. Helps to get a clear head and approach things more relaxed.
Keep up the good work and don't waste all this time you could make videos or spend time with your son with online-folk.
On November 15 2013 15:22 TotalBiscuit wrote: I gotta ask, considering you've stated you don't have time to watch my videos, yet you seem to have plenty of time to argue with me, why you aren't devoting your energies to doing something positive and useful within the scene.
Looks like you have a secret fan.
GLHF TB, I'm signing out - 07:24AM here and old people need at least some sleep. Helps to get a clear head and approach things more relaxed.
Keep up the good work and don't waste all this time you could make videos or spend time with your son with online-folk.
Yuup ditto. It's 1:27am and the encodes are all done so time for bed.
On November 15 2013 15:18 Junho.C wrote: Why couldn't handle the argument within closed doors like normal people? Instead you even used that argument for publicity.
This is not "educate Junho on everything he doesn't understand" evening. You're asking a bunch of dumb questions that you would know the answer to if you knew the situation surrounding what happened rather than just vague recollections or second-hand hearsay.
"You used that argument for publicity". Are you shitting me? We were fucking crucified for trying to be transparent with the community about the situation. Oh the calls for transparency, the community LOOOOVESSS transparency. They worship the ground Richard Lewis walks on because of all the transparency and accountability he's bringing to the scene but oh, when it happens to someone we like, then PRIVACY IS KING. You want to talk about double standards? Let's start right there. Using Skype conversations to provide context to a situation to make sure the community knew exactly what was going on, came back to bite us in the ass and taught us a very valuable lesson. The community only wants transparency when its convenient for them and some of them, yourself included, don't bother to avail yourself of the facts before making accusations of people.
I gotta ask, considering you've stated you don't have time to watch my videos, yet you seem to have plenty of time to argue with me, why you aren't devoting your energies to doing something positive and useful within the scene. You seem to have plenty of time to kill and you're convinced of your own expertise. Bloody well do something, makes a damn difference.
So, you were being transparent for the publicity from the community regardless of how it affects others involved?
On November 15 2013 15:28 Junho.C wrote: So, you were being transparent for the publicity from the community regardless of how it affects others involved?
Ok now I'm convinced you're just trolling, nobody could possibly be this dense by accident.
Juncho.C thinks TotalBiscuit is a hypocrite because he is actively(Shoutcraft) in favour of region locking while Axiom continues to have players in WCS America.
Junho.C would be initially right, in a way, if this was a matter of principle. The "If we pulled out of WCS America, some other Korean players would just take our place" doesn't work if it's a matter of principle. But then again, there are two reasons that TB is right.
1. It's not a matter of principle. It's a business, and TB already explained why region locking makes sense from a business perspective. The football analogy works fairly well.
2. The Axiom players are independent contractors, as TB already said. He doesn't tell them where they can and can't play.
Is this all a ploy to get people to support region locking so that Shoutcraft becomes popular? Yes and no. Yes, because it's a business. Why wouldn't someone actively support their own business? And no, because TB hasn't really been secretive about anything.
Ok, opinion time.
You claim that you are for region lock(while enjoying the publicity your videos and other medium got you), yet you sent your players to WCS AM, knowing that it would deprive of regional player's exposure within WCS AM. You proclaim that you can not legally tell the players where they can play. This is true, but you supplied the funds to send them to WCS AM. Many Korean players want to play in WCS AM, but do not because their teams won't supply the funds. Therefore, while you MIGHT not have told them to play in WCS AM, you were complacent as your sponsors and you(Youtube), are based in foreign scenes.
Ok, so, here's the problem with this idea: TB has to send his players somewhere. They choose where they want to play and TB(or rather Cynicalbrit) pays for it. And he doesn't do that because he continuously wants to support his players mentally(though I have no doubt that he does support them mentally), he does it because he has to. No players at tournaments, no exposure, no sponsors, no paychecks for the players.
Now, you could still argue that this was TB's plan all along, to put himself into a position where his actions can all be excused because he was forced into them, but I doubt he's that smart(no personal offence meant).
On November 15 2013 15:28 Junho.C wrote: So, you were being transparent for the publicity from the community regardless of how it affects others involved?
Ok now I'm convinced you're just trolling, nobody could possibly be this dense by accident.
No, I just know that when you are conducting business, you consider them first and work out a situation that are beneficial to both parties. Instead of talking to TaKe and formulating a proper explanation that provides enough transparency for the community, you screwed TaKe and started the shitstorm.
I wanted to bring attention back to a point TB made a while ago about how he's not trying to "change" anyone's deep seated opinion, but to educate the onlookers. As I finished reading the current last post in this thread, I realized I was only continuing reading this thread to absorb what TB has to say about "the scene" and his business operations. Funny how that works.
TotalBiscuit: If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players.
That's just flawed logic, I think it's called a slippery slope.
Putting better players into the competition always makes it harder for everyone. If Axiom players kick out other good Koreans, that means that these Axiom players are probably better than the other Korean players, which simply raises the bar, and trying to deny that is stupid.
TotalBiscuit: We cannot legally tell our players where to play. Each of our players is an independent contractor who makes their own decisions about which tournaments they participate in. We cannot tell a player to go to a specific event and even if we could, we wouldn't because that's not how we treat our players. If they want to play in WCS America, that is their decision, not mine.
Every good team needs leadership, but to each their own I guess. But don't use this as an argument that the players make the choice, because you gave them the choice to begin with.
TotalBiscuit: Why is it that Axiom is the only team getting criticised for sending Koreans to WCS America? Such a strange thing to do when we're also providing opportunities for Americans with the SCA tournaments. I suppose the loudest person is the easiest target, but it all strikes me as rather odd. I'm not in favour of any team getting flack for that but it does seem curiously silent when referring to EG or Teamliquid.
Because EG and Teamliquid strengthen the foreign scene by supporting foreign players. Having a reliable team is much more valueable than one 5000$ tournament. No one will decide to stay or go pro because of this tournament.
TotalBiscuit: EG and Teamliquid signed Korean players after their inception because they wanted to win tournaments. Axiom signed Korean players from day 1 because we wanted to help out the Korean scene and particular players within it who were not getting the opportunities they deserved.
Axiom signed Koreans because it was easy. Finding and maintaining foreigners across the world and having success with them is really hard. To give the ex Slayers members a room to play and then seeing oneself on the high horse compared to EG and TL when it comes down to the motives and actions is a bit questionable.
Hey TB! Been watching your videos a lot recently, watched your lord of the arena series for a few days in a row. I like your wtf is too. I also thought you were awesome casting the Hearthstone tourney! Just wanted to give that quick shout out.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do from a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
What, his team can't receive the same benefits from the same tournament structure that everyone else does? He's the one trying to change the system, but until it changes, he should damn well on keep going to keep his team competitive, and you are trying to accomplish what here? Get him to pull his team out of WCS America? Or shut up about region locking? He can't do the former, and he won't do the latter, as it's his personal opinion. You keep your opinions separate from doing your job as a team manager.
What are you not getting here?
It is not hypocrisy to want his players (not himself) to have the best opportunity they can and use the same legal system and structure that the rest of the playing field uses, while himself personally believing the structure should change. Shoutcraft is an attempt to help the NA region separate from WCS. I don't understand why people are lambasting him for this, if you don't want to watch it, don't watch it.
people are still trying to use faulty ideologies like 'only americans should be allowed in wcs america' to try and let non-koreans have a chance at winning or do well in something? nothing will ever change lol
TotalBiscuit: If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players.
That's just flawed logic, I think it's called a slippery slope.
Putting better players into the competition always makes it harder for everyone. If Axiom players kick out other good Koreans, that means that these Axiom players are probably better than the other Korean players, which simply raises the bar, and trying to deny that is stupid.
TotalBiscuit: We cannot legally tell our players where to play. Each of our players is an independent contractor who makes their own decisions about which tournaments they participate in. We cannot tell a player to go to a specific event and even if we could, we wouldn't because that's not how we treat our players. If they want to play in WCS America, that is their decision, not mine.
Every good team needs leadership, but to each their own I guess. But don't use this as an argument that the players make the choice, because you gave them the choice to begin with.
TotalBiscuit: Why is it that Axiom is the only team getting criticised for sending Koreans to WCS America? Such a strange thing to do when we're also providing opportunities for Americans with the SCA tournaments. I suppose the loudest person is the easiest target, but it all strikes me as rather odd. I'm not in favour of any team getting flack for that but it does seem curiously silent when referring to EG or Teamliquid.
Because EG and Teamliquid strengthen the foreign scene by supporting foreign players. Having a reliable team is much more valueable than one 5000$ tournament. No one will decide to stay or go pro because of this tournament.
TotalBiscuit: EG and Teamliquid signed Korean players after their inception because they wanted to win tournaments. Axiom signed Korean players from day 1 because we wanted to help out the Korean scene and particular players within it who were not getting the opportunities they deserved.
Axiom signed Koreans because it was easy. Finding and maintaining foreigners across the world and having success with them is really hard. To give the ex Slayers members a room to play and then seeing oneself on the high horse compared to EG and TL when it comes down to the motives and actions is a bit questionable.
I would like to know why you think it's better to support mediocre American players over insanely talented and hard-working Korean players that have almost no way in hell to get on a team in the foreseeable future. Almost without exception, the players on Axiom are better than any player you will find in the NA/EU scenes. They still wouldn't have had any chance at exposure and/or salaries had they remained teamless in Korea. So TB is supporting them - the players with both the talent and the dedication to work hard, and the American scene through tournaments paid from, if I understand the situation correctly, his own pocket. The only players in NA that realistically would get any significant money are the ones that can compete with Scarlett. There aren't many of those. And short of Xenocider and maybe Suppy, I don't really see EG/Liquid picking up any players that weren't already very good (unless they're Koreans like in the case of HerO/Taeja).
So no, I don't think there's a significant difference in "support" between hosting two Shoutcrafts and having one or two North American players with salaries on your team.
As usual, I find that TotalBiscuit has presented a cogent argument, with valid points and an unwavering perspective. (Hint - the "perspective of millions" is absolute bunk compared to the relevant factual statements that have been made by both TotalBiscuit and Intricacy since the formation of Axiom. Unlike a lot of other teams, they've been exceedingly transparent in their operations and motivations.)
Everything I've read in this particular thread that attempts to "refute" the points made I can sum up in one statement. "Come back and try again after you've had at least one debate class."
I mean, seriously - fallacious comparisons mixed with ad hominems and a few straw men with little (if indeed any) specific facts. TotalBiscuit has come back with specifics, addressed points, and had to put up with nothing but a shifting sand of baseless, ill-formed opinions which mostly boil down to "whatever, you suck".
He doesn't suck - the fact that TotalBiscuit wrote this blog is fair proof of that. I'll agree he hasn't always responded well to some things, but he did a damn good job here.The main opposition? Yeah, not so much.
Anyways, shut the hell up. TB is one of the few people involved in the industry that actually still spends a decent amount of time talking to the community. Let him do so without launching a flurry of poorly concealed ad hominem attacks that are only tenuously linked to the matter at hand.
On November 15 2013 15:18 Junho.C wrote: Why couldn't handle the argument within closed doors like normal people? Instead you even used that argument for publicity.
This is not "educate Junho on everything he doesn't understand" evening. You're asking a bunch of dumb questions that you would know the answer to if you knew the situation surrounding what happened rather than just vague recollections or second-hand hearsay.
"You used that argument for publicity". Are you shitting me? We were fucking crucified for trying to be transparent with the community about the situation. Oh the calls for transparency, the community LOOOOVESSS transparency. They worship the ground Richard Lewis walks on because of all the transparency and accountability he's bringing to the scene but oh, when it happens to someone we like, then PRIVACY IS KING. You want to talk about double standards? Let's start right there. Using Skype conversations to provide context to a situation to make sure the community knew exactly what was going on, came back to bite us in the ass and taught us a very valuable lesson. The community only wants transparency when its convenient for them and some of them, yourself included, don't bother to avail yourself of the facts before making accusations of people.
I gotta ask, considering you've stated you don't have time to watch my videos, yet you seem to have plenty of time to argue with me, why you aren't devoting your energies to doing something positive and useful within the scene. You seem to have plenty of time to kill and you're convinced of your own expertise. Bloody well do something, makes a damn difference.
So, you were being transparent for the publicity from the community regardless of how it affects others involved?
The fuck are you trying to accomplish here?
I know, maybe if you ramble and rant long enough, TotalBiscuit will realize the error of his ways, say "Oops, I'm such a terrible person" and pull the plug on Axiom, Shoutcraft, and every bit of his SC2 involvement because "gosh darn it I'm so hypocritical".
God damn this community sure loves to drive off everyone that actually does anything in SC2...
5/5 . TB those haters will never come to tournaments never support teams . Have you ever met in your life a fan @ a lan tournament to complain about things you do ? Those are frustrated kids that cant get over the fact they cant beat koreans and then find stupid reasons to blame people for this .
Here's an example. You don't agree with any political party's program in your country. You think they're all terrible. You voice that concern but you vote one of them anyway. Are you a hypocrite?
No you're not. It would be idiotic of you not to elect the least evil, otherwise you're letting your voice and your responsibility go to waste. But that doesn't mean you can't criticize all of them while establishing your own party and showing how it could be done better. TB is electing the least terrible party (letting his players compete in WCS AM) while speaking out against the terrible parties in his country (the WCS system) but at the same time he's establishing his own and trying to show how it could be done better (with SCA). Because if you don't elect anyone, nobody gives a shit. You have failed to vote, gg. The world moves on and you have no say in it (and no right to complain because you didn't try to change anything). As a founder and CEO of an Sc2 team, you can't let the world move on without you and your team.
TotalBiscuit: If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players.
That's just flawed logic, I think it's called a slippery slope.
Putting better players into the competition always makes it harder for everyone. If Axiom players kick out other good Koreans, that means that these Axiom players are probably better than the other Korean players, which simply raises the bar, and trying to deny that is stupid.
TotalBiscuit: We cannot legally tell our players where to play. Each of our players is an independent contractor who makes their own decisions about which tournaments they participate in. We cannot tell a player to go to a specific event and even if we could, we wouldn't because that's not how we treat our players. If they want to play in WCS America, that is their decision, not mine.
Every good team needs leadership, but to each their own I guess. But don't use this as an argument that the players make the choice, because you gave them the choice to begin with.
TotalBiscuit: Why is it that Axiom is the only team getting criticised for sending Koreans to WCS America? Such a strange thing to do when we're also providing opportunities for Americans with the SCA tournaments. I suppose the loudest person is the easiest target, but it all strikes me as rather odd. I'm not in favour of any team getting flack for that but it does seem curiously silent when referring to EG or Teamliquid.
Because EG and Teamliquid strengthen the foreign scene by supporting foreign players. Having a reliable team is much more valueable than one 5000$ tournament. No one will decide to stay or go pro because of this tournament.
TotalBiscuit: EG and Teamliquid signed Korean players after their inception because they wanted to win tournaments. Axiom signed Korean players from day 1 because we wanted to help out the Korean scene and particular players within it who were not getting the opportunities they deserved.
Axiom signed Koreans because it was easy. Finding and maintaining foreigners across the world and having success with them is really hard. To give the ex Slayers members a room to play and then seeing oneself on the high horse compared to EG and TL when it comes down to the motives and actions is a bit questionable.
This post is so flawed I had to respond even though I was trying to stay out of this.
1) This could be the case or hypothetically if all 4 Axiiom players stayed in Korea 4 other better Korean players might have looked at the competition in America without the Axiom players and thought it was worth a shot to try competing in America. we are talking hypothetical possibilities here so all arguments are valid.
2) Obviously you have no idea how effective management works. A good team manager would never dictate to his players "you WILL play in Korea." This would alienate the players a major lack of motivation for your players to compete their best or even to compete at all. Totalbiscuit (or Genna) have stated previously that the team discussed which regions the players wanted to play in as a group and the players adamantly wanted to play in America therefore Axiom's players played in America. That is how you manage. You discuss the issue and come to a consensus you don't dictate your opinions onto your team.
3) Totalbiscuit has never said that Axiom was a foreign team. It is a Korean team intended to support the Korean scene. Had Axiom not been created players like Crank, Alicia, Ryung, and Heart may have had to retire as they were not getting to many team offers after Slayers disbanded. Instead they are active members of the SC2 community in Korea and worldwide. That was Axiom's goal and it has succeeded.
Also, I highly doubt he intends for Shoutcraft to be the be all and end of NA tournaments. The point iss to try and prove that a region locked tournament in America can be successful and to hopefully be a springboard for other similar tournaments. And if this happend it actually might lead to more players turning pro in NA and having motivation to comtinue to improve.
4) You obviously have no idea how Axiom was founded. Korean players were signed because those Korean players had nowhere to live and no way to support themselves after the death of Slayers. Crank was a friend of Genna and Totalbiscuit and they started by supporting him when nobody else would; How would it possibly be easier to sign and manage Koreans who live halfway around the world from you? And how could it be easier to have a team based in Korea, with players who barely speak english, that is sponsored in America? This is just illogical.
Your post just sounds like an illogical anti-Totalbiscuit rant.
BTW I am not the biggest fan of how TB operates sometimes but I do appreciate that he obviously cares about the SC2 scene and does not deserve to be shit on with illogical, poorly thought out and poorly researched opinions.
Damn Junho.C, you must be the biggest troll of TB!
You try to criticize TB with the same arguments over and over while TB counters you with a new argument every time and now you try to go offtopic by bringing up TaKe?
On November 15 2013 17:45 trebbor wrote: Damn Junho.C, you must be the biggest troll of TB!
You try to criticize TB with the same arguments over and over while TB counters you with a new argument every time and now you try to go offtopic by bringing up TaKe?
On November 15 2013 15:15 Junho.C wrote: I'm not mad. I just think it's wrong to criticize a system he's taking advantage of so much for his personal gain. Even before the current Shoutcraft, he's criticize the WCS and Blizzard for views and attention all year. I wouldn't have a problem with it if he did it rarely or did it just to promote this tournament, which may support the regional NA gaming.
I haven't kept up with SC2 in a while, but this thread (and you in particular) have riled me a bit. It's pretty regrettable that anyone would demand less honest discourse from people like TB, who are in the best position to understand what is wrong with the scene and obviously care a great deal about it (or why lose money on it?) Refusing to acknowledge problems is a terrible way of "coping" with them; I think it reflects well on TB that he is willing to call attention to the issues (as he sees them), even at some professional risk.
Running a team is clearly something the guy is doing out of passion. Maybe you don't like what he has to say, but take a moment to realize that if you drive people like him out, there won't be anyone left willing to take losses while fighting for improvement. Someone more "professional" probably wouldn't criticize publicly, but he also would have quit (or taken his team to LoL) a long time ago.
On November 15 2013 15:25 TotalBiscuit wrote: This is actually really useful because you're playing the role of someone who quite literally seems to know nothing about what I do and I can use this for reference in future when anyone asks for specifics about how my business operates.
To be honest, I don't see why you are bothering to devote time and effort to this "argument." You made a good case, so engaging with someone who isn't even addressing your post is just gonna serve to piss you off, waste your time and encourage others to do the same thing to get a rise out of you in the future.
Yeah TB i think you need to stop reading troll posts. I mean everything you just wrote is what i believe from you anyway. The only troll post you should of been getting is....aren't you a full time Hearthstone caster now? (thats a joke!)
Oh also i liked your analogies you used about football, should help everyone understand what you are meaning. Unless they really are dumb or trolls then don't bother reading what they have to say...
Keep up your good work and i look forward to seeing HuK win the NA tournament :D
On November 15 2013 17:59 Pandemona wrote: Keep up your good work and i look forward to seeing HuK win the NA tournament :D
Dude, no offense to HuK, but most of his tournament days had at least one show highlight - sometimes stuff for history books. Everyone remembers those super effective VRs vs IdrA, nobody remembers who won MLG Dallas 2011.
Stories make a sport interesting to watch, not money, presentation or high level gameplay ;-).
Junho initially seemed to be looking at the situation through a hyper-idealized lens.
Let's start with these two facts: 1) Totalbiscuit doesn't like cross-region WCS. 2) Cross-region WCS is the reality that Blizzard created.
In a hyper-idealized world, you reject something you disagree with, even to your own detriment. A hyper-idealized team would not use the WCS AM that they believe they should be locked out of, and might even boycott the WCS completely for having a poor system that others take advantage of. Doing this would speak the loudest and encourage the most change.
TB's team is not following the hyper-idealized model. Instead, TB's team has chosen to use Cross-Region WCS to give his players their best possible chance to succeed while criticizing the system that his team takes advantage of.
Through hyper-idealized lenses, this situation seems like TB is giving up his moral high ground and has lost his right to complain about the system.
However, rather than hypocrisy, what this is really called is living in reality. In reality, you have to make choices that you may not fully agree with. You choose the least of the evils. TB has chosen to give his players the best chance to succeed within the system. Meanwhile, he'll continue to talk about something he feels is wrong with the system, even as he takes advantage of it. This way, his team will succeed in the short term while he encourages the system to be fixed in the long term. Win-Win.
So I get where Junho.C is coming from, but it's just too idealized, not living in reality. It reminds me of the arguments that people make about how players and casters should be playing/casting for the love of the game and not making any money at all.
However, now it seems like he's resorting to bringing anything/everything else into the argument to try to save face and that's very poor behavior. I can't defend that part.
