There are great North American Starcraft 2 players, contrary to popular belief. They may not be the best in the world, but given an opportunity to shine, they can show some fantastic play. It is my belief that in order for the North American SC2 scene to grow, we have to make sure there is enough incentive for players with potential to practice. Drawing inspiration from Shoutcraft NA, I launched the show Breaking Out, where I spent a week highlighting 8 up and coming North American players that I felt had the potential to "break out" into the big leagues someday.
The show emphasized my belief that part of the reason the proper incentives don't exist for North America, is because unless you're already an established, top level North American pro, it's incredibly difficult to put yourself out there. For this reason, I structured the show to display each player's personality and history in an interview and fun activity, their playstyle in every one of their three matchups, and their actual perspective on the game.
Now, 8 weeks later, we have 8 fantastic players and a ton of information about them. With these 8 players, we're hosting an 8 player invitational with $1,000 up for grabs! The tournament will take place over the course of 3 days during the "off season" of WCS, and the semi-finals and finals will finish up right before the Redbull LAN! Don't miss this tournament if you have any interest in building the North American Starcraft 2 scene!
The groups are
The schedule is as follows: Wednesday, November 20th - Group stage 1, casted by Feardragon and Wyrd on Feardragon's Stream Thursday, November 21st - Group stage 2, casted by Feardragon and Temp0 on Feardragon's Stream Friday, November 22nd - Semi-finals and Finals casted by Feardragon and Axeltoss on Feardragon's Stream
Donate To Increase the Prizepool Currently $2,153.32 as of 9:00pm PST, Nov 21st
This tournament will be hosted and casted by myself, feardragon. Wyrd and Temp0 will commentate alongside me on Wednesday November 20th and Thursday November 21st during the group stage.
The final day, Friday November 22nd, will then commentated by myself, feardragon, and Axeltoss!
1) One group stage resembling WCS groups. 4 Players in each group, top 2 players advance. Games will be played in a Bo3 on maps resembling the current ladder pool of this new season. 2) Players that advance will move to a round of 4 semi-finals match that will be played as a Bo5. This bracket is single elimination. 3) The winners of the semi-finals will face off in the finals in a Bo7 match for 1st place!
The prize pool distribution will be as follows: 1st place: $500 (50%) 2nd place: $200 (20%) 3rd/4th place: $100 (10%) 5th-8th place: $50 (5%)
Also be sure to check out our sponsor, the Let's Kung Fu Podcast for SC2 and Hearthstone!
Thanks to Noobity for the art assets related to player intros! I'm currently figuring out who took each of the photos shown so be on the lookout for the awesome photographers names to be edited in down here soon! Hope you all decide to tune in!
I cannot emphasize enough how important people like you are to this scene. These kinds of tournaments are fantastic, and I really wish this happened more often. I'll try my best to tune in, and thanks for your hard work.
"The final day, Friday November 22nd, will then be produced by MLG and commentated by myself, feardragon, and Axeltoss!"
Did you mean yourself, Axslav, and Axeltoss?
Good luck to all players, and thanks for your hard work to promote the NA scene. It would be cool if there were some spots into this event from an open qualifier because I think there's some really great / underrated NA players who aren't represented by the invites, but that's my only small complaint
Will be fun to watch either way. My money is on SaroVati but it's gonna be a close tournament for sure
And its an invitational because these are the people that took part in feardragon's show about NA players. He's giving these guys exposure, support it!
jowj is going to spank these children & send them to bed w/o dessert & im going to fucking love it its going to be a real uncomfortable experience for everyone except for me & jowj
I´m thankful for every tournament there is, so pls take the following as constructive critizism, because I really appreciate this, regardless of the points I´ll make.
The NA scene needs grass roots events like this to evolve into a more or less stable state again, but doing invitationals is another side of the problem, the NA scene currently has: People in NA get big through there pesonality, not through actually playing the game better (For example, if you look at the streaming list right now, you´ll see, that a less skilled, but more whiny american version of Strelok/GoOdy is leading the stream numbers). You invite people, that you think, might have a break through sooner or later, why do you not give those guys a chance to have their first small breakthrough right now, by making it into your event instead of getting invited?