I haven't been into the SC2 scene for a long time (I don't love the game), but it was interesting to read up on the TB perspective. Thanks for the transparency :p
TB does not have the power to change the WCS policy of 2013. He did, however, have an opportunity to dictate the format of his tournament, and guess what, they conform with the opinions he has presented all year. It is obvious that he could make more money if he invited fan-favorites from Europe and Korea, but he elected not to do so to help the American scene. That pretty much fucks over your argument of "he doesn't put his money where his mouth is", because that is exactly what he's doing with Shoutcraft America. That you don't like the fact that he didn't tell his players to stay away from WCS America matters little, as he has valid arguments for how he acted in that regard.
But you can pretty much ignore the previous paragraph of my post, because it doesn't matter at all. Whether or not he is being hypocritical (which he obviously isn't), what he's doing is for the better in every sense for the Starcraft community. Why would you keep criticizing him for a little detail when you can easily observe what great contributions he brings to the Starcraft 2? Even if you could see a slight hypocrisy there, why does it hold the least bit of relevance? He is doing a 5k tournament, prize money that literally wouldn't exist if it wasn't for him (and his sponsor). I just continue to be amazed how some people can not keep themselves from focusing on any and every single perceived negative action/or statement. It's just so obvious with this Junho.C, when his argument about Axiom in WCS America was fizzled out, he jumped onto the next case being the TB/Take situation. He doesn't like TB and wants to make anti-TB posts. The gray areas are painted black so that you can have your little outcry. I just hope these people don't make community figures scale back their transparency (something which TB is exceptional) at, because I like that a lot.
And I'm not talking about the Starcraft community like it is any more unique than any other gaming community. These people exist everywhere.
On November 15 2013 17:59 Pandemona wrote: Keep up your good work and i look forward to seeing HuK win the NA tournament :D
Dude, no offense to HuK, but most of his tournament days had at least one show highlight - sometimes stuff for history books. Everyone remembers those super effective VRs vs IdrA, nobody remembers who won MLG Dallas 2011.
Stories make a sport interesting to watch, not money, presentation or high level gameplay ;-).
Yeah but he has won the last 3 NA only tournaments or something? They were qualifiers etc, since Scarlett took her break HuK has pretty much cleaned up, he clearly is the best protoss in NA, the reason i say it
Hypocrisy involves CHOICE to do sth against your own moral standards. First of all, to compete in WCS NA is the choice of the players, who will always choose in the way that benefit them - obviously because this is their job. If you want to look for hypocrisy, as apparently some people really love to, you can look at blizzard. At their initial announcement of the new WCS system for 2013 they said they want to unify the SC2 system and strengthen and support regional Starcraft scenes. They did the opposite - WCS killed alot of the good things we had going, e.g. MLGs, IronSquid, NASL - and now they are trying to repair it. As for criticising Blizzard - TB is one of the fwe people who are doing that also partly because he is in the position to be able to do that. Apart from the fact that critic is part of a good working environment, if for some reason Blizzard would not hire him anymore, he actually would do just fine with his channel. Other people in the scene depend very much so on the image they have and it seems this does not let them be honest or outspoken publicly.
I love the fact that TB is investing so much into SC2 despite all those immature Fan-comments that are around here - I also love the fact that he supports players because they are good and work hard and not because they sell well to a western audience - here you can really see what his work is about (quite the opposite to teams like EG that were mentioned in here). Everything else he does follows this principle I feel.
Keep up the great work, loving your work since back in the day when I saw your announcement trailer about casting during Dreamhack winter in 2010 : ) Sometimes you ramble on too much with those trolls though - here and there a comment as you did is good, but going on with it is giving those people too much credit.
TB why does it sometimes seem like you only cheery pick the negative comments and end up reading and responding to only those. The positive comments far outweigh the negative ones. I love what you do for the scene and so does 99% of the SC2 community/playerbase whatever you want to call it.
Junho.C, you're really making my head hurt, and I won't repeat the things I've shouted to my screen when reading the crap you posted... Yes, I was also highly critical of how TB handled the Take situation, but that does not invalidate his position on WCS, lol. 2 completely different things, keep on-topic.
What TB is doing does normally not fall under hypocrisy. I am very critical of my country's current system of allowing people to subtract their mortgage interest from their income - inflating house prices, and 'forcing' people to buy houses, and making renting a place ~70-100% more expensive then buying. However, if I would buy a house now, would I accept this tax-reduction? Hell yes. This is a very similar situation, where regulation exist that I'm very critical off, but that could be beneficial to myself, even if I see it damaging to our society as a whole... If Axiom would not have participated in WCS NA, it would NOT have caused a sudden urge in NA players being able to compete over there. It just would have been other Koreans who would have taken their places. To think that 4 players would really have made a difference is either naive or stupid, I'll let you choose.
You can also turn the argument around, and say that he's the opposite of hypocrite: Even though his team is profiting from the current rules, the TeamBoss is still concerned with the NA (and EU, I guess) scene, and is willing to take a stance that is potentially bad for his team, but good for the scene as a whole. You normally don't call this hypocritical, but courageous and selfless.
Your blog was quite clear. I would love you not to bring back your old habbits of being angry on internet as you said you'll try to not do anymore after the whole Take thing. I'm not telling you that you aren't right to post this and argument with someone, but i see you getting angrier with every posts that Junho make. I can't blame you for it but he will not stop. I think you prove your point and that it's not worth responding to him anymore.
But you could update the OP with the new facts that you brought since the argument i started (but maybe you don't have the time).
You are awesome. You made efforts since a few months to be really professional (i don't see WCS critics as unprofessional). Please stay that way (i just have fear that with getting angrier at Junho's posts you might slip and say something that isn't the new you)
How can TB be 'hyper-nationalistic' when a) He's helping the Korean scene but investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to have his own team; b) Investing several thousands of dollars as well as a load of his own time to help to North American scene through shoutcraft; c) Whilst being neither Korean, nor American, he's BRITISH.
I can understand an argument against region-locking of WCS, when WCS Korea is so much weaker than it was, but any argument against any form of regional competition is outright stupid and dumb.
On November 15 2013 19:13 Ariovist wrote: Hypocrisy involves CHOICE to do sth against your own moral standards. First of all, to compete in WCS NA is the choice of the players, who will always choose in the way that benefit them - obviously because this is their job. If you want to look for hypocrisy, as apparently some people really love to, you can look at blizzard. At their initial announcement of the new WCS system for 2013 they said they want to unify the SC2 system and strengthen and support regional Starcraft scenes. They did the opposite - WCS killed alot of the good things we had going, e.g. MLGs, IronSquid, NASL - and now they are trying to repair it. .
I would just like to mention that Iron Squid's disappearance had nothing to do with Blizzard and that NASL ran WCS. We don't yet know if there'll be another season of NASL, but I recall it being mentioned as a possibility.
On November 15 2013 19:13 Ariovist wrote: Hypocrisy involves CHOICE to do sth against your own moral standards. First of all, to compete in WCS NA is the choice of the players, who will always choose in the way that benefit them - obviously because this is their job. If you want to look for hypocrisy, as apparently some people really love to, you can look at blizzard. At their initial announcement of the new WCS system for 2013 they said they want to unify the SC2 system and strengthen and support regional Starcraft scenes. They did the opposite - WCS killed alot of the good things we had going, e.g. MLGs, IronSquid, NASL - and now they are trying to repair it. .
I would just like to mention that Iron Squid's disappearance had nothing to do with Blizzard and that NASL ran WCS. We don't yet know if there'll be another season of NASL, but I recall it being mentioned as a possibility.
I agree, though imagine WCS would have been run like last year - we definitely would have had a "proper" NASL. After years of struggling they finally figured out their niche and did very well in that. The WCS production was good, but it felt very much so stream-lined to the other WCS events; the unique feeling of NASL got lost - don't you agree? About Iron Squid, well I am just assuming in it of course - was there an official statement? For me it just stands for the fact that WCS basically sealed the surface of the whole year so that nothing new or innovative could have been sprouting up, e.g. like Iron Squid.
On November 15 2013 19:13 Ariovist wrote: Hypocrisy involves CHOICE to do sth against your own moral standards. First of all, to compete in WCS NA is the choice of the players, who will always choose in the way that benefit them - obviously because this is their job. If you want to look for hypocrisy, as apparently some people really love to, you can look at blizzard. At their initial announcement of the new WCS system for 2013 they said they want to unify the SC2 system and strengthen and support regional Starcraft scenes. They did the opposite - WCS killed alot of the good things we had going, e.g. MLGs, IronSquid, NASL - and now they are trying to repair it. .
I would just like to mention that Iron Squid's disappearance had nothing to do with Blizzard and that NASL ran WCS. We don't yet know if there'll be another season of NASL, but I recall it being mentioned as a possibility.
I agree, though imagine WCS would have been run like last year - we definitely would have had a "proper" NASL. After years of struggling they finally figured out their niche and did very well in that. The WCS production was good, but it felt very much so stream-lined to the other WCS events; the unique feeling of NASL got lost - don't you agree? About Iron Squid, well I am just assuming in it of course - was there an official statement? For me it just stands for the fact that WCS basically sealed the surface of the whole year so that nothing new or innovative could have been sprouting up, e.g. like Iron Squid.
They said that they had raised enough money to run two events, and that running a third depended on whether they would manage to secure the (huge amount) of funds necessary to do it. There have been a few hints of Iron Squid returning lately though.
On November 15 2013 16:05 Rekrul wrote: people are still trying to use faulty ideologies like 'only americans should be allowed in wcs america' to try and let non-koreans have a chance at winning or do well in something? nothing will ever change lol
Faulty is your opinion. In most sports it works perfectly well.
I like to watch a real american league and a real european league and a real korean league. This WCS bullshit however made me barely watch anymore.
It's like injecting champions league soccer players into amateur leagues.
Our crappy(compared to usa) national basketball teams usually only compete with eachother on our own national level. They don't often have to compete with best teams of the world unless there is an international tournament. And even if they are a lot worse, they still have their fans and audiences.
That's why there are proper national leagues and worldchampionships that both serve another purpose. The former is lacking in sc2
If there was a really national starcraft league in many countries, I'm pretty sure many more people would still be watching it.
If you couldn't tell, I'm a bit tired of this. Sometimes I look at this scene and want to scream "WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LOVE YOU?".
I know this feel man. You gotta remember most people really love what you do but there's also a very vocal minority that want to put you down every chance they get.
On November 15 2013 16:05 Rekrul wrote: people are still trying to use faulty ideologies like 'only americans should be allowed in wcs america' to try and let non-koreans have a chance at winning or do well in something? nothing will ever change lol
If there was a really national starcraft league in many countries, I'm pretty sure many more people would still be watching it.
We have the EPS in Germany for many years now and even though the EPS is great to support the German scene it is not very popular in Germany. It only still exists because the German market is quite big and because the ESL is fucking awesome.
Dont get me wrong, I absolutely support region lock and a stronger representation of foreigners but just asking for national leagues may be a bit too simple.
On November 15 2013 12:38 TotalBiscuit wrote: For an English example, Italian football teams do not compete in the English Premier league. It's a bit of a funky comparison because English teams frequently hire foreign players to compete, but Barcelona or Juventus can't just go stomping into the Premier league or worse, the First Division and wipe everyone else off the map. Competitions where this stuff can happen exist, things like the Champions League, but the regional competition is left intact and strong as it should be.
StarCraft isn't a team or a national sport though. There's been a major attitude problem from the beginning in treating players from certain countries as representatives of their nations or regions. I think the model should be more like golf or tennis, which do have regional tours for pros but the big money comes from the "Grand Slam" events, which are open to anyone who can qualify either by seeds or through qualifiers.
I have to say that I don't like TB's defense of Axiom as a "Korean" team, defined mostly because the players and their resources are all Korean. Which isn't even true, considering the owner-manager is British, the current team handler is Chinese-American, and the content team is presumably all Americans (at least not all Koreans). And it doesn't make much sense when the players are given some distance as independent contractors. It's simply a team that happens to have all Korean players on it. There's nothing wrong with that, just as there's nothing wrong with the Utah Jazz having a team that is almost entirely composed of black players, despite the fact that only 2.5% of the population of Utah is black and none of the players are native to Utah.
I will agree that the problem with WCS is that it promised to be some kind of unifying body for all the existing events but instead hijacked them into its own structure. I think more events, region-locked or not, is really necessary and I liked that point that events are lacking even (especially?) in Korea.
I don't see any hypocrisy in Axiom's players participating in WCS America while TB advances ShoutCraft America as an event to promote regional competition within NA only. I don't like the idea of keeping the WCS system but region-locking it to keep Koreans out. I think they are big events that purport to seek the hardest competition to find the best players, and thus they should be open. More specific tournaments like IEM and HSC can do whatever they want to limit players and the community should encourage more of such events.
If I were to make a suggestion, it would be to have WCS be a unified ranking system and maybe support the various scenes from a distance (to culminate at Blizzcon). It desperately needs some name changes. Korea can have the Code S/Code A system because such a large proportion of Korea's talent is concentrated in Seoul, which is totally different from other areas like the US or EU. Or if we insist on region-locking, then change the proportion of points to account for the relative strength of its participants.
Sorry this is just a horrible argument, how can you say that your korean players in the tournament does not effect american entries.... obviously TL and EG have the same effect but stop acting like it has none. Blaming the "system" and saying other koreans would be their if you weren't is like saying, "i don't support children drinking alcohol but due to a loophole il sell it. Don't worry if I don't someone else will"
-Sorry if that sounds harsh but I've always learned to put your money where your mouth is, shout craft is a great idea GL with part two!
On November 15 2013 21:55 MysterySC wrote: Sorry this is just a horrible argument, how can you say that your korean players in the tournament does not effect american entries.... obviously TL and EG have the same effect but stop acting like it has none. Blaming the "system" and saying other koreans would be their if you weren't is like saying, "i don't support children drinking alcohol but due to a loophole il sell it. Don't worry if I don't someone else will"
-Sorry if that sounds harsh but I've always learned to put your money where your mouth is, shout craft is a great idea GL with part two!
That's a really weird comparison and makes no sense:
There is no "loophole" in selling children alcohol, because by law it is forbidden. And that's the difference between selling children alcohol, which is forbidden by law, and foreign players competing in WCS America, which is not forbidden at all in their rules.
It's almost 2014 and TB STILL gets extremely worked up over the misinformed opinions of ppl online and continues to right massive rant after rant trying to defend himself against faceless trolls on the web.
On November 15 2013 22:54 istandwithmitt wrote: Hm wow Totalbiscuit posting a giant "I'm a victim; everyone's out to get me" post about something no one cares about I'm shocked
"nobody cares about this"
thousands of views, hundreds of responses, you being one of them.
Oldest fallacy in the book. "LOOK AT HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS. GUYS? LOOK AT IT! I DON'T CARE, HONEST!"
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
TotalBiscuit: If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players.
That's just flawed logic, I think it's called a slippery slope.
Putting better players into the competition always makes it harder for everyone. If Axiom players kick out other good Koreans, that means that these Axiom players are probably better than the other Korean players, which simply raises the bar, and trying to deny that is stupid.
Ahh, someone else who thinks debate can be won with fallacy points. This will be fun.
"slippery slope". Is actually a fallacy when used incorrectly which here it is, ironically enough. Anyway no, it is not a slippery slope, "a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant effect". You have no proof that the inclusion of these particular 4 Korean players in the league had the effect of snowballing into large-scale damage to the US Starcraft scene. Indeed I hypothesize the opposite, that the inclusion of these Korean players may have caused some Koreans to not attempt to play in the region because of the possibility of running into them in the RO32 and losing. A mere hypothesis, but it's not like your statement is actually factual. If not us, other Koreans, is the point I stand by.
TotalBiscuit: We cannot legally tell our players where to play. Each of our players is an independent contractor who makes their own decisions about which tournaments they participate in. We cannot tell a player to go to a specific event and even if we could, we wouldn't because that's not how we treat our players. If they want to play in WCS America, that is their decision, not mine.
Every good team needs leadership, but to each their own I guess. But don't use this as an argument that the players make the choice, because you gave them the choice to begin with.
"Do something illegal because GENERIC POINT ABOUT LEADERSHIP". Few lines in and you're already telling me how to run my team. This bodes well for the rest of the post. So let me repeat for the class. It is ILLEGAL to tell independent contractors where to work. The choice is given because it's fucking right to do so and as previously explained, this community would have crucified me if I had kept my players in Korea when they had been given spots in Premier league on a platter. Not only that but it would have made terrible business sense. This was all previously explained but that would have required you to read the OP which you obviously didn't.
TotalBiscuit: Why is it that Axiom is the only team getting criticised for sending Koreans to WCS America? Such a strange thing to do when we're also providing opportunities for Americans with the SCA tournaments. I suppose the loudest person is the easiest target, but it all strikes me as rather odd. I'm not in favour of any team getting flack for that but it does seem curiously silent when referring to EG or Teamliquid.
Because EG and Teamliquid strengthen the foreign scene by supporting foreign players. Having a reliable team is much more valueable than one 5000$ tournament. No one will decide to stay or go pro because of this tournament.
More assumptions and fallacies. No one will decide to sty or go pro because of this tournament? What about the last one? Wanna just ignore that $10,000 tournament that happened last time which in fact actually DID cause some players to "stay" pro and also affected the scene? Let's take the example of Kane who decided to move to Europe and take his career more seriously after a victory, joining a team that supports a particular style of training. Or how about State who got himself a team as a result of his placement in the tournament. But hey, let's not let facts get in the way of your ill-informed rambling.
TotalBiscuit: EG and Teamliquid signed Korean players after their inception because they wanted to win tournaments. Axiom signed Korean players from day 1 because we wanted to help out the Korean scene and particular players within it who were not getting the opportunities they deserved.
Axiom signed Koreans because it was easy. Finding and maintaining foreigners across the world and having success with them is really hard. To give the ex Slayers members a room to play and then seeing oneself on the high horse compared to EG and TL when it comes down to the motives and actions is a bit questionable.
[/quote]
Signed Koreans because it is easy. HAHAHAHA oh holy shit you have no idea what you're talking about. Axiom signed Koreans but IT'S A KOREAN TEAM. You think the massive cost of a Korean team-house is easy? You think communicating with and managing a group of people that don't speak your language is easy? You think flying them out of the country half way across the world whenever they want to compete because there aren't any bloody tournaments outside of WCS available to them in Korea anymore is easy? Signing Koreans is easy is the stupidest thing I've heard this thread, congratulations. I have foreigners battering down my door to join the team, they want to train in Korea and they're willing to do a lot in order to do it. Getting Koreans, especially some from actual KESPA teams, is a goddamn nightmare.
So we can safely sum up your argument as follows: "I have no experience what-so-ever with any of the subject matter I'm trying to discuss, but damn I will post about it anyway".
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
My issue with you is that I feel that you criticize things for publicity too often. You criticize WCS and Blizzard for not region locking, which is a popular opinion and attracts publicity, too much while your team is taking advantage of the system that you are criticizing against. Criticizing the WCS format once or twice is fine, many people have done that. Anything more is just riding on the hate train for the continued Korean dominance in WCS AM, which your players are a part of. Criticizing WCS now in the Shoutcraft hype article when WCS is over is just purely for publicity.
You overreact but I guess you know it TB. Why do you answer to all this stuff, you have no place going out of your way to debate with random people on the internet. Just do what you do and people will applause or critique you on the outcome, don't mind the haters that will say nonsensical things no matter what.
Keep up the good job mate, also give duel of champions a chance, it's an awesome card game on pc.
*oh and take a look at this, do you know anything about it? seems legit
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
My issue with you is that I feel that you criticize things for publicity too often. You criticize WCS and Blizzard for not region locking, which is a popular opinion and attracts publicity, too much while your team is taking advantage of the system that you are criticizing against. Criticizing the WCS format once or twice is fine, many people have done that. Anything more is just riding on the hate train for the continued Korean dominance in WCS AM, which your players are a part of. Criticizing WCS now in the Shoutcraft hype article when WCS is over is just purely for publicity.
I guess you think repeating a point that people already laughed at you for will somehow win you this argument.
Please issue me the guidelines for how many times is ok to criticize WCS. I'd like to make sure that I am fully complaint with your regulation.
StarCraft isn't a team or a national sport though. There's been a major attitude problem from the beginning in treating players from certain countries as representatives of their nations or regions. I think the model should be more like golf or tennis, which do have regional tours for pros but the big money comes from the "Grand Slam" events, which are open to anyone who can qualify either by seeds or through qualifiers.
I have to say that I don't like TB's defense of Axiom as a "Korean" team, defined mostly because the players and their resources are all Korean. Which isn't even true, considering the owner-manager is British, the current team handler is Chinese-American, and the content team is presumably all Americans (at least not all Koreans). And it doesn't make much sense when the players are given some distance as independent contractors. It's simply a team that happens to have all Korean players on it. There's nothing wrong with that, just as there's nothing wrong with the Utah Jazz having a team that is almost entirely composed of black players, despite the fact that only 2.5% of the population of Utah is black and none of the players are native to Utah.
I will agree that the problem with WCS is that it promised to be some kind of unifying body for all the existing events but instead hijacked them into its own structure. I think more events, region-locked or not, is really necessary and I liked that point that events are lacking even (especially?) in Korea.
I don't see any hypocrisy in Axiom's players participating in WCS America while TB advances ShoutCraft America as an event to promote regional competition within NA only. I don't like the idea of keeping the WCS system but region-locking it to keep Koreans out. I think they are big events that purport to seek the hardest competition to find the best players, and thus they should be open. More specific tournaments like IEM and HSC can do whatever they want to limit players and the community should encourage more of such events.
If I were to make a suggestion, it would be to have WCS be a unified ranking system and maybe support the various scenes from a distance (to culminate at Blizzcon). It desperately needs some name changes. Korea can have the Code S/Code A system because such a large proportion of Korea's talent is concentrated in Seoul, which is totally different from other areas like the US or EU. Or if we insist on region-locking, then change the proportion of points to account for the relative strength of its participants.
That makes a lot of sense. I especially agree with your view of what physical sport should SC be measured against. Noone watches Polish tennis because, guess what, there is hardly any. What we do watch is Polish players playing around the world, nearly none of them even training in Poland. This kind of comparison puts issues like region locking in an entirely new perspective when you imagine region locking Wimbledon because the last Brit to win it before Murray did so in 1936. The WCS format is not perfect, hell it may even be flawed in some ways, no doubt. But just straight up region locking feels a bit like killing a fly with a sledgehammer. I belive more increment changes are in place.
Ninja edit: forgot some letters here and there ;P. Good and detailed post but maybe think about not feeding trolls so much TB. I know you want to inform people but you go twice or thrice and if it still doesn't help just stop. No need to rile yourself up. Cheers
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
My issue with you is that I feel that you criticize things for publicity too often. You criticize WCS and Blizzard for not region locking, which is a popular opinion and attracts publicity, too much while your team is taking advantage of the system that you are criticizing against. Criticizing the WCS format once or twice is fine, many people have done that. Anything more is just riding on the hate train for the continued Korean dominance in WCS AM, which your players are a part of. Criticizing WCS now in the Shoutcraft hype article when WCS is over is just purely for publicity.
I guess you think repeating a point that people already laughed at you for will somehow win you this argument.
Please issue me the guidelines for how many times is ok to criticize WCS. I'd like to make sure that I am fully complaint with your regulation.
I'm glad that you have to find support from others to feel validated. I would say the guideline should follow along the extent of your fellow eSports personalities. While they also criticized the system, they knew when to stop. You are still doing it and you used that criticism to hype up your tournament. Why is it that someone who criticizes so much are rustled by few criticisms toward yourself?
I'll have to side with TB 100% on this one , he speaks with logic , and from a valid business point of view , this "hypocrisy" some trolls here talk about comes from lack of insight into the world of business , I don't blame them for it.
As another post on this thread says , non-region lock WCS is the reality blizzard created , if a business wants to survive , it has to play by these rules , there is no hypocrisy in playing by the established rules to do what you are fucking supposed to do to begin with while criticizing it if you keep in mind the golden rule of business.....generate revenue.
In order to generate revenue , TB had to play by the established WCS rules to insure the survivability of his establishment , and because he gives a fuck about sc2 , he criticizes the wcs system because he wants to see a better global e-sports scene, which again will help him bring in revenues if it happens , I think any 10 year old reading this will get the picture , it's standard business practice.
Keep up the good work TB.
Edit : The whole point of my post is , surviving in the world of business ( and e-sports is a part of it ) , and having negative thoughts about your business environment that you are stuck with are 2 separate things.
On November 16 2013 00:44 Tchado wrote: hmmm interesting discussion.
I'll have to side with TB 100% on this one , he speaks with logic , and from a valid business point of view , this "hypocrisy" some trolls here talk about comes from lack of insight into the world of business , I don't blame them for it.
As another post on this thread says , non-region lock WCS is the reality blizzard created , if a business wants to survive , it has to play by these rules , there is no hypocrisy in playing by the established rules to do what you are fucking supposed to do to begin with while criticizing it if you keep in mind the golden rule of business.....generate revenue.
In order to generate revenue , TB had to play by the established WCS rules to insure the survivability of his establishment , and because he gives a fuck about sc2 , he criticizes the wcs system because he wants to see a better global e-sports scene, which again will help him bring in revenues if it happens , I think any 10 year old reading this will get the picture , it's standard business practice.
Keep up the good work TB.
Edit : The whole point of my post is , surviving in the world of business ( and e-sports is a part of it ) , and having negative thoughts about your business environment that you are stuck with are 2 separate things.
Just FYI, the golden rule of business is NOT generating revenue. I have to say it because it is a terrible misconception that the ultimate goal of a business is to get money because that leads to the kind of amoral and exploitative attitudes that nobody wants.
The ultimate goal of a business is to provide goods or services that people want. Money is the measuring stick by which you gauge whether the business is producing something people want (effectiveness) at an acceptable cost (efficiency). So money is certainly important but please realize there's a distinction between the measuring stick and the goal.
On November 15 2013 22:54 istandwithmitt wrote: Hm wow Totalbiscuit posting a giant "I'm a victim; everyone's out to get me" post about something no one cares about I'm shocked
"nobody cares about this"
thousands of views, hundreds of responses, you being one of them.
Oldest fallacy in the book. "LOOK AT HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS. GUYS? LOOK AT IT! I DON'T CARE, HONEST!"
what lol?
I don't care. Most people don't give a fuck about this whole thing your posting about. You're just throwing a hissy fit over a small minority people talking shit about you, axiom on the internet. Learn to take things in stride rather than getting in slap fights with people over little things like this all the time.
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
My issue with you is that I feel that you criticize things for publicity too often. You criticize WCS and Blizzard for not region locking, which is a popular opinion and attracts publicity, too much while your team is taking advantage of the system that you are criticizing against. Criticizing the WCS format once or twice is fine, many people have done that. Anything more is just riding on the hate train for the continued Korean dominance in WCS AM, which your players are a part of. Criticizing WCS now in the Shoutcraft hype article when WCS is over is just purely for publicity.
I guess you think repeating a point that people already laughed at you for will somehow win you this argument.
Please issue me the guidelines for how many times is ok to criticize WCS. I'd like to make sure that I am fully complaint with your regulation.
I'm glad that you have to find support from others to feel validated. I would say the guideline should follow along the extent of your fellow eSports personalities. While they also criticized the system, they knew when to stop. You are still doing it and you used that criticism to hype up your tournament. Why is it that someone who criticizes so much are rustled by few criticisms toward yourself?
Actually, knowing my shit is what makes me feel validated.
I'm not entirely sure how you feel validated, I guess ignorance is equally powerful when it's thick enough.
what lol?
I don't care. Most people don't give a fuck about this whole thing your posting about. You're just throwing a hissy fit over a small minority people talking shit about you, axiom on the internet. Learn to take things in stride rather than getting in slap fights with people over little things like this all the time.
Hundreds of replies, 15,000+ views. You are arguing with public numbers and are another example of "we want transparency except when its inconvenient for us" Also posting "LOOK AT HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE" again.
as far as I know, every single big badminton tournaments that give players points are not region locked. you can even have foreign players to play in your local region team.
I am still not convinced but whatever, I do like your tournaments and axiom :D Good players will shine wherever they play, bad players will always be playing under their shadow no matter where they go
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
My issue with you is that I feel that you criticize things for publicity too often. You criticize WCS and Blizzard for not region locking, which is a popular opinion and attracts publicity, too much while your team is taking advantage of the system that you are criticizing against. Criticizing the WCS format once or twice is fine, many people have done that. Anything more is just riding on the hate train for the continued Korean dominance in WCS AM, which your players are a part of. Criticizing WCS now in the Shoutcraft hype article when WCS is over is just purely for publicity.
I guess you think repeating a point that people already laughed at you for will somehow win you this argument.
Please issue me the guidelines for how many times is ok to criticize WCS. I'd like to make sure that I am fully complaint with your regulation.
I'm glad that you have to find support from others to feel validated. I would say the guideline should follow along the extent of your fellow eSports personalities. While they also criticized the system, they knew when to stop. You are still doing it and you used that criticism to hype up your tournament. Why is it that someone who criticizes so much are rustled by few criticisms toward yourself?
Actually, knowing my shit is what makes me feel validated.
I'm not entirely sure how you feel validated, I guess ignorance is equally powerful when it's thick enough.
I don't care. Most people don't give a fuck about this whole thing your posting about. You're just throwing a hissy fit over a small minority people talking shit about you, axiom on the internet. Learn to take things in stride rather than getting in slap fights with people over little things like this all the time.
Hundreds of replies, 15,000+ views. You are arguing with public numbers and are another example of "we want transparency except when its inconvenient for us" Also posting "LOOK AT HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE" again.
Alex Garfield's cock is shaped like an L & Nazgul eats cereal out of a urinal. I wonder when they're going to make their thread & try & get in lil slapfights with me lol.
I don't know why you think I have some issue with transparency? I don't even really know what you mean by that. I just think it's hilarious that you have such a persecution complex that you're here arguing with people over something so insignificant. But yeah 15,000 views of people watching you have a meltdown lol must be super important.
On November 16 2013 00:44 Tchado wrote: hmmm interesting discussion.
I'll have to side with TB 100% on this one , he speaks with logic , and from a valid business point of view , this "hypocrisy" some trolls here talk about comes from lack of insight into the world of business , I don't blame them for it.
As another post on this thread says , non-region lock WCS is the reality blizzard created , if a business wants to survive , it has to play by these rules , there is no hypocrisy in playing by the established rules to do what you are fucking supposed to do to begin with while criticizing it if you keep in mind the golden rule of business.....generate revenue.
In order to generate revenue , TB had to play by the established WCS rules to insure the survivability of his establishment , and because he gives a fuck about sc2 , he criticizes the wcs system because he wants to see a better global e-sports scene, which again will help him bring in revenues if it happens , I think any 10 year old reading this will get the picture , it's standard business practice.
Keep up the good work TB.
Edit : The whole point of my post is , surviving in the world of business ( and e-sports is a part of it ) , and having negative thoughts about your business environment that you are stuck with are 2 separate things.
Just FYI, the golden rule of business is NOT generating revenue. I have to say it because it is a terrible misconception that the ultimate goal of a business is to get money because that leads to the kind of amoral and exploitative attitudes that nobody wants.
The ultimate goal of a business is to provide goods or services that people want. Money is the measuring stick by which you gauge whether the business is producing something people want (effectiveness) at an acceptable cost (efficiency). So money is certainly important but please realize there's a distinction between the measuring stick and the goal.
Yeah I do agree with that 100% , what you said and what I said are actually 2 sides of the same coin , scholars have been divided on this issue for a long time , and they still argue about it in some schools of business thought.
Think of it like this , in order to make revenue you need to provide goods and services , but to provide more goods and services you need to make profit...etc , it's an endless circle , so saying which ever side is the golden rule is ok because in the end , no business will survive by having just one side , and no one is dumb enough to venture into the world of business with 1 side.
TBH I just wanted to bring the point out , I didnt care much to explain it , thanks man
I think most people (from those who dislike you) just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
You say you sent your team to US as you just had to in the best interest of the team, yet some of your players were main stays in code s in the past (especially ryung) and pretty much all of them would have at least been capable of making it into code a, plus none of them made it to blizzcon anyways. If you truly care as much about the US scene as you said you would have told your players to stay in KR to protect the NA scene, yet you did sent them there. And then you try to farm a market of people who are interested in watching NA players. To me you just helped to create a mass of people who are disappointed in WCS NA (just how you bitched about WCS when it was announced only to cast it (aka support it) a few weeks later) to have them as viewers for your next project.
Sadly you seem to enjoy replying to people who dislike you in a very aggressive and mean way so you'll probably pick one point of my post, deny it and then tell me how much of a fool I am. On top of that you display yourself as the saint who only does starcraft cause he loves it so much and would make more money with youtube in the same time. It reminds me of how blizzard talks about only doing esports cause they love it so much, yet they killed off professional brood war to let star 2 shine... Please go do youtube if you loose so much money doing starcraft instead. You don't have to be the saint...
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
My issue with you is that I feel that you criticize things for publicity too often. You criticize WCS and Blizzard for not region locking, which is a popular opinion and attracts publicity, too much while your team is taking advantage of the system that you are criticizing against. Criticizing the WCS format once or twice is fine, many people have done that. Anything more is just riding on the hate train for the continued Korean dominance in WCS AM, which your players are a part of. Criticizing WCS now in the Shoutcraft hype article when WCS is over is just purely for publicity.
I guess you think repeating a point that people already laughed at you for will somehow win you this argument.
Please issue me the guidelines for how many times is ok to criticize WCS. I'd like to make sure that I am fully complaint with your regulation.
I'm glad that you have to find support from others to feel validated. I would say the guideline should follow along the extent of your fellow eSports personalities. While they also criticized the system, they knew when to stop. You are still doing it and you used that criticism to hype up your tournament. Why is it that someone who criticizes so much are rustled by few criticisms toward yourself?
Actually, knowing my shit is what makes me feel validated.
I'm not entirely sure how you feel validated, I guess ignorance is equally powerful when it's thick enough.
I don't care. Most people don't give a fuck about this whole thing your posting about. You're just throwing a hissy fit over a small minority people talking shit about you, axiom on the internet. Learn to take things in stride rather than getting in slap fights with people over little things like this all the time.
Hundreds of replies, 15,000+ views. You are arguing with public numbers and are another example of "we want transparency except when its inconvenient for us" Also posting "LOOK AT HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE" again.
The fact that I'm standing up for my belief is enough validation for me. I'm sure the using this thread to shine more attention to Shoutcraft also factored into your making of this thread.
On November 16 2013 01:10 Lorch wrote: I think most people just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
I think most people like his casting. And those who hate him at least love to hate him so it works out.
On November 16 2013 01:10 Lorch wrote: I think most people just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
I think most people like his casting. And those who hate him at least love to hate him so it works out.
What I meant was most of the people who dislike him, I'm gonna edit my post to make that clearer.
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
My issue with you is that I feel that you criticize things for publicity too often. You criticize WCS and Blizzard for not region locking, which is a popular opinion and attracts publicity, too much while your team is taking advantage of the system that you are criticizing against. Criticizing the WCS format once or twice is fine, many people have done that. Anything more is just riding on the hate train for the continued Korean dominance in WCS AM, which your players are a part of. Criticizing WCS now in the Shoutcraft hype article when WCS is over is just purely for publicity.
I guess you think repeating a point that people already laughed at you for will somehow win you this argument.
Please issue me the guidelines for how many times is ok to criticize WCS. I'd like to make sure that I am fully complaint with your regulation.
I'm glad that you have to find support from others to feel validated. I would say the guideline should follow along the extent of your fellow eSports personalities. While they also criticized the system, they knew when to stop. You are still doing it and you used that criticism to hype up your tournament. Why is it that someone who criticizes so much are rustled by few criticisms toward yourself?
Actually, knowing my shit is what makes me feel validated.
I'm not entirely sure how you feel validated, I guess ignorance is equally powerful when it's thick enough.
what lol?
I don't care. Most people don't give a fuck about this whole thing your posting about. You're just throwing a hissy fit over a small minority people talking shit about you, axiom on the internet. Learn to take things in stride rather than getting in slap fights with people over little things like this all the time.
Hundreds of replies, 15,000+ views. You are arguing with public numbers and are another example of "we want transparency except when its inconvenient for us" Also posting "LOOK AT HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE" again.
The fact that I'm standing up for my belief is enough validation for me. I'm sure the using this thread to shine more attention to Shoutcraft also factored into your making of this thread.
Your beliefs are dumb and have been debunked already.
On November 16 2013 01:10 Lorch wrote: I think most people (from those who dislike you) just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
You say you sent your team to US as you just had to in the best interest of the team, yet some of your players were main stays in code s in the past (especially ryung) and pretty much all of them would have at least been capable of making it into code a, plus none of them made it to blizzcon anyways. If you truly care as much about the US scene as you said you would have told your players to stay in KR to protect the NA scene, yet you did sent them there. And then you try to farm a market of people who are interested in watching NA players. To me you just helped to create a mass of people who are disappointed in WCS NA (just how you bitched about WCS when it was announced only to cast it (aka support it) a few weeks later) to have them as viewers for your next project.
Sadly you seem to enjoy replying to people who dislike you in a very aggressive and mean way so you'll probably pick one point of my post, deny it and then tell me how much of a fool I am. On top of that you display yourself as the saint who only does starcraft cause he loves it so much and would make more money with youtube in the same time. It reminds me of how blizzard talks about only doing esports cause they love it so much, yet they killed off professional brood war to let star 2 shine... Please go do youtube if you loose so much money doing starcraft instead. You don't have to be the saint...
Ahh here's Lorch, the guy who has repeatedly told me to GTFO out of the scene. It really is a rogues gallery in here today. Didn't even bother to read the OP, not remotely surprising.
Examples of his toxicity and hilarious double-standards include this post just a few short days ago
As you can see, Lorcho cares so much about the NA scene that he wished for an NA specific event to fail solely to satisfy his irrational dislike of me. Clearly he is a fantastic representative of the opposing side in this discussion.
But no honest I really like TB, he worked fine with Apollo. Except for all those posts where I said he didn't.
There you have it folks, just a small sample of Lorchos history of irrational dislike lasting OVER 2 YEARS! That only took 5 minutes to find via search, I can't imagine how much more of it there is.
To the guys that say no one cares and tb is overreacting: a lot of ppl care! You not caring doesn't make everyone not care!!! Tb is right to defend himself. That doesn't make him mean.
TB, I'm not a big fan of your casting, and there's a lot of reasons for that.
However, I respect your team, your goals, and the work you've put in to get to where you are.
As a fan of the Korean scene, I think the way Axiom actually treats their players well, pays them, etc. is absolutely fantastic, despite the fact that I don't particularly like any of your players. Keep up the good work.
All that said, you really need to stop focusing in on negativity. The SC2 community is overwhelmingly vitriolic and negative -- I guarantee that everyone is more likely to post when they want to bash something than when they want to compliment something. During Naniwa vs Revival, the LR thread got like 30 pages because of the sound errors, and probably got the same number of pages for all three games combined, because even if it's only poking fun, people like to be negative more than they like to be positive.
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
My issue with you is that I feel that you criticize things for publicity too often. You criticize WCS and Blizzard for not region locking, which is a popular opinion and attracts publicity, too much while your team is taking advantage of the system that you are criticizing against. Criticizing the WCS format once or twice is fine, many people have done that. Anything more is just riding on the hate train for the continued Korean dominance in WCS AM, which your players are a part of. Criticizing WCS now in the Shoutcraft hype article when WCS is over is just purely for publicity.
I guess you think repeating a point that people already laughed at you for will somehow win you this argument.
Please issue me the guidelines for how many times is ok to criticize WCS. I'd like to make sure that I am fully complaint with your regulation.
I'm glad that you have to find support from others to feel validated. I would say the guideline should follow along the extent of your fellow eSports personalities. While they also criticized the system, they knew when to stop. You are still doing it and you used that criticism to hype up your tournament. Why is it that someone who criticizes so much are rustled by few criticisms toward yourself?
Actually, knowing my shit is what makes me feel validated.
I'm not entirely sure how you feel validated, I guess ignorance is equally powerful when it's thick enough.
what lol?
I don't care. Most people don't give a fuck about this whole thing your posting about. You're just throwing a hissy fit over a small minority people talking shit about you, axiom on the internet. Learn to take things in stride rather than getting in slap fights with people over little things like this all the time.
Hundreds of replies, 15,000+ views. You are arguing with public numbers and are another example of "we want transparency except when its inconvenient for us" Also posting "LOOK AT HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE" again.
The fact that I'm standing up for my belief is enough validation for me. I'm sure the using this thread to shine more attention to Shoutcraft also factored into your making of this thread.
Can you please stop responding with this utter nonsense to this thread? You keep posting the same crap every time either about how TB is being hypocritical in calling out WSC or by saying some personal attack on how you think he runs his team or how you have some psycho-analysis for why you think someone over the internet is acting a certain way. How can you possibly know that TB created this post to get attention? It is full of very real content, and seems to me to be a response to trolls in the first place. The only reason this was posted was because he gets this crap from people like you all the time.
If he wanted more attention, would it not be better to post this somewhere more visible than the blogs forum on TL, and post it on reddit and everywhere else? How can you think to know what goes on in TB's head, and think that he does it all for some deep insecurity he has, that you picked up on through this post? You say yourself that you haven't seen a lot of his content, but apparently you have seen enough to have his whole character and deepest desires figured out.
But keep harping on about how this is all publicity. TB trying to help the American scene is obviously for his own gains, and him dishing out his own personal money to help Starcraft grow is just a ruse to actually make more money right? Yeah, that sounds about right.
Also about the whole WSC region lock and his team playing in American? That was answered in the main post but you don't seem to be understanding it, or it just passed way over your head. Read it again.
And to TB: don't pay too much heed to all the idiots; they will always be there, lurking in the open waiting to say something stupid. You do an awesome job for this community and we don't deserve someone like you committing so much to us unconditionally. Never lose that passion.
On November 16 2013 01:10 Lorch wrote: I think most people (from those who dislike you) just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
You say you sent your team to US as you just had to in the best interest of the team, yet some of your players were main stays in code s in the past (especially ryung) and pretty much all of them would have at least been capable of making it into code a, plus none of them made it to blizzcon anyways. If you truly care as much about the US scene as you said you would have told your players to stay in KR to protect the NA scene, yet you did sent them there. And then you try to farm a market of people who are interested in watching NA players. To me you just helped to create a mass of people who are disappointed in WCS NA (just how you bitched about WCS when it was announced only to cast it (aka support it) a few weeks later) to have them as viewers for your next project.