I see the problems, coming along with this: If Scarlett signs up, she willl probably get through without much trouble and destroy everyone. Same goes for HuK. But one can relativly simply avoid that by just doing, what IPL did with their amateur qualifiers and just let people with less than a certain amout of prize earnongs compete. Let´s say, you set this border at 5k: With that you eliminate VIBE, qxc, Suppy, Xenocider, Goswser, Illusion, puck, Idra, Sheth, Kane, TT1, HuK and Scarlett from the competition, so basically all the established pros, who could farm your grass root event. But on the other side, you still give every upcoming player a chance to shine and even old veterans of the early days, like iNcontroL or Nony could show, that they still have the power to compete with the next generation. I mean, how cool would it be, if Machine suddenly qualifies, shows amazing play and wins the whole thing (I mean, everyone likes Machine, right?). I know, iNc has the chance to do that in Krefeld, but lets be honest, Polt will do things to him, more horrible, that even Vincent Longborn could ever imagine. And being in a scene with less oppurtunities, than Kor or EU, would´nt it be fair for those veterans to get a chance to prove themselves as well, even though they aren´t the fresh new blood?
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with this event.
I gotta agree with xoronius here having an open tourney with limiyation might be better for future event, but yeah that is a great initiative, will be watching!
On November 13 2013 09:03 Xoronius wrote: I´m thankful for every tournament there is, so pls take the following as constructive critizism, because I really appreciate this, regardless of the points I´ll make.
The NA scene needs grass roots events like this to evolve into a more or less stable state again, but doing invitationals is another side of the problem, the NA scene currently has: People in NA get big through there pesonality, not through actually playing the game better (For example, if you look at the streaming list right now, you´ll see, that a less skilled, but more whiny american version of Strelok/GoOdy is leading the stream numbers). You invite people, that you think, might have a break through sooner or later, why do you not give those guys a chance to have their first small breakthrough right now, by making it into your event instead of getting invited?
I see the problems, coming along with this: If Scarlett signs up, she willl probably get through without much trouble and destroy everyone. Same goes for HuK. But one can relativly simply avoid that by just doing, what IPL did with their amateur qualifiers and just let people with less than a certain amout of prize earnongs compete. Let´s say, you set this border at 5k: With that you eliminate VIBE, qxc, Suppy, Xenocider, Goswser, Illusion, puck, Idra, Sheth, Kane, TT1, HuK and Scarlett from the competition, so basically all the established pros, who could farm your grass root event. But on the other side, you still give every upcoming player a chance to shine and even old veterans of the early days, like iNcontroL or Nony could show, that they still have the power to compete with the next generation. I mean, how cool would it be, if Machine suddenly qualifies, shows amazing play and wins the whole thing (I mean, everyone likes Machine, right?). I know, iNc has the chance to do that in Krefeld, but lets be honest, Polt will do things to him, more horrible, that even Vincent Longborn could ever imagine. And being in a scene with less oppurtunities, than Kor or EU, would´nt it be fair for those veterans to get a chance to prove themselves as well, even though they aren´t the fresh new blood?
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with this event.
I'm confused, you're either missing the point of what this is for, or you've been very vague about the "issue" you have with this tournament.
So in short you're saying there shouldn't be invitational events for new people to play against other new rising players? The point is to expose the community to new players, it's not to show them that these guys are "AMAZING OMG HE JUST BEAT JAEDONG" - it's to actually get their name out there so people know who they are, their playstyles and to give a face to a name, so that when someone does take a few games off Bomber, or Scarlett, or Naniwa at the next big open/LAN tournament - we don't have the same bullshit expression from the community of "well who the hell is this guy".