Sadly you seem to enjoy replying to people who dislike you in a very aggressive and mean way so you'll probably pick one point of my post, deny it and then tell me how much of a fool I am. On top of that you display yourself as the saint who only does starcraft cause he loves it so much and would make more money with youtube in the same time. It reminds me of how blizzard talks about only doing esports cause they love it so much, yet they killed off professional brood war to let star 2 shine... Please go do youtube if you loose so much money doing starcraft instead. You don't have to be the saint...
Ahh here's Lorch, the guy who has repeatedly told me to GTFO out of the scene. It really is a rogues gallery in here today. Didn't even bother to read the OP, not remotely surprising.
Examples of his toxicity and hilarious double-standards include this post just a few short days ago
As you can see, Lorcho cares so much about the NA scene that he wished for an NA specific event to fail solely to satisfy his irrational dislike of me. Clearly he is a fantastic representative of the opposing side in this discussion.
But no honest I really like TB, he worked fine with Apollo. Except for all those posts where I said he didn't.
There you have it folks, just a small sample of Lorchos history of irrational dislike lasting OVER 2 YEARS! That only took 5 minutes to find via search, I can't imagine how much more of it there is.
On November 14 2013 09:22 TotalBiscuit wrote: Let me know when Lorch stops posting. I've made the mistake of giving him a small piece of relevance by replying to him.
On November 15 2013 12:54 Pandain wrote: Yeah this informs me.
So I guess my question is would you believe in region locking even if it hurt your players.
Yes I do. Here's the thing about WCS, it's not actually that much fun. The costs associated with WCS are massive, the travel budget is being completely blown on WCS flights for a tournament that the players don't really enjoy that much anyway. Our players much prefer things like Dreamhack or various regional IEMs and we can send them to more of those events next year if we spend less money flying them to WCS America. It's not like MLG, ESL and NASL aren't trying to make the best with what they have but the WCS format doesn't lend itself well to a really fun competition whereas those weekend tournaments do. I think our guys have proven they can fight with the best in GSTL, and it's not like they escaped fighting tough players by going to WCS America, they ran into some of the top-tier Koreans in their journey through the tournament this year.
However, if region-locking were to come into effect, I feel Korean competition must be stimulated further. The talent pool in Korea is massive and there aren't enough tournaments for them to play in. You might say "oh, well just send em to the other regions", well good luck doing that. The teams doing that are the ones that have the budget for it, everyone else is just kinda stuck languishing in Code A or B. Korea has such a massive talent pool that it needs more tournaments to accommodate it. I'm constantly flabbergasted by the lack of Korean tournaments outside of WCS and Proleague. I'd like to see Blizzard can the grand-slams and use that budget to put on another regular event in Korea to give those pros something to fight for. Maybe we wouldn't have so many great Korean players retiring if they actually had place to play.
and that my friend is why you make those majors the actual circuit. You don't necessarily need region-locking to make engaging events where all the players get to attend.
On November 16 2013 01:10 Lorch wrote: I think most people (from those who dislike you) just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
You say you sent your team to US as you just had to in the best interest of the team, yet some of your players were main stays in code s in the past (especially ryung) and pretty much all of them would have at least been capable of making it into code a, plus none of them made it to blizzcon anyways. If you truly care as much about the US scene as you said you would have told your players to stay in KR to protect the NA scene, yet you did sent them there. And then you try to farm a market of people who are interested in watching NA players. To me you just helped to create a mass of people who are disappointed in WCS NA (just how you bitched about WCS when it was announced only to cast it (aka support it) a few weeks later) to have them as viewers for your next project.
Sadly you seem to enjoy replying to people who dislike you in a very aggressive and mean way so you'll probably pick one point of my post, deny it and then tell me how much of a fool I am. On top of that you display yourself as the saint who only does starcraft cause he loves it so much and would make more money with youtube in the same time. It reminds me of how blizzard talks about only doing esports cause they love it so much, yet they killed off professional brood war to let star 2 shine... Please go do youtube if you loose so much money doing starcraft instead. You don't have to be the saint...
Ahh here's Lorch, the guy who has repeatedly told me to GTFO out of the scene. It really is a rogues gallery in here today. Didn't even bother to read the OP, not remotely surprising.
Examples of his toxicity and hilarious double-standards include this post just a few short days ago
As you can see, Lorcho cares so much about the NA scene that he wished for an NA specific event to fail solely to satisfy his irrational dislike of me. Clearly he is a fantastic representative of the opposing side in this discussion.
But no honest I really like TB, he worked fine with Apollo. Except for all those posts where I said he didn't.
There you have it folks, just a small sample of Lorchos history of irrational dislike lasting OVER 2 YEARS! That only took 5 minutes to find via search, I can't imagine how much more of it there is.
On November 14 2013 09:22 TotalBiscuit wrote: Let me know when Lorch stops posting. I've made the mistake of giving him a small piece of relevance by replying to him.
Can't help it, can you?
Nope, I can't. Character flaw.
Could be worse. Could be a rapist. When I get to the pearly gates and Peter rolls off all my crimes, finding the top one to be "sometimes replied to trolls on the internet", I think I'll be fine.
and that my friend is why you make those majors the actual circuit. You don't necessarily need region-locking to make engaging events where all the players get to attend.
Ya, absolutely. IMHO things should be switched around. WCS should be focussed on regional, daily competition. The major tournaments should be the circuit. WCS could feed into those tournaments, providing qualification spots and travel assistance.
On November 16 2013 01:10 Lorch wrote: I think most people (from those who dislike you) just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
You say you sent your team to US as you just had to in the best interest of the team, yet some of your players were main stays in code s in the past (especially ryung) and pretty much all of them would have at least been capable of making it into code a, plus none of them made it to blizzcon anyways. If you truly care as much about the US scene as you said you would have told your players to stay in KR to protect the NA scene, yet you did sent them there. And then you try to farm a market of people who are interested in watching NA players. To me you just helped to create a mass of people who are disappointed in WCS NA (just how you bitched about WCS when it was announced only to cast it (aka support it) a few weeks later) to have them as viewers for your next project.
Sadly you seem to enjoy replying to people who dislike you in a very aggressive and mean way so you'll probably pick one point of my post, deny it and then tell me how much of a fool I am. On top of that you display yourself as the saint who only does starcraft cause he loves it so much and would make more money with youtube in the same time. It reminds me of how blizzard talks about only doing esports cause they love it so much, yet they killed off professional brood war to let star 2 shine... Please go do youtube if you loose so much money doing starcraft instead. You don't have to be the saint...
Ahh here's Lorch, the guy who has repeatedly told me to GTFO out of the scene. It really is a rogues gallery in here today. Didn't even bother to read the OP, not remotely surprising.
Examples of his toxicity and hilarious double-standards include this post just a few short days ago
As you can see, Lorcho cares so much about the NA scene that he wished for an NA specific event to fail solely to satisfy his irrational dislike of me. Clearly he is a fantastic representative of the opposing side in this discussion.
But no honest I really like TB, he worked fine with Apollo. Except for all those posts where I said he didn't.
There you have it folks, just a small sample of Lorchos history of irrational dislike lasting OVER 2 YEARS! That only took 5 minutes to find via search, I can't imagine how much more of it there is.
On November 14 2013 09:22 TotalBiscuit wrote: Let me know when Lorch stops posting. I've made the mistake of giving him a small piece of relevance by replying to him.
Can't help it, can you?
Nope, I can't. Character flaw.
Could be worse. Could be a rapist. When I get to the pearly gates and Peter rolls off all my crimes, finding the top one to be "sometimes replied to trolls on the internet", I think I'll be fine.
and that my friend is why you make those majors the actual circuit. You don't necessarily need region-locking to make engaging events where all the players get to attend.
Ya, absolutely. IMHO things should be switched around. WCS should be focussed on regional, daily competition. The major tournaments should be the circuit.
On November 16 2013 01:10 Lorch wrote: I think most people (from those who dislike you) just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
You say you sent your team to US as you just had to in the best interest of the team, yet some of your players were main stays in code s in the past (especially ryung) and pretty much all of them would have at least been capable of making it into code a, plus none of them made it to blizzcon anyways. If you truly care as much about the US scene as you said you would have told your players to stay in KR to protect the NA scene, yet you did sent them there. And then you try to farm a market of people who are interested in watching NA players. To me you just helped to create a mass of people who are disappointed in WCS NA (just how you bitched about WCS when it was announced only to cast it (aka support it) a few weeks later) to have them as viewers for your next project.
Sadly you seem to enjoy replying to people who dislike you in a very aggressive and mean way so you'll probably pick one point of my post, deny it and then tell me how much of a fool I am. On top of that you display yourself as the saint who only does starcraft cause he loves it so much and would make more money with youtube in the same time. It reminds me of how blizzard talks about only doing esports cause they love it so much, yet they killed off professional brood war to let star 2 shine... Please go do youtube if you loose so much money doing starcraft instead. You don't have to be the saint...
Ahh here's Lorch, the guy who has repeatedly told me to GTFO out of the scene. It really is a rogues gallery in here today. Didn't even bother to read the OP, not remotely surprising.
Examples of his toxicity and hilarious double-standards include this post just a few short days ago
As you can see, Lorcho cares so much about the NA scene that he wished for an NA specific event to fail solely to satisfy his irrational dislike of me. Clearly he is a fantastic representative of the opposing side in this discussion.
But no honest I really like TB, he worked fine with Apollo. Except for all those posts where I said he didn't.
There you have it folks, just a small sample of Lorchos history of irrational dislike lasting OVER 2 YEARS! That only took 5 minutes to find via search, I can't imagine how much more of it there is.
On November 14 2013 09:22 TotalBiscuit wrote: Let me know when Lorch stops posting. I've made the mistake of giving him a small piece of relevance by replying to him.
Can't help it, can you?
Nope, I can't. Character flaw.
Could be worse. Could be a rapist. When I get to the pearly gates and Peter rolls off all my crimes, finding the top one to be "sometimes replied to trolls on the internet", I think I'll be fine.
Hahaha... not worried about what Peter will think, but one day you might burn out dealing with this kind of stuff on top of the real work. But if you like it, no problem. Thanks for all you do for starcraft.
On November 15 2013 12:46 deth2munkies wrote: While I agree with the general intent behind everything you said (and am too lazy to fact check it, but it looks fine), it will never cease to amaze me how much effort you put into answering small groups of trolls. 90% of the time I see a big defensive post or a line of defensive tweets, I never see the dumbass comments that spurred it.
The misconception is that I'm answering trolls when what I'm actually trying to do is educate a wider audience on the realities of the industry right now. Someone's posting bullshit? Take it as an opportunity to spread more information among people who may not otherwise have access to it. Turn that negativity into something useful.
I agree with this. It is important to take moments to explain realities of the industry. You'd be suprised how many people actually know very little. The hardcore crowd is well informed and that's why it is frustrating to see TB have to go through this. But it is really important to educate the casual crowd to otherwise the vocal misinformed who contribute little to the scene are doing more damage then those working there ass off for the scene and don't have time to be vocal.
On November 15 2013 12:46 deth2munkies wrote: While I agree with the general intent behind everything you said (and am too lazy to fact check it, but it looks fine), it will never cease to amaze me how much effort you put into answering small groups of trolls. 90% of the time I see a big defensive post or a line of defensive tweets, I never see the dumbass comments that spurred it.
The misconception is that I'm answering trolls when what I'm actually trying to do is educate a wider audience on the realities of the industry right now. Someone's posting bullshit? Take it as an opportunity to spread more information among people who may not otherwise have access to it. Turn that negativity into something useful.
I agree with this. It is important to take moments to explain realities of the industry. You'd be suprised how many people actually know very little. The hardcore crowd is well informed and that's why it is frustrating to see TB have to go through this. But it is really important to educate the casual crowd to otherwise the vocal misinformed who contribute little to the scene are doing more damage then those working there ass off for the scene and don't have time to be vocal.
Lots of people like to point to the vocal minority as the cause of the nonsense within the scene, saying the "community" as a whole is not at fault but I disagree. I think that is just dodging responsibility for some of the poison that is circulated. Vocal minority they may be but if no-one else is well informed enough to shout those people down outside of community personalities who instantly become bullet magnets for even suggesting that the community might not be 100% amazing, then that's an unhealthy environment for this game to exist within.
On November 15 2013 12:46 deth2munkies wrote: While I agree with the general intent behind everything you said (and am too lazy to fact check it, but it looks fine), it will never cease to amaze me how much effort you put into answering small groups of trolls. 90% of the time I see a big defensive post or a line of defensive tweets, I never see the dumbass comments that spurred it.
The misconception is that I'm answering trolls when what I'm actually trying to do is educate a wider audience on the realities of the industry right now. Someone's posting bullshit? Take it as an opportunity to spread more information among people who may not otherwise have access to it. Turn that negativity into something useful.
I agree with this. It is important to take moments to explain realities of the industry. You'd be suprised how many people actually know very little. The hardcore crowd is well informed and that's why it is frustrating to see TB have to go through this. But it is really important to educate the casual crowd to otherwise the vocal misinformed who contribute little to the scene are doing more damage then those working there ass off for the scene and don't have time to be vocal.
Lots of people like to point to the vocal minority as the cause of the nonsense within the scene, saying the "community" as a whole is not at fault but I disagree. I think that is just dodging responsibility for some of the poison that is circulated. Vocal minority they may be but if no-one else is well informed enough to shout those people down outside of community personalities who instantly become bullet magnets for even suggesting that the community might not be 100% amazing, then that's an unhealthy environment for this game to exist within.
That's why I chose to say vocal misinformed instead of minority(but I guess it's really not that different). Anyway, I know I'm in a far different position then you as far as fighting this battle but negative vocal minority has been my focus because you can drown them out if there is a positive vocal minority. It honestly lights a fire under my ass to be more proactive when I see people attacking the scene. I will admit it got so bad I had to take a break from the SC2 scene. But coming back refreshed there is a lot of spirit left in the community that wants to be louder. WCS finals was a huge breakthrough for the SC2 scene and I felt like the light was rekindled a lot.
As far as that dude bashing your casting since I just read that point. Any time you are in media there will be people who hate you and people who love you. And then the worse kind, the people who say they hate you but still listen to you instead of turning the dial. This is a phrase I carry with me from a radio show I listen to daily. "He who cares the least wins." Taking a lesson from 20 years radio pros, they just stopped caring. In fact they let people who want to call in and tell them how bad they are actual radio time to voice there opinion. And then they laugh about it and move on. It's quite motivational to see them deal with adversity in that manner. I think age and pride is something that makes it really hard to deal with since the scene is young like you and I both are. Yet for someone in your position it takes a level of maturity that takes a decade to develop yet you have to make up the time very quickly because the pace of ESports doesn't allow you to grow and be nurtured into the scene.
On November 16 2013 03:55 WolfintheSheep wrote: I kinda wish TL would ban people for being sheer idiots. I wouldn't even care if I lost my own account because of it...
There's reasons why some us staff don't have a hammer.
TB is a baller. I personally love his casting, can understand some might not, but equally there isn't an archetypal 'perfect caster' that will satisfy the entire community. Shitting on people who don't fit your ideal is silly, as there's probably somebody else out there who'll have the same reservations about your favourite caster.
The guy does decent to fantastic E-sports content, tournaments out of his own pocket and fantastic general gaming content. In a world where people employed by the big sites put out the equivalent of press releases on the behest of big publishers and passes them off as 'reviews'. It's quite refreshing to have a guy with such crossover appeal involved in our scene, especially that it's pretty damn clear he is not just piggybacking off Starcraft in order to make a quick buck.
Why does TB get so much shit? Because he actually is forthright with his opinions and people think that makes him a fair target for pointless derailings of every interesting discussion he starts. I would consider Day9 the only other equivalent kind of crossover figure that's intimately involved in the Starcraft scene who has a following independent of it. For whatever reason (perhaps his Brood War background and historical playing chops) he gets a far less vitriolic response from the 'community'.
Oh cool, you don't like his casting. Great, go make a blog about how much you hate TB's casting, don't derail an interesting thread about the entire Blizzard-orchestrated structure that is supposed to be the pinnacle of competitive SC2
To be honest, fuck E-sports growing any larger, if the kind of irrelevant negativity it engenders towards people in a scene now is any indicator, if it ever hits the genuine mainstream the floodgates holding back a torrent of utter idiocy and innanity will burst.
On November 16 2013 01:10 Lorch wrote: I think most people (from those who dislike you) just dislike your casting. When Moletrap left I thought I'd never had to mute again, then you started casting MLGs. However I don't really mind as I can easily watch the game muted and enjoy some music, however when you cast the finals where hearing the crowd etc. is just part of the experience it just becomes very annoying. If you would just have no idea what you are talking about and add nothing to the experience I'd be perfectly fine, but you actually shout as loud as you can whenever anything happens and that is just beyond annoying. Again you can do whatever you want and I am NOT posting this to hate on you but to answer a question you asked.
You say you sent your team to US as you just had to in the best interest of the team, yet some of your players were main stays in code s in the past (especially ryung) and pretty much all of them would have at least been capable of making it into code a, plus none of them made it to blizzcon anyways. If you truly care as much about the US scene as you said you would have told your players to stay in KR to protect the NA scene, yet you did sent them there. And then you try to farm a market of people who are interested in watching NA players. To me you just helped to create a mass of people who are disappointed in WCS NA (just how you bitched about WCS when it was announced only to cast it (aka support it) a few weeks later) to have them as viewers for your next project.
Sadly you seem to enjoy replying to people who dislike you in a very aggressive and mean way so you'll probably pick one point of my post, deny it and then tell me how much of a fool I am. On top of that you display yourself as the saint who only does starcraft cause he loves it so much and would make more money with youtube in the same time. It reminds me of how blizzard talks about only doing esports cause they love it so much, yet they killed off professional brood war to let star 2 shine... Please go do youtube if you loose so much money doing starcraft instead. You don't have to be the saint...
Ahh here's Lorch, the guy who has repeatedly told me to GTFO out of the scene. It really is a rogues gallery in here today. Didn't even bother to read the OP, not remotely surprising.
Examples of his toxicity and hilarious double-standards include this post just a few short days ago
As you can see, Lorcho cares so much about the NA scene that he wished for an NA specific event to fail solely to satisfy his irrational dislike of me. Clearly he is a fantastic representative of the opposing side in this discussion.
But no honest I really like TB, he worked fine with Apollo. Except for all those posts where I said he didn't.
There you have it folks, just a small sample of Lorchos history of irrational dislike lasting OVER 2 YEARS! That only took 5 minutes to find via search, I can't imagine how much more of it there is.
Okay this just made me laugh. Good lord that's some research
On November 15 2013 12:38 TotalBiscuit wrote: 6) Why is it that Axiom is the only team getting criticised for sending Koreans to WCS America? Such a strange thing to do when we're also providing opportunities for Americans with the SCA tournaments. I suppose the loudest person is the easiest target, but it all strikes me as rather odd. I'm not in favour of any team getting flack for that but it does seem curiously silent when referring to EG or Teamliquid.
There's actually a few reasonable explanations for this. 1) EG and TL (to a lesser extent after the move to Europe) are US based without team houses in Korea. It makes much more sense for them to compete in WCS NA than your team which is entirely Korean with a team house readily available.
2) You sort of hit on this but neither EG nor TL is as actively denouncing the WCS system as frequently or openly as you. To the outside world, they look to just be towing the line and taking that Blizzard money while you appear to be a rebel that's still a part of the problem.
I don't necessarily agree but I see where people could be coming from in this regard.
They only don't have a teamhouse in Korea because they had to shut down their existing one. They had a teamhouse in Korea when they first entered WCS, so that would require some fairly short memories from some people
I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
You rock TB! You are a passionate person, the best category . I also agree with you on the local versus global competition. I had formed that opinion privately already when the wcs thing popped up initially. It makes sense as a good position for any (e)sports to be in, but it can't form out of thin air... Bigger organized sports have all kinds of supporting organizations that help out with formalities and rulesets etc.
And thanks BisuDagger. I am posting this as a positive message because 'that idiot' needs to be drowned out.
There's so many of us thinking positively about you and your organization TB, most of the haters are just extremely ignorant. I really wouldn't worry about it.
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
On November 16 2013 05:13 TotalBiscuit wrote: They only don't have a teamhouse in Korea because they had to shut down their existing one. They had a teamhouse in Korea when they first entered WCS, so that would require some fairly short memories from some people
Short memories? On the internet? Never. I would wager people have already forgotten who won the Season 1 finals of each region so it's not much of a stretch for them to incorrectly assume WCS started after the team house was shut down.
Fair point though, and part of it is that you respond a hell of a lot more than TL or EG ever will which attracts more criticism than otherwise would be the case of other teams.
EGTL had a house in Korea for a good while did they not?
Nazgul has done interviews where he's been very critical of the SC2 tournament structure/other features when compared to DOTA iirc. Again I don't care particularly, to me it is not hypocrisy to want to do things better while not exiting the scene entirely in a huff.
If Blizzard didn't have such a monopoly on the game, the servers and other things then yes, I'd be more sympathetic to people being critical of teams that take WCS money but are critical, but it's nigh-on impossible to have tournaments etc without Blizzard's consent/involvement.
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
And so the goal of this would be to (for example) prevent objectively stronger korean players from coming into WCS AM and thus preventing american players from being able to play sustainably (sans prize money)? So people like Polt would be able to play in WCS AM (Student at a UT school), but someone like Ryung, to use your example, would not? Is there a concern about the relative popularity of having different regions with fairly high play differentials (ie WCS KR having a much higher average level of play than WCS AM if region lock is implemented)?
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
And so the goal of this would be to (for example) prevent objectively stronger korean players from coming into WCS AM and thus preventing american players from being able to play sustainably (sans prize money)? So people like Polt would be able to play in WCS AM (Student at a UT school), but someone like Ryung, to use your example, would not? Is there a concern about the relative popularity of having different regions with fairly high play differentials (ie WCS KR having a much higher average level of play than WCS AM if region lock is implemented)?
I tend to agree with Destinys point on this, that the majority of viewers do not know enough about the game for that play differential to matter. While most can see the difference between a mid-tier foreign player and a high-tier Korean if they go against each other, watching 2 foreigners go at it is entirely fine for most people and if we didn't tell them they were foreigners, most would not be able to notice. I would expect WCS to take a small dip for a while if it region-locked and then gradually go back to former levels as players had the opportunity to establish themselves. Taking advantage of the relatability of these players with more personality driven content would also benefit the tournament.
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
And so the goal of this would be to (for example) prevent objectively stronger korean players from coming into WCS AM and thus preventing american players from being able to play sustainably (sans prize money)? So people like Polt would be able to play in WCS AM (Student at a UT school), but someone like Ryung, to use your example, would not? Is there a concern about the relative popularity of having different regions with fairly high play differentials (ie WCS KR having a much higher average level of play than WCS AM if region lock is implemented)?
I tend to agree with Destinys point on this, that the majority of viewers do not know enough about the game for that play differential to matter. While most can see the difference between a mid-tier foreign player and a high-tier Korean if they go against each other, watching 2 foreigners go at it is entirely fine for most people and if we didn't tell them they were foreigners, most would not be able to notice. I would expect WCS to take a small dip for a while if it region-locked and then gradually go back to former levels as players had the opportunity to establish themselves. Taking advantage of the relatability of these players with more personality driven content would also benefit the tournament.
Hm, I strongly disagree with this, and honestly, it's a bit condescending towards people who watch.
The difference between WCS Finals and HSC is ENORMOUS. The games at HSC are laughable in comparison.... not in a bad way, but everything just feels completely different.
That's like saying a casual observer wouldn't notice the difference between college basketball and the NBA... no, simply not true. Watching Jaedong and Scarlett play has a very different feel.
I don't think an argument for regional lock will ever be able to avoid an obvious decrease in game quality(to at least half of viewers), and that's not necessarily a deciding reason... but it is an unavoidable one.
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
And so the goal of this would be to (for example) prevent objectively stronger korean players from coming into WCS AM and thus preventing american players from being able to play sustainably (sans prize money)? So people like Polt would be able to play in WCS AM (Student at a UT school), but someone like Ryung, to use your example, would not? Is there a concern about the relative popularity of having different regions with fairly high play differentials (ie WCS KR having a much higher average level of play than WCS AM if region lock is implemented)?
No, the goal would be that if these objectively stronger Korean players wanted to come into WCS AM and prevent American players from sustaining themselves, they'd have contribute to the North American scene by living here. It'd raise the skill level of the region if they practiced/competed more in North America than in Korea, and in turn give North American players exposure to the higher skill level; which is a fundamental problem with why NA lags so far behind Korea.
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
And so the goal of this would be to (for example) prevent objectively stronger korean players from coming into WCS AM and thus preventing american players from being able to play sustainably (sans prize money)? So people like Polt would be able to play in WCS AM (Student at a UT school), but someone like Ryung, to use your example, would not? Is there a concern about the relative popularity of having different regions with fairly high play differentials (ie WCS KR having a much higher average level of play than WCS AM if region lock is implemented)?
I tend to agree with Destinys point on this, that the majority of viewers do not know enough about the game for that play differential to matter. While most can see the difference between a mid-tier foreign player and a high-tier Korean if they go against each other, watching 2 foreigners go at it is entirely fine for most people and if we didn't tell them they were foreigners, most would not be able to notice. I would expect WCS to take a small dip for a while if it region-locked and then gradually go back to former levels as players had the opportunity to establish themselves. Taking advantage of the relatability of these players with more personality driven content would also benefit the tournament.
Hm, I strongly disagree with this, and honestly, it's a bit condescending towards people who watch.
The difference between WCS Finals and HSC is ENORMOUS. The games at HSC are laughable in comparison.... not in a bad way, but everything just feels completely different.
That's like saying a casual observer wouldn't notice the difference between college basketball and the NBA... no, simply not true. Watching Jaedong and Scarlett play has a very different feel.
I don't think an argument for regional lock will ever be able to avoid an obvious decrease in game quality(to at least half of viewers), and that's not necessarily a deciding reason... but it is an unavoidable one.
Read Twitch chat sometime and tell me that viewers actually know enough to tell the difference.
The games at HSC are laughable because barely anyone is taking it seriously and most of them are probably drunk at this point. Also you're having casters play in groups, it's to be expected. If you actually put active, competitive NA players against each other then put Koreans against each other but don't tell the audience, a lot of viewers would not be able to tell the difference without having the differences pointed out by casters.
And actually yeah, as a casual observer of basketball, I would not be able to tell the difference between college and NBA. That's a really good example, but it had the opposite effect that you intended I'm afraid. I could not tell the difference.
Equal games of a lower calibre are more enjoyable to watch than mismatches. That's pretty much true across the board regardless of what game or sport you're watching.
Well, from the statistics we have, it doesn't seem as though higher skill matches necessarily attract more viewers. Whilst obviously there are no statistics from GOMtv, according to viewership on Twitch, both WCS AM and WCS EU are more popular than WCS KR, and ATC is also a lot more popular than GSTL. Obviously the numbers would be different if we had the data from GOMtv, but there it is. It's also the reason why even if Dear or sOs streamed, they'd never get as many viewers as Grubby or DeMusliM.
So you can't really say that more Koreans in WCS AM/EU will increase viewership, coz if people wanted to watch the best players, they'd be tuning to WCS KR and GSTL, not to WCS EU and ATC.
Also, if WCS AM and EU were region-locked it would not be 'missed opportunities' for Koreans. The problem is the reduction of WCS KR and GSL, not the region-locking of WCS EU and WCS KR. I'm sure a few Koreans would rather get back to playing GSL and OSL, with the increased opportunities they had in 2012, rather than having to bypass the great wall of lag to try and qualify to RO16, and then spend thousands of dollars on flights to travel to the other side of the world to participate in a tournament, when they'd normally just have to get a taxi ride to the studio.
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
And so the goal of this would be to (for example) prevent objectively stronger korean players from coming into WCS AM and thus preventing american players from being able to play sustainably (sans prize money)? So people like Polt would be able to play in WCS AM (Student at a UT school), but someone like Ryung, to use your example, would not? Is there a concern about the relative popularity of having different regions with fairly high play differentials (ie WCS KR having a much higher average level of play than WCS AM if region lock is implemented)?
I tend to agree with Destinys point on this, that the majority of viewers do not know enough about the game for that play differential to matter. While most can see the difference between a mid-tier foreign player and a high-tier Korean if they go against each other, watching 2 foreigners go at it is entirely fine for most people and if we didn't tell them they were foreigners, most would not be able to notice. I would expect WCS to take a small dip for a while if it region-locked and then gradually go back to former levels as players had the opportunity to establish themselves. Taking advantage of the relatability of these players with more personality driven content would also benefit the tournament.
Hm, I strongly disagree with this, and honestly, it's a bit condescending towards people who watch.
The difference between WCS Finals and HSC is ENORMOUS. The games at HSC are laughable in comparison.... not in a bad way, but everything just feels completely different.
That's like saying a casual observer wouldn't notice the difference between college basketball and the NBA... no, simply not true. Watching Jaedong and Scarlett play has a very different feel.
I don't think an argument for regional lock will ever be able to avoid an obvious decrease in game quality(to at least half of viewers), and that's not necessarily a deciding reason... but it is an unavoidable one.
Read Twitch chat sometime and tell me that viewers actually know enough to tell the difference.
The games at HSC are laughable because barely anyone is taking it seriously and most of them are probably drunk at this point. Also you're having casters play in groups, it's to be expected. If you actually put active, competitive NA players against each other then put Koreans against each other but don't tell the audience, a lot of viewers would not be able to tell the difference without having the differences pointed out by casters.
And actually yeah, as a casual observer of basketball, I would not be able to tell the difference between college and NBA. That's a really good example, but it had the opposite effect that you intended I'm afraid. I could not tell the difference.
Equal games of a lower calibre are more enjoyable to watch than mismatches. That's pretty much true across the board regardless of what game or sport you're watching.
That's your opinion, and I disagree.... I don't know how that makes you right? Honestly, you need to adjust your tone in your PR. You sound self-righteous and combative. That being said, I respect what you do for the community and enjoy your content.
Also, twitch chat is the WORST example of what the community is. If that was it, then we should all just stop....
Holy shit. Just holy shit. TB, you can still give a shit after years of constant fighting in an almost Sisyphean conflict. Hell, you don't just fight, you fight well. You fight with well thought-out arguments that surpass almost any others I've seen in their sheer quality. Tendency for aggressiveness aside, the world needs more people who are like that. Apathy is too easy these days when everything seems to be going to hell. Smart people that'll continue to fight the good fight past the point of reason are the single greatest resource for human society.
I say this after reading through the whole thread, by the way.
i think the problem people have is that ur not that good at sc2 the game and commentating . .someone like you saying how XXX pro player should have . .." annoys people and people still see you as a wow player. haters gonna hate
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
And so the goal of this would be to (for example) prevent objectively stronger korean players from coming into WCS AM and thus preventing american players from being able to play sustainably (sans prize money)? So people like Polt would be able to play in WCS AM (Student at a UT school), but someone like Ryung, to use your example, would not? Is there a concern about the relative popularity of having different regions with fairly high play differentials (ie WCS KR having a much higher average level of play than WCS AM if region lock is implemented)?
I tend to agree with Destinys point on this, that the majority of viewers do not know enough about the game for that play differential to matter. While most can see the difference between a mid-tier foreign player and a high-tier Korean if they go against each other, watching 2 foreigners go at it is entirely fine for most people and if we didn't tell them they were foreigners, most would not be able to notice. I would expect WCS to take a small dip for a while if it region-locked and then gradually go back to former levels as players had the opportunity to establish themselves. Taking advantage of the relatability of these players with more personality driven content would also benefit the tournament.
Hm, I strongly disagree with this, and honestly, it's a bit condescending towards people who watch.
The difference between WCS Finals and HSC is ENORMOUS. The games at HSC are laughable in comparison.... not in a bad way, but everything just feels completely different.
That's like saying a casual observer wouldn't notice the difference between college basketball and the NBA... no, simply not true. Watching Jaedong and Scarlett play has a very different feel.
I don't think an argument for regional lock will ever be able to avoid an obvious decrease in game quality(to at least half of viewers), and that's not necessarily a deciding reason... but it is an unavoidable one.
Read Twitch chat sometime and tell me that viewers actually know enough to tell the difference.
The games at HSC are laughable because barely anyone is taking it seriously and most of them are probably drunk at this point. Also you're having casters play in groups, it's to be expected. If you actually put active, competitive NA players against each other then put Koreans against each other but don't tell the audience, a lot of viewers would not be able to tell the difference without having the differences pointed out by casters.
And actually yeah, as a casual observer of basketball, I would not be able to tell the difference between college and NBA. That's a really good example, but it had the opposite effect that you intended I'm afraid. I could not tell the difference.
Equal games of a lower calibre are more enjoyable to watch than mismatches. That's pretty much true across the board regardless of what game or sport you're watching.
That's your opinion, and I disagree.... I don't know how that makes you right? Honestly, you need to adjust your tone in your PR. You sound self-righteous and combative. That being said, I respect what you do for the community and enjoy your content.
Also, twitch chat is the WORST example of what the community is. If that was it, then we should all just stop....
Ahh, so your counter-argument was to attack my perceived tone and feign offense vs actually arguing my points.
I don't need to adjust anything. You can either like it or lump it. Pandering to others is dishonesty.
Well, from the statistics we have, it doesn't seem as though higher skill matches necessarily attract more viewers. Whilst obviously there are no statistics from GOMtv, according to viewership on Twitch, both WCS AM and WCS EU are more popular than WCS KR, and ATC is also a lot more popular than GSTL. Obviously the numbers would be different if we had the data from GOMtv, but there it is. It's also the reason why even if Dear or sOs streamed, they'd never get as many viewers as Grubby or DeMusliM.
So you can't really say that more Koreans in WCS AM/EU will increase viewership, coz if people wanted to watch the best players, they'd be tuning to WCS KR and GSTL, not to WCS EU and ATC.
Also, if WCS AM and EU were region-locked it would not be 'missed opportunities' for Koreans. The problem is the reduction of WCS KR and GSL, not the region-locking of WCS EU and WCS KR. I'm sure a few Koreans would rather get back to playing GSL and OSL, with the increased opportunities they had in 2012, rather than having to bypass the great wall of lag to try and qualify to RO16, and then spend thousands of dollars on flights to travel to the other side of the world to participate in a tournament, when they'd normally just have to get a taxi ride to the studio.
Yeah there is no correlation. WCS EU finals are consistently the highest viewed despite that being the easiest region. There's a number of contributing factors, which include the strength of ESLs production and casting team as well as the importance of the European viewing demographic. But you do not see the most skillful games there. There's plenty of foreigner vs foreigner competition in those events that gets excellent viewership, much higher than WCS America which by that point is almost exclusively Korean competition in the RO8 onwards. http://www.fuzic.nl/events/overall/all-time/average-desc/ has proof of that. Correlate the events, see that yes there is a desire to watch foreigner competition and that the factors differentiating the viewership can be found elsewhere.
I think there is a level that viewers expect and enjoy and that level is not as high as some people believe it to be. As long as you are seeing good pros put on good games, people will watch it. The GSL thing is always difficult to do comparisons with because of the often obscene times it airs and the fact that GOM obfuscates the numbers on its player so we don't have true numbers. You do not need the best play for people to watch and as much as many vocal people will say "I only watch the highest level", that's comparable to that amusing study that happened recently where the majority said "I order my coffee black" but in reality actually drank the milkiest lattes, because they felt that saying they liked their coffee black would earn them more respect.
On the subject of the Korean competition, from what I've heard from Koreans you're right. The whole problem stems from a lack of opportunities for Koreans IN Korea. If there was enough of it, we wouldn't need to have a bunch of them shipping themselves off to other WCS regions but as it stands there are literally several hundred players in Korea that could on a good day take a game from any other player in the world, but only 32 spots in Premier for them to fight for and well, if you aren't in GSTL or a member of Kespa, you have nowhere else to play on a regular basis.
I think it was a good decision to put this into a blog post, obviously TB feels very strongly about that kind of stupid negativity (it's not even crtisicism) and has to let out his thoughts about that. A blog post is just the place for that, look into all the other blogs: stuff about girls, bad things happening, successes, opinions and so on. It fits perfectly. I don't know why it's featured, but this is certainly much better than doing a video about it or whatever is much mor "in the face" of us followers of TB.
On November 16 2013 05:15 Pazuzu wrote: I have a question about what people are actually referring to when they say region lock, since I've seen it used in various settings before.
Is region lock meant to be you can only participate in the WCS section for either KR, EU, or NA depending on where you're a permanent resident? Is it nationality based? Are you locked permanently into a specific region but if you were to move to a new country you'd still stay in that old region? I feel like there are a lot of different ways people are interpreting region lock, just wondering what the actual definition is.
It means different things to different people but personally I think you should be living in the region on at least a semi-permanent basis to participate. So valid student visa, work visa, something like that.
And so the goal of this would be to (for example) prevent objectively stronger korean players from coming into WCS AM and thus preventing american players from being able to play sustainably (sans prize money)? So people like Polt would be able to play in WCS AM (Student at a UT school), but someone like Ryung, to use your example, would not? Is there a concern about the relative popularity of having different regions with fairly high play differentials (ie WCS KR having a much higher average level of play than WCS AM if region lock is implemented)?
I tend to agree with Destinys point on this, that the majority of viewers do not know enough about the game for that play differential to matter. While most can see the difference between a mid-tier foreign player and a high-tier Korean if they go against each other, watching 2 foreigners go at it is entirely fine for most people and if we didn't tell them they were foreigners, most would not be able to notice. I would expect WCS to take a small dip for a while if it region-locked and then gradually go back to former levels as players had the opportunity to establish themselves. Taking advantage of the relatability of these players with more personality driven content would also benefit the tournament.
Hm, I strongly disagree with this, and honestly, it's a bit condescending towards people who watch.
The difference between WCS Finals and HSC is ENORMOUS. The games at HSC are laughable in comparison.... not in a bad way, but everything just feels completely different.
That's like saying a casual observer wouldn't notice the difference between college basketball and the NBA... no, simply not true. Watching Jaedong and Scarlett play has a very different feel.
I don't think an argument for regional lock will ever be able to avoid an obvious decrease in game quality(to at least half of viewers), and that's not necessarily a deciding reason... but it is an unavoidable one.
Read Twitch chat sometime and tell me that viewers actually know enough to tell the difference.
The games at HSC are laughable because barely anyone is taking it seriously and most of them are probably drunk at this point. Also you're having casters play in groups, it's to be expected. If you actually put active, competitive NA players against each other then put Koreans against each other but don't tell the audience, a lot of viewers would not be able to tell the difference without having the differences pointed out by casters.
And actually yeah, as a casual observer of basketball, I would not be able to tell the difference between college and NBA. That's a really good example, but it had the opposite effect that you intended I'm afraid. I could not tell the difference.
Equal games of a lower calibre are more enjoyable to watch than mismatches. That's pretty much true across the board regardless of what game or sport you're watching.
That's your opinion, and I disagree.... I don't know how that makes you right? Honestly, you need to adjust your tone in your PR. You sound self-righteous and combative. That being said, I respect what you do for the community and enjoy your content.
Also, twitch chat is the WORST example of what the community is. If that was it, then we should all just stop....
Ahh, so your counter-argument was to attack my perceived tone and feign offense vs actually arguing my points.
I don't need to adjust anything. You can either like it or lump it. Pandering to others is dishonesty.
.... That is exactly what I was implying. You didn't make any points. There was nothing to respond to. You just said 'well, I couldn't tell the difference between college and NBA', which, if you watch basketball at all would be stupidly obvious.
I don't know why you are trying to make this into an argument. I'm expressing an opinion, you are expressing yours, you don't need to beat me and vice versa. We can happily disagree
And, I plan to lump it. It's just my opinion.
There is a difference between being non-combative and 'pandering', btw.
To have a discussion you have to accept the other side as having valid opinions/points. And saying that everyone who disagrees with you is simply wrong/stupid/mean etc. is reductive. People care about this game. People care about you. And, I, for one, am just trying to give my 2 cents.
<3
Edit:
On November 16 2013 13:07 schaf wrote: I don't know why it's featured...
The blog wasn't selected; TB as a community figure/contributor gets featured (i.e. anything he writes is automatically in featured blogs.)
What Total Biscuit is trying to say without saying it is that.... The SC2 community, and Teamliquid.net in particular, have the craziest expectations.
Starcraft 2 sucks because the fan base is terrible. Blizzard makes bad decisions because the fan base sucks, and they don't trust them, and I don't blame them. This blog in particular is a perfect example of what's happening here - Total Biscuit waited until WCS was ALL done, then he decided to run a tournament to show off REAL NA talent instead of Koreans who play in WCS AM because it was the easiest path (which back fired on some of them... haha). What happens? People criticize him and call him a hypocrite for running a tournament with NO KOREAN players, especially ones that are on his team.
Total Biscuit is right. This community is cannibalizing itself, and the reason the game sucks is not because of any poor design. Everyone points at the poor design because they see BW where everything was fucking great, and none of this shit existed. Everything worked for that game! Surely it must be the game design for we are not receiving the same prosperous response that happened with BW!
Guess what? It's not the game. It's not even really Blizzard. It's not TB, it's not DotA, or LoL, or Hearthstone. It's the fan base, and honestly, people have to change themselves if that's the case. Starcraft 2 may be revived later down the road like a phoenix born from the ashes of it's death (oooh, generic metaphor!), but as far as I can see, the fan base is going to chew it up until there's nothing left UNLESS there's a change in ideals. I find that unlikely, but who knows.
TL;DR - Chances are if you disagree with this blog, YOU are killing esports you mother fucker. Stop it.
On November 15 2013 18:39 ZodaSoda wrote: Oh my goodness, you silly Drama Queen, you're like this in EVERY scene you're interested in...
Wanna know why? Because I give a shit. People that don't care usually have nothing to say. Nothing but worthless ad hominem and no contribution to the discussion. Shame on you. People that don't give a shit don't put on tournaments. People that don't give a shit don't try to educate the community on things they don't understand. How about you celebrate the people that give a shit instead of trying to tread on them hmm?
Yeah but to use analogy you might understand better...
You arnt going to like every Biscuit in the Barrel
It's fine for you to be like this when its truly necessary, but you overreact and exaggerate a lot in almost every aspect of your public and probably private life, to the point that you're becoming the brit who cried wolf.
You're allowed to care and i implore you to do something about it, but stop arguing with people in comments and forums.. its not productive and you know it... or go back to the days you use to argue with people in youtube comments, cause that is no different...
Apply the rule you gave yourself about youtube comments to TL and Reddit.
Tb, one point that I feel needs more discussion when talking about region-locking wcs is this:
However, if region-locking were to come into effect, I feel Korean competition must be stimulated further. The talent pool in Korea is massive and there aren't enough tournaments for them to play in.
Thats from one of your reply posts one the first page. And I can't help but wonder if region-locking wcs would cripple the Korean player base. I agree that there absolutely needs to be more ways for Korean Starcraft players to win money, within Korea, but where will those opportunities come from? Korea is in a LoL craze right now, there is no denying it. What I would like to ask you is do you think that should wcs become region-locked, that some clever sponsors will seize the chance to create some extra tournaments to accommodate a larger Korean scene?
And following along that line of thought, should region-locking occur and nothing other than wcs and gstl is available in Korea, what would be the effects on Korean and global SC2? Will region-locking provide more opportunities for foreigners, or simply forcibly transfer them from Koreans to foreigners? You have a much better insight and understanding on how this would likely work than I do, and I would love to hear a response.
There is something to be said for the VERY top, pinnacle of any activity, but it's not always in game quality, its other things like prestige and history, crowd hype etc that make it a good viewing experience.
I personally, at least in terms of live viewing watched a lot more NA WCS than the other two regions. Suited my schedule plus my two favourite players were there.
Sloppy/non-optimal games are fun as hell anyway, give me Ward v Gatti any day over a Floyd Mayweather fight.
More Korean tournaments, more spots for season/global finals and more prize money for the Kr region would be a good start if any lock came in.
I was flabbergasted that it wasn't region locked tbh. I think many of us assumed it would be, and that Koreans could benefit but guys like Polt and Violet who had invested in that region
On November 16 2013 13:42 Wombat_NI wrote: More Korean tournaments, more spots for season/global finals and more prize money for the Kr region would be a good start if any lock came in.
I was flabbergasted that it wasn't region locked tbh. I think many of us assumed it would be, and that Koreans could benefit but guys like Polt and Violet who had invested in that region
But where do those tournaments come from? Money doesn't appear out of thin air, and if it does its heading mostly towards league in Korea at the moment. I do think that wcs should be locked, but the potential damage to the Korean scene is I think not being realised.
Well, travelling tournaments like IEM and the smaller Dreamhacks go all over the shop, maybe throw the Koreans a bone?
That was more an aside, the enforced parity of the prize pools of the WCS regionally would/should change IMO in the case of any soft region lock being brought in.
On November 16 2013 13:42 Wombat_NI wrote: More Korean tournaments, more spots for season/global finals and more prize money for the Kr region would be a good start if any lock came in.
I was flabbergasted that it wasn't region locked tbh. I think many of us assumed it would be, and that Koreans could benefit but guys like Polt and Violet who had invested in that region
But where do those tournaments come from? Money doesn't appear out of thin air, and if it does its heading mostly towards league in Korea at the moment. I do think that wcs should be locked, but the potential damage to the Korean scene is I think not being realised.
Frankly? From WCSs budget. America and Europe do not deserve equal prizemoney to Korea because they are not equal events. There is speculation about the removal of the grand slams from next years WCS circuit, which should free up a fairly massive chunk of the budget not only in prizemoney but in the massive production and travel costs associated with those events. I'd say you cut Europe and Americas prizepool in half, can all grandslams, use some the freed up budget to create new events in Korea. Lemme be selfish for a moment and say, GSTL. A fantastic opportunity for players to get exposure and for teams to compete for big money. A popular format that resonates with a lot of people. Give that some damn support. We're several teams down, the prizepool isn't big enough, it's not even hosted at a good time for foreigners to watch. I can't watch my own players compete because it's at bloody 4am EST. There's so much that can be done with both the existing formats and the possibility of new ones.
Region-lock WCS and use the remaining budget to take the bloody online element out, get everyone in the studio, create some proper bloody storylines with some real faces and exploit the very thing that foreign players have going for them when it comes to to the viewers and that is relatability. I want to know everything there is to know about OUR WCS players and every shred of downtime in those tournaments should be chock full of content dedicated to telling me that.
If I had unlimited budget and resources, that's how I'd do it.
On November 16 2013 13:47 HystericaLaughter wrote:
On November 16 2013 13:42 Wombat_NI wrote: More Korean tournaments, more spots for season/global finals and more prize money for the Kr region would be a good start if any lock came in.
I was flabbergasted that it wasn't region locked tbh. I think many of us assumed it would be, and that Koreans could benefit but guys like Polt and Violet who had invested in that region
But where do those tournaments come from? Money doesn't appear out of thin air, and if it does its heading mostly towards league in Korea at the moment. I do think that wcs should be locked, but the potential damage to the Korean scene is I think not being realised.
Frankly? From WCSs budget. America and Europe do not deserve equal prizemoney to Korea because they are not equal events. There is speculation about the removal of the grand slams from next years WCS circuit, which should free up a fairly massive chunk of the budget not only in prizemoney but in the massive production and travel costs associated with those events. I'd say you cut Europe and Americas prizepool in half, can all grandslams, use some the freed up budget to create new events in Korea. Lemme be selfish for a moment and say, GSTL. A fantastic opportunity for players to get exposure and for teams to compete for big money. A popular format that resonates with a lot of people. Give that some damn support. We're several teams down, the prizepool isn't big enough, it's not even hosted at a good time for foreigners to watch. I can't watch my own players compete because it's at bloody 4am EST. There's so much that can be done with both the existing formats and the possibility of new ones.
Region-lock WCS and use the remaining budget to take the bloody online element out, get everyone in the studio, create some proper bloody storylines with some real faces and exploit the very thing that foreign players have going for them when it comes to to the viewers and that is relatability. I want to know everything there is to know about OUR WCS players and every shred of downtime in those tournaments should be chock full of content dedicated to telling me that.
If I had unlimited budget and resources, that's how I'd do it.
I guess you are right, but i don't see blizzard doing it and to be quite frank if i think about it, i dont know if its even worth it. There is just no big interest in korea, i mean for us esports fans it would be the best thing in the world, but why "waste" money for korea "alone" if nobody cares there? The viewers are in europe and america, it's just really hard to investe in korea right now.
On November 16 2013 17:30 cYaN wrote: errrrr so as i understand it you don't like the current rules but use them to your advantage while you can? carry on
On November 16 2013 11:36 TotalBiscuit wrote: ...On the subject of the Korean competition, from what I've heard from Koreans you're right. The whole problem stems from a lack of opportunities for Koreans IN Korea. ...
One factor which I think is huge, is that SC2 system requirements are too high for most pc bangs in Korea. Big effect on popularity, on supply of new talent, and on demand for small scale tournaments. This issue was brought up not long after SC2 launch and I think worth iterating. I've heard the system requirements argument made by others with experience about the pc bang situation but I don't know how it has changed over the years.
TBs posts are so adorable... I have a feeling they'd seem way, way more vulgar if you replaced "bloody" with American curse words =P Anyway, TB, plz consider this. I remember hearing a US congressman say, in regard to lobbyists, something along these lines, "It's their job to stop me from doing my job." I'm as much of a moth to the internet flames as anyone, but dude, you gotta work on ignoring the one or two morons who are too stupid/stubborn/whatever to be logically reasoned with. Good luck
If their is one person in the esports scene id like to meet, starcraft 2 in particular, it's TB. He's like a nicer version of Destiny. #axiomfighting #TBsaysfuckyoutrolls
On November 16 2013 19:32 dWarreN wrote: If their is one person in the esports scene id like to meet, starcraft 2 in particular, it's TB. He's like a nicer version of Destiny. #axiomfighting #TBsaysfuckyoutrolls
I think you just insulted him worse than any hater ever could have. >.>
On November 15 2013 12:38 TotalBiscuit wrote: 2) The term "hyper-nationalistic view" implies I'm the KKK of Starcraft. There is nothing hyper-nationalistic about wanting regional competition because this is entirely normal in every other sport, which should be obvious if you pay even the slightest bit of attention to other sports. American teams do not go and compete in other American football, basketball or baseball leagues in other countries because well, they would crush everybody. By staying the hell out of those leagues (not that the leagues would let them in to begin with), those countries have a chance to develop their own scenes and become competitive inside their region. For an English example, Italian football teams do not compete in the English Premier league. It's a bit of a funky comparison because English teams frequently hire foreign players to compete, but Barcelona or Juventus can't just go stomping into the Premier league or worse, the First Division and wipe everyone else off the map. Competitions where this stuff can happen exist, things like the Champions League, but the regional competition is left intact and strong as it should be. The view that this should be the case in Starcraft is not "hyper-nationalistic" and it is certainly not "racist" as a few of the less smart members of the community have suggested. It's common bloody sense and if we ignore the lessons of much more successful sports, than we are doomed to make some pretty stupid mistakes.
??
Juve or Barca could pack their stuff, move to Britain and start playing in the English football competition any time they like... really no idea why you are claiming the opposite :o
Edit: not that I don't appreciate TB's efforts - but a lot of people in this community have a very sketchy view on what competition means, or how it's fueled...
Oh my...Total Biscuit is a boss. Even though it seems to the untrained eye hes just mindlessly arguing with a troll he has increased my knowledge of how things run and all that jazz in the sc2 scene. And its been absolutely epic to watch him crush these morons into oblivion with nothing but cold hard facts, knowledge and a nice flair that shows hes fed up with the toxic people in the community. PLEASE DONT LEAVE US TB WE NEED YOU! SAVE US! LOVE US!!!!!!!
On November 16 2013 18:16 VasHeR wrote: TBs posts are so adorable... I have a feeling they'd seem way, way more vulgar if you replaced "bloody" with American curse words =P Anyway, TB, plz consider this. I remember hearing a US congressman say, in regard to lobbyists, something along these lines, "It's their job to stop me from doing my job." I'm as much of a moth to the internet flames as anyone, but dude, you gotta work on ignoring the one or two morons who are too stupid/stubborn/whatever to be logically reasoned with. Good luck
I don't know, it's kind of refreshing that at least one big name in the community goes full frontal against them, meanwhile giving everyone else a lot of things to think about.
On November 16 2013 13:47 HystericaLaughter wrote:
On November 16 2013 13:42 Wombat_NI wrote: More Korean tournaments, more spots for season/global finals and more prize money for the Kr region would be a good start if any lock came in.
I was flabbergasted that it wasn't region locked tbh. I think many of us assumed it would be, and that Koreans could benefit but guys like Polt and Violet who had invested in that region
But where do those tournaments come from? Money doesn't appear out of thin air, and if it does its heading mostly towards league in Korea at the moment. I do think that wcs should be locked, but the potential damage to the Korean scene is I think not being realised.
Frankly? From WCSs budget. America and Europe do not deserve equal prizemoney to Korea because they are not equal events. There is speculation about the removal of the grand slams from next years WCS circuit, which should free up a fairly massive chunk of the budget not only in prizemoney but in the massive production and travel costs associated with those events. I'd say you cut Europe and Americas prizepool in half, can all grandslams, use some the freed up budget to create new events in Korea. Lemme be selfish for a moment and say, GSTL. A fantastic opportunity for players to get exposure and for teams to compete for big money. A popular format that resonates with a lot of people. Give that some damn support. We're several teams down, the prizepool isn't big enough, it's not even hosted at a good time for foreigners to watch. I can't watch my own players compete because it's at bloody 4am EST. There's so much that can be done with both the existing formats and the possibility of new ones.
Region-lock WCS and use the remaining budget to take the bloody online element out, get everyone in the studio, create some proper bloody storylines with some real faces and exploit the very thing that foreign players have going for them when it comes to to the viewers and that is relatability. I want to know everything there is to know about OUR WCS players and every shred of downtime in those tournaments should be chock full of content dedicated to telling me that.
If I had unlimited budget and resources, that's how I'd do it.
Fair enough, I would really like to see GSTL supported more as well, it's disappointing when it gets less viewers than ro32 of WCS America.
didn't really care much about your team or you up till now, and didn't really mind all the negative attitude towards it. was always nice seeing you guys compete in teamleagues (as Ax-Acer) or individual ones.
but this,
4) If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players. There are plenty lining up to do it. There may be more next year. Heck I think the only thing keeping a lot of them away from WCS America is the fact that it's becoming the strongest tournament outside of Korea. If it were easy to descend on the easiest WCS region, that being Europe, I'm sure they would, but massive RO32 lag disadvantage alongside travel costs and a lack of facilities in Europe for Korean players keep them at bay, for now. Pulling all of Axioms players from WCS America would not create opportunities for American players while the system remains as broken as it is.
So basically, what you're saying is that you know it's wrong, you know what's wrong, and you still decide to "abuse" it because if not you then some other guy will? I agree, pulling all of Ax players from WCSAM won't create opportunities for native players, but such a proponent of growing a local scene like yourself should do whatever is in your power to help it grow. Instead, you're using a bullshit excuse for doing it and at the same time propheticising about importance of local, homegrown talent & scene. :D
On November 16 2013 22:33 esdf wrote: didn't really care much about your team or you up till now, and didn't really mind all the negative attitude towards it. was always nice seeing you guys compete in teamleagues (as Ax-Acer) or individual ones.
4) If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players. There are plenty lining up to do it. There may be more next year. Heck I think the only thing keeping a lot of them away from WCS America is the fact that it's becoming the strongest tournament outside of Korea. If it were easy to descend on the easiest WCS region, that being Europe, I'm sure they would, but massive RO32 lag disadvantage alongside travel costs and a lack of facilities in Europe for Korean players keep them at bay, for now. Pulling all of Axioms players from WCS America would not create opportunities for American players while the system remains as broken as it is.
So basically, what you're saying is that you know it's wrong, you know what's wrong, and you still decide to "abuse" it because if not you then some other guy will? I agree, pulling all of Ax players from WCSAM won't create opportunities for native players, but such a proponent of growing a local scene like yourself should do whatever is in your power to help it grow. Instead, you're using a bullshit excuse for doing it and at the same time propheticising about importance of local, homegrown talent & scene. :D
C'mon...
He is not "abusing" the system. All TB is doing is trying to put his players in the best possible position to be successful(which is his job as manager of Team Axiom). Blizzard created this WCS system which in his opinion should be fixed, so just because that's what he feels you think his players should be punished for it by not allowing them to play in the region they qualified for? On Blizzard's WCS website they clearly state that they encourage players to choose their own region to play in rather than creating residency requirements.
But I love you, TB <3 One more team means less homeless koreans, and for once it doesn't look ill-managed, so you definitely have my trust in that :-) The rest is business. Not liking it doesn't mean you have to cut your own leg and get a head-start disadvantage.
I agree with your point that there should be some kind of region lock, but your examples are cringe-worthy. American baseball is NOT the best in the world. Barcelona and Juventus would not stomp everything in Premier League. Barca is only slightly better than the top teams, and Juventus is on par with them.
On November 16 2013 22:33 esdf wrote: didn't really care much about your team or you up till now, and didn't really mind all the negative attitude towards it. was always nice seeing you guys compete in teamleagues (as Ax-Acer) or individual ones.
but this,
4) If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players. There are plenty lining up to do it. There may be more next year. Heck I think the only thing keeping a lot of them away from WCS America is the fact that it's becoming the strongest tournament outside of Korea. If it were easy to descend on the easiest WCS region, that being Europe, I'm sure they would, but massive RO32 lag disadvantage alongside travel costs and a lack of facilities in Europe for Korean players keep them at bay, for now. Pulling all of Axioms players from WCS America would not create opportunities for American players while the system remains as broken as it is.
So basically, what you're saying is that you know it's wrong, you know what's wrong, and you still decide to "abuse" it because if not you then some other guy will? I agree, pulling all of Ax players from WCSAM won't create opportunities for native players, but such a proponent of growing a local scene like yourself should do whatever is in your power to help it grow. Instead, you're using a bullshit excuse for doing it and at the same time propheticising about importance of local, homegrown talent & scene. :D
C'mon...
He is not "abusing" the system. All TB is doing is trying to put his players in the best possible position to be successful(which is his job as manager of Team Axiom). Blizzard created this WCS system which in his opinion should be fixed, so just because that's what he feels you think his players should be punished for it by not allowing them to play in the region they qualified for? On Blizzard's WCS website they clearly state that they encourage players to choose their own region to play in rather than creating residency requirements.
I'm simply saying that he should not preach about growing a local scene while he's one of the guys preventing that growth. Simple as that.
What the do you expect him to do when Blizz has a stranglehold over the WCS system? Being critical is a necessity to engender the change he wants, but in the interim he may as well fuck over his players into the unbelievably stacked Kr region.
Not like he also funded Shoutcraft NA or anything?
Not being an apologist for TB but I'm not sure what you expect him to do. It's ridiculous that WCS Kr doesn't have a bigger prize pool, given the lack of tournaments in that region especially. Even back before teams are disbanding at an alarming rate there was GSL and the weeklies, and nothing else really.
The people who suffer most with the WCS system are Korean B-teamers who are competing vs the very best in Korea, for no more prize money than the foreign team Koreans are able to do in other regions, and at regular foreign tournaments that they get shipped to.
Hell look at someone like jjakji who is likely to be able to earn more opportunities on mYi than in Korea. Even former GSL champs struggle to stay in challenger. Not because they're bad but because they're playing in a region so overflowing with talent, especially since Kespa joined the party.
On November 17 2013 00:14 Zax19 wrote: You'll get no quarrel from me about WCS and Shoucraft, even though as a player I wouldn't respect myself for abusing a weaker region.
If the players in question were able to make a living that doesn't involve only eating ramen, we could discuss "abusing the system". What they're doing is following the rules Blizzard set up and making money, which many of the players without salaries absolutely have to win prize money to do. Respecting oneself has nothing to do with the situation.
On November 16 2013 22:33 esdf wrote: didn't really care much about your team or you up till now, and didn't really mind all the negative attitude towards it. was always nice seeing you guys compete in teamleagues (as Ax-Acer) or individual ones.
but this,
4) If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players. There are plenty lining up to do it. There may be more next year. Heck I think the only thing keeping a lot of them away from WCS America is the fact that it's becoming the strongest tournament outside of Korea. If it were easy to descend on the easiest WCS region, that being Europe, I'm sure they would, but massive RO32 lag disadvantage alongside travel costs and a lack of facilities in Europe for Korean players keep them at bay, for now. Pulling all of Axioms players from WCS America would not create opportunities for American players while the system remains as broken as it is.
So basically, what you're saying is that you know it's wrong, you know what's wrong, and you still decide to "abuse" it because if not you then some other guy will? I agree, pulling all of Ax players from WCSAM won't create opportunities for native players, but such a proponent of growing a local scene like yourself should do whatever is in your power to help it grow. Instead, you're using a bullshit excuse for doing it and at the same time propheticising about importance of local, homegrown talent & scene. :D
C'mon...
He is not "abusing" the system. All TB is doing is trying to put his players in the best possible position to be successful(which is his job as manager of Team Axiom). Blizzard created this WCS system which in his opinion should be fixed, so just because that's what he feels you think his players should be punished for it by not allowing them to play in the region they qualified for? On Blizzard's WCS website they clearly state that they encourage players to choose their own region to play in rather than creating residency requirements.
I'm simply saying that he should not preach about growing a local scene while he's one of the guys preventing that growth. Simple as that.
The North American scene would not grow any faster if Axiom pulled out of WCS AM. Simple as that.
On November 17 2013 00:07 Garnet wrote: I agree with your point that there should be some kind of region lock, but your examples are cringe-worthy. American baseball is NOT the best in the world. Barcelona and Juventus would not stomp everything in Premier League. Barca is only slightly better than the top teams, and Juventus is on par with them.
Especially since SC2 is not a team sport. And in almost every individual sport, all top level tournaments are open to players from the entire world. There's no "Americans only" rule in the US Open. If there was a country that had all the best tennis players, they'd win every major tournament in the world because they can participate in all of them. Same story for golf, or track&field etc. Most of those sports have national championships and/or the olympics on top of that, but I can't think of a popular professional individual sport where the main competitions are region based. People want to see Nadal/Federer/Djokovic in Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open, because they're the best.
On November 16 2013 22:33 esdf wrote: didn't really care much about your team or you up till now, and didn't really mind all the negative attitude towards it. was always nice seeing you guys compete in teamleagues (as Ax-Acer) or individual ones.
but this,
4) If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players. There are plenty lining up to do it. There may be more next year. Heck I think the only thing keeping a lot of them away from WCS America is the fact that it's becoming the strongest tournament outside of Korea. If it were easy to descend on the easiest WCS region, that being Europe, I'm sure they would, but massive RO32 lag disadvantage alongside travel costs and a lack of facilities in Europe for Korean players keep them at bay, for now. Pulling all of Axioms players from WCS America would not create opportunities for American players while the system remains as broken as it is.
So basically, what you're saying is that you know it's wrong, you know what's wrong, and you still decide to "abuse" it because if not you then some other guy will? I agree, pulling all of Ax players from WCSAM won't create opportunities for native players, but such a proponent of growing a local scene like yourself should do whatever is in your power to help it grow. Instead, you're using a bullshit excuse for doing it and at the same time propheticising about importance of local, homegrown talent & scene. :D
C'mon...
He is not "abusing" the system. All TB is doing is trying to put his players in the best possible position to be successful(which is his job as manager of Team Axiom). Blizzard created this WCS system which in his opinion should be fixed, so just because that's what he feels you think his players should be punished for it by not allowing them to play in the region they qualified for? On Blizzard's WCS website they clearly state that they encourage players to choose their own region to play in rather than creating residency requirements.
I'm simply saying that he should not preach about growing a local scene while he's one of the guys preventing that growth. Simple as that.
Glad to see you joined the ranks of "I reject your reality and substitute my own" people that didn't bother to comprehend the OP. There is no "abuse", WCS America is not a region-locked event, ergo it is entirely right and proper for Koreans to go there just as it is for them to go to Dreamhack. There is literally no difference. This is not some loophole being "abused", this is an open tournament. It shouldn't be, but it is. Until that changes, there is not a single reason for Koreans not to go there.
Trying to explain hypocrisy to people that don't have enough understanding to see the differences and nuance because they simply don't know enough is infuriating.
On November 15 2013 15:18 Junho.C wrote: Why couldn't handle the argument within closed doors like normal people? Instead you even used that argument for publicity.
Ok, by now the only conclusion I can come to when reading these threads of yours can be that you enjoy dealing with those idiots. I can't say I don't sympathize because I'm letting myself be goaded into fighting the good old "explaining to idiots that they're idiots even though it's impossible because they're idiots" windmill from time to time, but you seem to love spending entire evenings on it. Good for you there's an infinite supply of morons just waiting to jump on the case every time.
Have fun and keep going (also thanks for all your work)
Just read this. Whatever the haters say, I think you should subscribe to the same school of thought that would serve incontrol well: You seem to be exposed to the vocal minority of uninformed, idiot haters. The vast majority of those that view your work are appreciative of what you bring to the table
I don't know about anyone else but I really enjoyed reading TB stomping the ignorant idiots. Was quite entertaining and enjoyable.
I've never really considered myself a fan of you in particular, still don't particularly, but I must say keep up the good work. Someone needs to stand up and take on the hater blight of our community. I can imagine the effort and time that it takes to articulate the posts you wrote and I, for one, appreciate that you care so much about the quality of our community to take on such a dirty job which most people would shy away from.
On November 16 2013 22:33 esdf wrote: didn't really care much about your team or you up till now, and didn't really mind all the negative attitude towards it. was always nice seeing you guys compete in teamleagues (as Ax-Acer) or individual ones.
but this,
4) If it were not our players "taking away opportunities" it would be other Korean players. Our players knock other Korean players out of Premier league just as much as they do foreigners. The system is at fault. If not us, some other Korean players. There are plenty lining up to do it. There may be more next year. Heck I think the only thing keeping a lot of them away from WCS America is the fact that it's becoming the strongest tournament outside of Korea. If it were easy to descend on the easiest WCS region, that being Europe, I'm sure they would, but massive RO32 lag disadvantage alongside travel costs and a lack of facilities in Europe for Korean players keep them at bay, for now. Pulling all of Axioms players from WCS America would not create opportunities for American players while the system remains as broken as it is.
So basically, what you're saying is that you know it's wrong, you know what's wrong, and you still decide to "abuse" it because if not you then some other guy will? I agree, pulling all of Ax players from WCSAM won't create opportunities for native players, but such a proponent of growing a local scene like yourself should do whatever is in your power to help it grow. Instead, you're using a bullshit excuse for doing it and at the same time propheticising about importance of local, homegrown talent & scene. :D
C'mon...
He is not "abusing" the system. All TB is doing is trying to put his players in the best possible position to be successful(which is his job as manager of Team Axiom). Blizzard created this WCS system which in his opinion should be fixed, so just because that's what he feels you think his players should be punished for it by not allowing them to play in the region they qualified for? On Blizzard's WCS website they clearly state that they encourage players to choose their own region to play in rather than creating residency requirements.
I'm simply saying that he should not preach about growing a local scene while he's one of the guys preventing that growth. Simple as that.
It's not his choice which region Axiom plays in, it's the players, and it's TB's job to allow them the opportunities that he's capable of providing. That is his duty, not sacrificing his own players careers just for some pyrrhic stand.
But I'm sure actual reality isn't as fun for you to be a drama-whore over.
On November 17 2013 00:07 Garnet wrote: I agree with your point that there should be some kind of region lock, but your examples are cringe-worthy. American baseball is NOT the best in the world. Barcelona and Juventus would not stomp everything in Premier League. Barca is only slightly better than the top teams, and Juventus is on par with them.
Especially since SC2 is not a team sport. And in almost every individual sport, all top level tournaments are open to players from the entire world. There's no "Americans only" rule in the US Open. If there was a country that had all the best tennis players, they'd win every major tournament in the world because they can participate in all of them. Same story for golf, or track&field etc. Most of those sports have national championships and/or the olympics on top of that, but I can't think of a popular professional individual sport where the main competitions are region based. People want to see Nadal/Federer/Djokovic in Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open, because they're the best.
Your analogy is flawed... There's a great differance between tennis and star craft and you can see it in almost every post on this site. It's the team flags in everyones signature. There are no teams in tennis. Instead, you root for a country. You may even root for a player you never heard of, if he represents your country - quite like with a newly acquired team member.
So the Davis Cup and Fed Cup would be the equivalant to the GSTL, ATC and such. So if nationality is the team, what is the region? What differentiates whole parts of the tennis scene?
Well, there's the ATP and the WTA.
Do you suggest that Federer and Nadal should be allowed to play in the womans tournaments? Would that step up the game and encourage better matches? Or how about all women have to compete in the ATP? Sure, there are some who would be capable of doing so, but what would be the result? Looking at star craft it would be exactly the situation, we have right now with the WCS.
And what is the reality? There are some people, who also claim, that the ATP is better than the WTA, cause the mens matches have a higher quality and such. But WTA gets better viewer scores cause many people find womens tennis more entertaining.
And there you have your final piece in the analogy. Koreans are better at the game but many people find foreigners more entertaining to watch, even if it is a "lower level of play"
TB mentioned the unability to spot the difference and the enjoyment of more even matches. Well, most people can't see the leap of differance in play between the mens and womens finals in a grand slam or just don't bother, cause they just like intense even matches.
And on top of all that, a look at the discussions about prize pools in ATP and WTA shine a great light on discussions about prize pools in region locked tournaments. There's quality of play and entertainment value. They're hard to balance, but it is achieveable and in the end determined by the consumer.
On November 17 2013 10:46 mishimaBeef wrote: How exactly does "fixing" WCS improve the quality of the matches on display?
It's easy to say things like "quality of matches" because it's actually a completely nebulous, meaningless buzz term. Already mentioned earlier that I firmly believe most viewers can't actually tell the difference and/or really care about the difference between 2 Americans playing and 2 Koreans playing. A healthier scene will in the long-term elevate everybodies play then you can have all the "quality of matches" you could ask for. If you want "quality of matches", you can watch GSL, where you will see the highest level there is.
Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
In BW, the TeamLiquid Star League was a huge event. Koreans weren't allowed to participate in it, and it invigorated the foreign players and everyone wanted to watch, despite them being fans of the Korean pro league; the skill gap between Korean pros and foreigners was HUGE in BW.
If it weren't for "foreigner" only tournaments in BW, there wouldn't be many big names to come out of BW. There wouldn't be fans. Koreans would have won every tournament and even the best of foreigners would have been ridiculed. In SC 2, the gap isn't that big. It's simply big enough to keep the money in Korea and make it hard to devote the time needed to close the gap further.
What makes good games, for the most part, is when players play at an "acceptable"/palatable level, where the players are around the same level, making for close/tense games.
Given that there are Korean tournaments and they have the best players in the world, you can still always watch the best players in the world... As long as there's still tournaments (whether WCS tournaments or not) that satisfy the curiosity of people, where the best foreigners get to play against the Koreans, then everyone wins.
Not all tournaments can be restricted. Not all tournaments can allow everyone. You need moderation and sensibility. At the moment, it's pretty clear which tournaments are needed more of, not less of. And for that, one can only thank totalbiscuit for.
I, personally, have no problem with TB sending his players/allowing them to play in WCS AM. People play by the rules... it's a lot easier to remain quiet about something that is benefiting you than to speak up on it... I haven't seen anyone else speaking up on it, too much, that has benefited from it. Ridiculous that the last person deserving blame seems to often find a way to be the first in line..
Major kudos for daring to hold controversial personal opinions. Any would-be criticizers with even an ounce of common sense would realize that running the team takes a lot of effort and determination. It's obvious the trollish bandwagon loves their hypocrites. The vitriol characterizes the active posting forumgoers. Those that would like to see Axiom still competing and having great games just read the threads and smile and go on.
On November 17 2013 00:07 Garnet wrote: I agree with your point that there should be some kind of region lock, but your examples are cringe-worthy. American baseball is NOT the best in the world. Barcelona and Juventus would not stomp everything in Premier League. Barca is only slightly better than the top teams, and Juventus is on par with them.
Especially since SC2 is not a team sport. And in almost every individual sport, all top level tournaments are open to players from the entire world. There's no "Americans only" rule in the US Open. If there was a country that had all the best tennis players, they'd win every major tournament in the world because they can participate in all of them. Same story for golf, or track&field etc. Most of those sports have national championships and/or the olympics on top of that, but I can't think of a popular professional individual sport where the main competitions are region based. People want to see Nadal/Federer/Djokovic in Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open, because they're the best.
Your analogy is flawed... There's a great differance between tennis and star craft and you can see it in almost every post on this site. It's the team flags in everyones signature. There are no teams in tennis. Instead, you root for a country. You may even root for a player you never heard of, if he represents your country - quite like with a newly acquired team member.
So the Davis Cup and Fed Cup would be the equivalant to the GSTL, ATC and such. So if nationality is the team, what is the region? What differentiates whole parts of the tennis scene?
Well, there's the ATP and the WTA.
Do you suggest that Federer and Nadal should be allowed to play in the womans tournaments? Would that step up the game and encourage better matches? Or how about all women have to compete in the ATP? Sure, there are some who would be capable of doing so, but what would be the result? Looking at star craft it would be exactly the situation, we have right now with the WCS.
And what is the reality? There are some people, who also claim, that the ATP is better than the WTA, cause the mens matches have a higher quality and such. But WTA gets better viewer scores cause many people find womens tennis more entertaining.
And there you have your final piece in the analogy. Koreans are better at the game but many people find foreigners more entertaining to watch, even if it is a "lower level of play"
TB mentioned the unability to spot the difference and the enjoyment of more even matches. Well, most people can't see the leap of differance in play between the mens and womens finals in a grand slam or just don't bother, cause they just like intense even matches.
And on top of all that, a look at the discussions about prize pools in ATP and WTA shine a great light on discussions about prize pools in region locked tournaments. There's quality of play and entertainment value. They're hard to balance, but it is achieveable and in the end determined by the consumer.
You twisted the difference between tennis and Starcraft pros to an incredibly strange place, as though the separation of men and women was the same as region locking. Nationality matters in tennis too, but tennis fans don't favor tilting draws to help players for the sake of ratings.
But tennis certainly has its own problems and maybe Starcraft should go in a different direction.
On November 15 2013 13:08 Junho.C wrote: Impact did not compete in WCS AM S3 because by the time he joined Axiom, WCS AM S3 was already in progress. If your entire team composed of Koreans are competing in WCS AM and taking opportunities away from regional players that you, yourself, are criticizing about. Have the decency to not criticize the format that your team and players are exploiting. Shoutcraft is a very good idea and I'm all for it. But, your two-faced attitude about region lock and developing regions DO NOT help to promote Shoutcraft or your intention of promoting global SC2 as a whole.
I like how you didn't bother to respond to any of the things I said at all. Also since you were the person who posted the misconception this blog posts exists to respond to, to begin with I'd have thought you'd put in a bit more effort to refute some of the stuff I just said.
Impact is competing in WCS America because he's playing in WCS Korea and qualified for Challenger. Also we very specifically talked about that with him before we even signed him and he wants to play in Korea.
There's nothing two-faced about my attitude and the only people saying that are those looking for "gotcha" crap and with too simplistic an understanding of the situation to have good grounds on which to form an opinion.
I added this, so consider this as well: Also, you may now defend your team as not America-based. You have previously said that your team is America based when your team first competed in WCS AM. SC2 community also consider your team as American team, as well.
Also, there was no misconception about the clear fact that you have criticized WCS system for a long time, yet your team and players have taken advantage of the format and competed in WCS AM for more exposure. This is the obvious thing to do in a business stand point, but you should not criticize the system that your team and players are exploiting.
Why should I not criticize the system that our team and players are exploiting?
Give me one good reason. Your arguments seem nothing more than purely faux-academic, in the vein of those that think you win arguments by earning fallacy points. That's not how the real world works.
Also feel free to find a quote where I said my team was American. I certainly don't remember that, but then I have dyspraxia induced memory problems so hey!
I can't easily find a quote from hundreds, if not thousands of messages and comments you've made since then. However, the public awareness of this should suffice as a support for this. If I'm the only one remembering it, the post I've made would not have such an impact.
There's no reason why you shouldn't criticize a system you are exploiting, but it is very hypocritical in others' perspective. It's similar to a religious zealot who preach people, yet he does the things that he preaches against. You lose credibility of your argument.
Their perspective is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical about it and if you can't convince people of that with evidence and reasoning then they're not worthy of your time at all.
I think once people get past college age, the realise that any specific ideas and arguments they had regarding "hypocrisy" are purely academic and nothing more than that. There is no scoring system for arguments, you don't get to win by just pulling out a book of fallacies and declaring victory and that's even if you could prove my attitude is hypocritical, which it isn't.
Do you consider the millions of people's perspective bull shit? Many news articles have criticized president's Obama for taking actions that goes against the statements and promises before he became president. That is just among countless examples throughout history. Yes, those millions of people are past college age and quite educated.
I do support what you are doing to give exposure to the NA players, but your singling out Blizzard and WCS which has helped much to develop the scene while you are taking advantage of it is questionable at best. Especially when all the major tournaments in SC2 eSports have not region locked their tournaments while having the name of the region in their tournament name.
I am flabbergasted but not surprised that you would break out a ridiculous comparison like President Obama.
People criticized his actions because he made promises he didn't keep (and or did the opposite of). I did not create WCS and have little if any power to change it. Pulling my players from WCS America would do precisely dick. Jeopardising my position as a caster by publicly criticising WCS on the other hand not only has some effect but is actually as a risk to me.
Come back to me when you take risks for your beliefs. Then you might have a new appreciation for my position.
It had actually 0 effect, as you were hired by Blizzard to cast Hearthstone at Blizzcon. I only used President Obama as an example as he is the one the people will most recognize. While he criticized the surveillance of citizens and allies, he has done precisely the thing he criticized after he became the president. Similar to how you criticized the non region locked system of WCS, yet your team took advantage of it and used it once WCS started.
Why have you not addressed my point about the other major tournaments doing similar things long before WCS started? You have not criticized them for not region locking as far as I'm aware.
TotalBiscuit pointed out pretty clearly that he has no control over where his players are going to go, and that he knows the system is flawed but that his professional duty must come before his personal belief. Do you even know how to read? It's like IdrA with the extended series rule (at an MLG a long time ago). He talked about how stupid the rule was, and yet said (when it was going to benefit him as he had already won a a Bo3): "Yeah, it's a stupid rule, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to take advantage of it".
In the real world, people have to get by doing things that are less than ideal. Get used to that fact, and come out of your fantasy world where it is professionally and economically viable to do only the things your ideal world contains. Since TotalBiscuit's team is benefiting from the current state of affairs, it's really pathetic logic to show anything but respect for his criticism of those same affairs. That is where your arguments fall to pieces most clearly.
TotalBiscuit is really hard to like. It's not easy to appreciate everything he's done for the scene while he acts up in this blog.
My advice, look at football managers and emulate how they handle the public. Take your AMAs(press conferences), answer the common questions without being defensive and biting the "reporters" head off. Then let your actions speak for you. We can love you for the players you sign and stand behind and the events that you support and invest in.
In regards to this specific debate, you're using your prominence to fight a good fight. But lead as a general, why waste your valuable time fighting against us nobodies in the trenches of Twitter/Reddit? You seem well aware that you are more informed on the matter than the public. You've stated that we are not worth your time to convince. Why then?
TB is not being a hypocrite here. He's not criticizing other teams for sending players to AM. He's criticizing the system that allows it. The difference might seem subtle, but it is significant.
He's saying that the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Until it is fixed, all of the teams (including Axiom) will exploit it for the benefit of their own players. It wouldn't change anything if one team didn't send players to AM. Some other team would send other Koreans to fill the spots. It's up to Blizzard to fix the system.
On November 17 2013 21:58 kaos00 wrote: TotalBiscuit is really hard to like. It's not easy to appreciate everything he's done for the scene while he acts up in this blog.
My advice, look at football managers and emulate how they handle the public. Take your AMAs(press conferences), answer the common questions without being defensive and biting the "reporters" head off. Then let your actions speak for you. We can love you for the players you sign and stand behind and the events that you support and invest in.
In regards to this specific debate, you're using your prominence to fight a good fight. But lead as a general, why waste your valuable time fighting against us nobodies in the trenches of Twitter/Reddit? You seem well aware that you are more informed on the matter than the public. You've stated that we are not worth your time to convince. Why then?
The last thing this scene needs is to emulate football's public relations. Theres no other way you're going to get such an intimate level of community interaction between the scene's personalities, which a lot of people like yourself often take for granted when a personality doesn't fluff and censor himself. If TB wants to bite someone's head off, thats his prerogative. It certainly doesn't prevent other people from biting off his regardless.
On November 17 2013 21:58 kaos00 wrote: TotalBiscuit is really hard to like. It's not easy to appreciate everything he's done for the scene while he acts up in this blog.
Frankly? Why would I cater to such shallow people? Anyone who thinks this way "Well he's done X, Y and Z really good things for the scene but sometimes he's blunt and a bit mean in this blog thread so I don't like him" is just so horribly childish and thin-skinned that they're not even worth the time.
I've dealt with enough of this scenes bullshit. Not to turn this into a pity party or anything but ever since early 2010 when I started doing work in this scene it's been constant flaming. I've paid my fucking dues by this point several times over, if I didn't love this game as much as I do I'd have been long gone by now.
I really don't care if I'm hard to like at this point, I've had enough of it. People can like it or lump it. Actions speak louder than words. I'm not going to pretend that I like the attitude of the vocal minority in this community just because it might be the more PR friendly way of dealing with things. If people with influence had come down harder on the terrible behavior of that vocal minority earlier, we'd have a better and more positive scene and this blog wouldn't even have to exist.
"NO FLUFF!" cries the community, with the caveat "EXCEPT WHEN THE FLUFF SOMEHOW IMPLICATES US IN SOME WRONGDOING AND/OR SOUNDS A BIT MEAN". Make your bloody minds up.
Ok so you quote half of my post and instead of replying to the question asked: "Why waste your valuable time fighting against us nobodies in the trenches of Twitter/Reddit? You seem well aware that you are more informed on the matter than the public. You've stated that we are not worth your time to convince. Why?"
Instead of replying, you go to the TotalBiscuit staple of straw-manning and bullying any hint of detraction on a forum. This is what you are.
While I do agree with the gist of your last invective, it's not 'the community', there are plenty of us who like you, respect you and people who even if they don't like you, don't shit on you.
I guess it's the Internet nearly encapsulated, that or the Dunning-Kruger effect. Those with the most idiotic views are the most vocal and confident in their views.
It's infuriating. They'll post something, sometimes fully inaccurate. Even when challenged and every point addressed they don't respond to what's in your rebuttal. I can see the value in interacting in the way you do because if you don't, factual inaccuracies or conjecture become fact.
Anyway, keep up the good work, might treat myself to some Axiom merch.
Oh god, this thread was worth reading just to see how somebody who has a stupid belief that they haven't thought through properly tries to wiggle out of it. I think everyone's been in that situation once or twice, but this one was in full classic evade mode:
1. The constant misdirection via switching topics to irrelevant things like the TaKe-Genna situation 2. Couldn't explain why a logical fallacy was important or tell when it was appropriate (A+ material here) 3. Only responding to one minor sentence or idea when TB posted a wall of text that -completely- debunks everything else. 4. Incredibly, wildly bad analogies - literally some of the worst I've ever seen on the internet. I could write better analogies in support of any of his arguments, and I don't even agree with his positions!
It's like a guy who is sailing along and shoots a cannon at another ship. The ship is made of steel whereas theirs is made of wood, but they didn't happen to notice that difference until after they shot the cannonball. So the ship is quickly destroyed and the guy hangs to driftwood, still pretending that everything is totally fine despite occasionally having to switch pieces of driftwood since those are getting destroyed too.
I think this blog was really good at the first page because it clearly explained all the faults in the reasoning that was used to detract from TB's decisions as a manager. But I have to agree with others in that there comes a point where its actually not worth replying to people anymore, it doesn't really accomplish anything and just turns the thread into a series of pages filled with invective attacks on people's intelligence and heavy use of sarcasm which is no longer really a learning opportunity but just more of an opportunity to gang up on someone and bring them down as much as possible. Even if they do deserve it the point is it doesn't actually lead anywhere for either party, its overwhelming likely that the person has a deep bias against the other and won't change and it'll just keep getting worse.
Of course TB doesn't have to care what people think of him etc., no one is saying he must but its just food for thought about whether certain activities are really useful. It would actually be better for all parties if they moved on. People would like TB better, maybe support him and his team more, and things would appear more professional and composed. Plus he would likely be less stressed (maybe? )
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
None of this really matters, it's anecdotal evidence vs hard numbers. EU, weakest region, most foreigner vs foreigner matches, highest views, consistently. You can claim all you want that everyone really wants the "highest level of play" but they constantly prove otherwise by not rewarding that level of play with their eyeballs.
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
None of this really matters, it's anecdotal evidence vs hard numbers. EU, weakest region, most foreigner vs foreigner matches, highest views, consistently. You can claim all you want that everyone really wants the "highest level of play" but they constantly prove otherwise by not rewarding that level of play with their eyeballs.
WCS EU airs during prime-time in EU, stop trying to make things more complicated than they are. Stream numbers for all SC2 streams go up during good hours for Europe, it doesn't matter who's playing.
Also WCS AM kept up in viewer numbers with WCS KR even though both are mostly Koreans and the community considers Tastosis better casters. Time zones are everything.
you're doing the right thing by your players and your team, thats what you are supposed to do. but you are also a team manager now, copping flak is an unfortunate part of your job, i love that you had the passion to write all this out to give clarity and shut the haters up. but you will need to learn to just accept that you're going to be hated by a lot of people, but hopefully you will find solace in the fact that you are loved by so many more people. those people just dont go blowing their tops on forums because theyre not stupid angry retards like the haters are. if you continue to respond like this you're going to get very exhausted very quickly, and it will affect the good work you do for your team.
my advice is to keep that chin held high, and keep on keeping on, try to read less of the bullshit, and address only the bullshit that youre worried may actually have an impact if you don't clear it up.
if you are really passed college age and educated why cant you see the point?
Let me help you realize it in a below college level of explaining.
You are a terran player, you went to play for TvT. Marines killed you. Will you not make marines ever?
This is another example (hightschool drop out level) Everybody hates tax, but still people pay taxes. When you get your pay, you complain about tax but still you pay your tax (I hope you do)
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
None of this really matters, it's anecdotal evidence vs hard numbers. EU, weakest region, most foreigner vs foreigner matches, highest views, consistently. You can claim all you want that everyone really wants the "highest level of play" but they constantly prove otherwise by not rewarding that level of play with their eyeballs.
Only time will tell. Fact is as flawed as it was, WCS 2013 > > > > > > > WCS 2012 and only biased people will disagree with that. Hard region locking is BAD for the scene, and will only help to segregate the regions MORE.
We have to think like qxc has said in his interview. In order to grow, you don't have to play less koreans. You just have to have MORE chances to play against players better than you. That's what drives improvement. Foreigners sustain view due to novelty, and due to the "foreigner vs. korean" storylines, which are honestly some of the BEST in sc2. Nobody will watch avg NA vs. avg NA month in and month out, there is nothing impressive to be seen, and the novelty will quickly wear off. That's what you and most people don't understand.
At least blizzard agrees with me and has stated that they will not do a hard region lock, and only "make it easier for players from the scene to make it, while still needing the high level skill to participate instead of being gifted spots" (paraphrasing). We should be encouraging and promoting raising the level of skill outside of korea, not lowering it by banning other players from participating. I'm all for grassroots leagues that are region locked, I really am (love shoutcraft NA for example)... but please for the love of god DO NOT create a unified system to find "the best players in the world" and then prevent the actual best players in the world from participating in 2/3s of the damn thing and pretend that the two other leagues actually mean jack sh*t in terms of that goal.
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
None of this really matters, it's anecdotal evidence vs hard numbers. EU, weakest region, most foreigner vs foreigner matches, highest views, consistently. You can claim all you want that everyone really wants the "highest level of play" but they constantly prove otherwise by not rewarding that level of play with their eyeballs.
Only time will tell. Fact is as flawed as it was, WCS 2013 > > > > > > > WCS 2012 and only biased people will disagree with that. Hard region locking is BAD for the scene, and will only help to segregate the regions MORE. .
That is not a fact, that is entirely your opinion. I'm also pretty sure that those who watched and went to the WCS Europe Finals in 2012 will strongly disagree with your assertion.
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
None of this really matters, it's anecdotal evidence vs hard numbers. EU, weakest region, most foreigner vs foreigner matches, highest views, consistently. You can claim all you want that everyone really wants the "highest level of play" but they constantly prove otherwise by not rewarding that level of play with their eyeballs.
Only time will tell. Fact is as flawed as it was, WCS 2013 > > > > > > > WCS 2012 and only biased people will disagree with that. Hard region locking is BAD for the scene, and will only help to segregate the regions MORE. .
That is not a fact, that is entirely your opinion. I'm also pretty sure that those who watched and went to the WCS Europe Finals in 2012 will strongly disagree with your assertion.
I think even the head of blizzard eSports admitted during blizzcon that WCS 2012 was awful in terms of accomplishing what it set out to do, which was find the best players in the world. I really didn't think there was an argument against that... I'm not saying it wasn't entertaining, but it really failed at doing what it's supposed to do.
Again, not saying that region locked tournaments are bad, I like them and they 100% have their place in esports. There just isn't a place for hard region lock in the "let's find the best players in the world" WCS tournament. I don't think anyone that knows anything could say with a straight face that Blizzcon 2012 gathered all the best players in the world for the best matchups between the top players. Despite all its flaws, most will agree Blizzcon 2013 did just that.
EDIT: As I've said before in different threads, if we're willing to look at much higher prize pools and number of blizzcon seeds going to the harder regions, I think the region lock problem would fix itself
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
None of this really matters, it's anecdotal evidence vs hard numbers. EU, weakest region, most foreigner vs foreigner matches, highest views, consistently. You can claim all you want that everyone really wants the "highest level of play" but they constantly prove otherwise by not rewarding that level of play with their eyeballs.
Only time will tell. Fact is as flawed as it was, WCS 2013 > > > > > > > WCS 2012 and only biased people will disagree with that. Hard region locking is BAD for the scene, and will only help to segregate the regions MORE. .
That is not a fact, that is entirely your opinion. I'm also pretty sure that those who watched and went to the WCS Europe Finals in 2012 will strongly disagree with your assertion.
I think even the head of blizzard eSports admitted during blizzcon that WCS 2012 was awful in terms of accomplishing what it set out to do, which was find the best players in the world. I really didn't think there was an argument against that... I'm not saying it wasn't entertaining, but it really failed at doing what it's supposed to do.
Again, not saying that region locked tournaments are bad, I like them and they 100% have their place in esports. There just isn't a place for hard region lock in the "let's find the best players in the world" WCS tournament. I don't think anyone that knows anything could say with a straight face that Blizzcon 2012 gathered all the best players in the world for the best matchups between the top players. Despite all its flaws, most will agree Blizzcon 2013 did just that.
EDIT: As I've said before in different threads, if we're willing to look at much higher prize pools and number of blizzcon seeds going to the harder regions, I think the region lock problem would fix itself
Honestly if they wanted to find the best players in the world they would give far more priority to Korean competition than they currently do. WCS 2012 was the Starcraft olympics with a mix of successful and not so successful regional competitions. WCS 2013 was this weird hybrid where they basically said "well we want the best players in the world for the finals but we're still gonna do this regional thing anyway but we're gonna let Koreans play in all 3 for some reason but it's still NA and Europe guys honest and...". That's the problem. I don't think WCS 2013 really knew what it actually wanted to be and that had a lot to do with rushing things out the door. Please remember that Blizzard provided no travel support to Koreans who played in WCS Europe and WCS America. If they were truly looking for the best they wouldn't have made it so damn expensive for people to get there.
I don't think WCS 2012 failed, it just didn't generate the level of interest that they were hoping for. I think if anything WCS Europe Finals was a stellar example of what can be done with regional-competition.
TB you're a trooper and a valuable voice. Thanks once more for speaking out. You're not just indulging your own sensibilities here, these are things that need to be communicated and you do a very good job of it
first: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=435535¤tpage=11#207 i totally agree.. most of us thought that they would lock.. but blizzard will be "activ" quite a bit more before they blizzes of old' again (read: make sounder decisions regarding the sc2 "scene".. (they will probably when they finish settling their "monopoly" in every way, ravaging whatever there is in KR in the meantime) .. they are only doing what they feel is required .. grmblshitgrmbl)
tb, about the nutjobs .. just remember monty: :D they will never stop.. i get that you want to be pro active (and tl is not far from reddit in that respect.. as far as great need for informed vocal responses goes) .. but do consider stopping quicker .. http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=435535¤tpage=11#203 .. after 2/3 responses (in this blog for instance) apply to tl what u applied to yt .. then blush at how many people come to do it for you (rebuke/confront/correct wrong statements from nutjobs)
just for the info, i am opposed to region locking (as i think sc should never be less than what it is.. and koreans should be able to go live abroad because they smashed and earned money and that would be how the "foreigners" grow and become stronger.. but that's me) .. this takes nothing away from how much i (and many others) admire you for being so frontal about your point of view .. numbers don't lie and my pov on the matter doesn't "serve the scene" business wise, yours does .. because you act upon said opinions (actions do speak louder than words...) plus http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=435535¤tpage=13#246 ..we do.. (smile and go on to other things) we only see the good you are trying to do.. and are sad about the "purity" of competition lost in locking as a viable strategy to get more "action" for sc.. we support events being crafted even though we might disagree on the issue, because we are all in this together AND we know it ... (i didn't discuss the "two face" issue.. because there is no issue.. 1/ you speak your mind about what you think can help the scene and try to implement it on your scale (thank you greatly for that) 2/ while things are as they are, you do with what is .. nothing wrong with that.. and even if you did/do use it as marketing ploy .. it is good pr for starcraft.. (not to mention a requirement in your job description) the issue is being recognized discussed .. not swept under the carpet and (again) that is good for the scene.. so it s a win win in my book)
ty for doing, and as my mum always says 'never let turkeys get you down'
and do make an awesome shoutcraft (again ty)for us all (including you)
ps: i am a bit sad that tl reps or team members don't voice their pov more, one way or another
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
None of this really matters, it's anecdotal evidence vs hard numbers. EU, weakest region, most foreigner vs foreigner matches, highest views, consistently. You can claim all you want that everyone really wants the "highest level of play" but they constantly prove otherwise by not rewarding that level of play with their eyeballs.
Only time will tell. Fact is as flawed as it was, WCS 2013 > > > > > > > WCS 2012 and only biased people will disagree with that. Hard region locking is BAD for the scene, and will only help to segregate the regions MORE. .
That is not a fact, that is entirely your opinion. I'm also pretty sure that those who watched and went to the WCS Europe Finals in 2012 will strongly disagree with your assertion.
I think even the head of blizzard eSports admitted during blizzcon that WCS 2012 was awful in terms of accomplishing what it set out to do, which was find the best players in the world. I really didn't think there was an argument against that... I'm not saying it wasn't entertaining, but it really failed at doing what it's supposed to do.
Again, not saying that region locked tournaments are bad, I like them and they 100% have their place in esports. There just isn't a place for hard region lock in the "let's find the best players in the world" WCS tournament. I don't think anyone that knows anything could say with a straight face that Blizzcon 2012 gathered all the best players in the world for the best matchups between the top players. Despite all its flaws, most will agree Blizzcon 2013 did just that.
EDIT: As I've said before in different threads, if we're willing to look at much higher prize pools and number of blizzcon seeds going to the harder regions, I think the region lock problem would fix itself
Honestly if they wanted to find the best players in the world they would give far more priority to Korean competition than they currently do. WCS 2012 was the Starcraft olympics with a mix of successful and not so successful regional competitions. WCS 2013 was this weird hybrid where they basically said "well we want the best players in the world for the finals but we're still gonna do this regional thing anyway but we're gonna let Koreans play in all 3 for some reason but it's still NA and Europe guys honest and...". That's the problem. I don't think WCS 2013 really knew what it actually wanted to be and that had a lot to do with rushing things out the door. Please remember that Blizzard provided no travel support to Koreans who played in WCS Europe and WCS America. If they were truly looking for the best they wouldn't have made it so damn expensive for people to get there.
I don't think WCS 2012 failed, it just didn't generate the level of interest that they were hoping for. I think if anything WCS Europe Finals was a stellar example of what can be done with regional-competition.
Hm, OK. But why does this have to be a WCS thing? If it is so self-evident that regional competition would work out so well, why doesn't someone in Europe make their own league featuring only European players?
The base model of WCS - provide regular competition during the week while on weekends independent tournaments take place - is pretty reasonable, I believe. Amount of content, regional focus, distribution of prize money, etc. have to be fine-tuned, of course, but it must be so hard in a business as volatile as SC2. I´m not surprised Blizzard acts as indecisively as they do in the role they´re taking within competitive SC2.
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
Without TB and Axiom the scene as a whole would just be that much less exciting, despite what trolls will have you believe TB the majority of the community supports what you do and would be sad to see you silenced by a few idiotic trolls who just want to get their e fame up by riding your.....coat tails. Keep up the good work and keep putting scrubs in their place, Thank you.
Considering the level of TotalBiscuit's total wealth and his connections within the eSports industry i'd rate his over all contribution on a score out of 100 as about 90/100.
He is a great contributor to the eSports scene within the scope of his wealth.
This blog, however, is a petty, bickering item taking his score down to 88/100.
my take on it is this:
TB, do not even try to win a debate with these guys who just want to find stuff wrong with you and your undertakings in eSports. Most of the guys who holler and scream about what a horrible guy you are.. these guys are just unhappy iwth their own lives and their moaning and complaining has nothing to do with you.
Keeping on doing what you do man.. and stop wasting your valuable time with blogs like this.
On November 17 2013 12:49 TotalBiscuit wrote: Viewers don't want to watch the highest possible level, that's not their priority, just looking at the WCS numbers proves that.
Speak for yourself. Everyone I know, including casuals and ppl I dragged to WCS Toronto that didn't really like starcraft could 100% notice the difference between a top NA game (low level) and a game between top koreans. Just the same way anyone can notice the difference between a high school basketball game and the NBA finals. It's the silliest pro-region lock argument one can make.
You can have region lock OR equal skill. You can't have both. Foreigners just aren't good enough to sustain that.
I'm a hardcore fan and I watch every WCS region right now... if we get region lock, I will only watch korean, guaranteed. My friend is a casual fan, and will only watch a few matches anyway. He won't waste time on low level play, he will only (and I will only link him to) top highlight WCS Kr matches.
None of this really matters, it's anecdotal evidence vs hard numbers. EU, weakest region, most foreigner vs foreigner matches, highest views, consistently. You can claim all you want that everyone really wants the "highest level of play" but they constantly prove otherwise by not rewarding that level of play with their eyeballs.
Only time will tell. Fact is as flawed as it was, WCS 2013 > > > > > > > WCS 2012 and only biased people will disagree with that. Hard region locking is BAD for the scene, and will only help to segregate the regions MORE. .
That is not a fact, that is entirely your opinion. I'm also pretty sure that those who watched and went to the WCS Europe Finals in 2012 will strongly disagree with your assertion.
I think even the head of blizzard eSports admitted during blizzcon that WCS 2012 was awful in terms of accomplishing what it set out to do, which was find the best players in the world. I really didn't think there was an argument against that... I'm not saying it wasn't entertaining, but it really failed at doing what it's supposed to do.
Again, not saying that region locked tournaments are bad, I like them and they 100% have their place in esports. There just isn't a place for hard region lock in the "let's find the best players in the world" WCS tournament. I don't think anyone that knows anything could say with a straight face that Blizzcon 2012 gathered all the best players in the world for the best matchups between the top players. Despite all its flaws, most will agree Blizzcon 2013 did just that.
EDIT: As I've said before in different threads, if we're willing to look at much higher prize pools and number of blizzcon seeds going to the harder regions, I think the region lock problem would fix itself
Honestly if they wanted to find the best players in the world they would give far more priority to Korean competition than they currently do. WCS 2012 was the Starcraft olympics with a mix of successful and not so successful regional competitions. WCS 2013 was this weird hybrid where they basically said "well we want the best players in the world for the finals but we're still gonna do this regional thing anyway but we're gonna let Koreans play in all 3 for some reason but it's still NA and Europe guys honest and...". That's the problem. I don't think WCS 2013 really knew what it actually wanted to be and that had a lot to do with rushing things out the door. Please remember that Blizzard provided no travel support to Koreans who played in WCS Europe and WCS America. If they were truly looking for the best they wouldn't have made it so damn expensive for people to get there.
I don't think WCS 2012 failed, it just didn't generate the level of interest that they were hoping for. I think if anything WCS Europe Finals was a stellar example of what can be done with regional-competition.
Hm, OK. But why does this have to be a WCS thing? If it is so self-evident that regional competition would work out so well, why doesn't someone in Europe make their own league featuring only European players?
Aside from the fact that there would be a (conceivably) huge knee-jerk reaction to there not being Koreans allowed?
Expense, primarily. Hell someone toss me $250,000 and I'd take a shot at running an NA only tournament if for no other reason than as a proof of concept. Unfortunately I don't have that kind of cash, and I'm not sure that anyone that does wants to take the risk on the relatively volatile eSports scene as it is.
Remember the majority of these things are put on at a financial loss. It would take someone extremely well off to be able to front this kind of money without putting themselves unbelievably far in the hole. Blizzard is invested in the scene as it is, they've taken the responsibility for growing scenes and putting on events on their shoulders. To expect a smaller company or individual to put forth this kind of effort is tough. You need a considerable amount of money to run an event well, and for it to be successful there are some pretty important things you need that cost a ton of money. Needs to be played live, with great casters who are known, and a high production value. Throwing a bunch of fan favorites in an online tournament simply wont generate nearly enough viewers to begin to earn ad revenue enough to support it, regardless of the quality of play.
On November 15 2013 15:02 sunneh wrote: Basically, if i can get this right, Junho_C is saying that TB is being a hypocrite by criticising the system by having his own players join WCS America (which potentially stifles the growth of 'American' players, which is what TB wants to do).
TB is saying don't hate the player, hate the way the whole thing is set out? He also brings up the point that if his players did not do WCS America, some other Koreans would in their place.
I'm a reddit lurker (your previous flair was FXO when it was the bull), but i'm more inclined to agree with TB on this one.
You're mad that he's using this criticism as publicity for his own tournament correct? But couldn't one argue that criticising the tournament draws more attention to Shoutcraft America which in turn, supports local regional gaming?
EDIT: i'm not trying to come across as condescending, I just want to clear it up a little so i know where to aim my pitchfork >:
I'm not mad. I just think it's wrong to criticize a system he's taking advantage of so much for his personal gain.
Apparently "my personal gain" is $10k in the hole every month.
My concern is the gain of my players. My personal gain is not a factor. SC2 as a whole is a gigantic loss for me and it has been since Day 1, I'd be better off from a business standpoint abandoning it entirely. I won't though, primarily because I love this game too much to do that but also because I'm a stubborn fucker and won't be shoved out by anyone.
Someone said that before you criticise someone you should walk a mile in their shoes, but I'm pretty convinced that all some people such as yourself want to do is steal my shoes.
TotalBiscuit, I've followed you for a few years now and I'm a big fan, but while going through this shit storm of a thread this post grabbed my attention.
You're losing 10k a month? For a video game? For Stacraft 2?
Dude, it's not worth it. It really is not. If you want to sink 10k into a hopeless cause every month, at least sink it into Africa.
On November 20 2013 22:19 Wombat_NI wrote: It's not about winning any argument with these people, it's quashing rumours at source and is quite valuable in that sense imo.
Otherwise you have unsubstantiated gossip becoming accepted as fact, with potential repercussions down the line, at least potentially.
I am with Wombat on this one. The more people know about the reality of the situation and how much money people are or are not making, the better off we are. Esports and SC2 has only gotten better because people like TB and Kim P. have started talking with the community more and more.
On November 15 2013 15:02 sunneh wrote: Basically, if i can get this right, Junho_C is saying that TB is being a hypocrite by criticising the system by having his own players join WCS America (which potentially stifles the growth of 'American' players, which is what TB wants to do).
TB is saying don't hate the player, hate the way the whole thing is set out? He also brings up the point that if his players did not do WCS America, some other Koreans would in their place.
I'm a reddit lurker (your previous flair was FXO when it was the bull), but i'm more inclined to agree with TB on this one.
You're mad that he's using this criticism as publicity for his own tournament correct? But couldn't one argue that criticising the tournament draws more attention to Shoutcraft America which in turn, supports local regional gaming?
EDIT: i'm not trying to come across as condescending, I just want to clear it up a little so i know where to aim my pitchfork >:
I'm not mad. I just think it's wrong to criticize a system he's taking advantage of so much for his personal gain.
Apparently "my personal gain" is $10k in the hole every month.
My concern is the gain of my players. My personal gain is not a factor. SC2 as a whole is a gigantic loss for me and it has been since Day 1, I'd be better off from a business standpoint abandoning it entirely. I won't though, primarily because I love this game too much to do that but also because I'm a stubborn fucker and won't be shoved out by anyone.
Someone said that before you criticise someone you should walk a mile in their shoes, but I'm pretty convinced that all some people such as yourself want to do is steal my shoes.
TotalBiscuit, I've followed you for a few years now and I'm a big fan, but while going through this shit storm of a thread this post grabbed my attention.
You're losing 10k a month? For a video game? For Stacraft 2?
Dude, it's not worth it. It really is not. If you want to sink 10k into a hopeless cause every month, at least sink it into Africa.
Putting that money into Africa will (sadly) solve nothing. There is enough proofs of that. I´m sure you also have hobbies. Maybe watching movies. Why don´t you send this money for tickets to Africa? Because you have the right to spend it the way you want. (Ofc noone prevents you from sending money to Africa nonetheless.) Ergo: Well it is his money. He can do with it whatever he wants.