Of course the true test of newer "rising" players is when they go to a Dreamhack Open, an IEM qualifier, or a Challenger League qualifier and then take a spot, take a game, take a series off a known player - but to say that there shouldn't be "exposure" tournaments like this is incredibly short-sighted in my opinion.
In many traditional sports, top players get scouted by people who head out into community grass-root events (say for example, the "local football game") to see young, fresh new talent. In eSports we don't really have anything similar to that, besides the possible situations like former Root player "Succeed" who was seen on ladder by Catz and was slowly brought into that team. We occasionally have players that appear at big events and stun the crowd, such as Scarlett at IPL, Trimaster at early MLG's and whatnot who are then recruited into big teams. But rarely do we ever get to simply give some exposure to newer players who are rising up and can compete on a high level. Partly this is just the nature of how the SC scene works at the moment, partly it's because many players simply don't know how to market themselves (with exceptions of people like Grubby, PiG and WhiteRa I guess) - and because sometimes they just don't get a chance.
A long time ago when I started casting, a local player here in Australia Rossi said to me "hey it'd be cool if you could put my twitter and stream on the cast somewhere so people know where to find me" and we had a long discussion about it, which delved into the main point of "it's hard to get exposure for new players" and so I started doing it whenever I could in my casts. This is taking it another step forwards - hosting a simple tournament that showcases some new talent up against other new talent, so that people can say "Hey, that's Bones I've heard of him before, he's that Canadian Protoss who has 50 minute PvP games" or something like that. It gives identification and starts the basis of a story for players.
I don't disagree with your point about players actually showcasing true skill needing to be in real tournament situations - but in my opinion to think this isn't a good idea is folly, I believe we should have more of this kind of thing, instead of simply catering to the top level professional players. It's an issue overall with the SC2 scene, and it's an issue the community needs to deal with too - it's not just a problem that organisers can fix, we as the people appreciating this game need to be more respectful of new rising players too.
On November 13 2013 08:54 RemarK wrote: "The final day, Friday November 22nd, will then be produced by MLG and commentated by myself, feardragon, and Axeltoss!"
Did you mean yourself, Axslav, and Axeltoss?
Good luck to all players, and thanks for your hard work to promote the NA scene. It would be cool if there were some spots into this event from an open qualifier because I think there's some really great / underrated NA players who aren't represented by the invites, but that's my only small complaint
Will be fun to watch either way. My money is on SaroVati but it's gonna be a close tournament for sure
Axslav may or may not be joining in on the fun! Still sorting out some details. =]
And as for the invitational vs open qualifier thing, I agree. I wanted to open up the series/season with invited players because(to be totally frank) I am pretty unknown and wanted to make sure I had some good players interested since a qualifier will only result in as many good players as actually know to sign up! I, again, do agree though and am looking into ways to better this for Season 2! =D
Also I am still working right now so I can't answer all the questions/comments in the thread at the moment but know that I am reading every comment in this thread! I'll try to respond to the rest when I get back and have some time.
Feardragon. Anyone can talk the talk, but you walk the walk man. Keep up all the hard work you've been doing for the community. Although most of us think it but don't say it....we all really appreciate the work you do to boost the NA scene.
To everyone talking about the invitational vs open thing, you've got to understand this is a direct tie-in to Feardragon's show, Breaking Out. This invitational is a tournament showcase of the players that he's had on so far. There's a specific purpose to the event that pulls everything together. There are huge benefits to having an open tournament, but also extreme difficulties as well (how do you run it? how many people? what format tournament? who can join? etc).
Feardragon's got a very specific theme going here, whether he intended it or not. It's a very interesting take and something that I personally think is a great idea. He's giving each player the same amount of time and giving us an in depth look at each one.
There's really no reason to compare the tournament style that you'd rather see and what he's doing because they don't have the same goals, they're not doing the same thing. I'm sure he agrees with the majority of your points because they all make sense, but this ties things together really well in my opinion.
Ok first of all, thank you so much to everyone for the wonderful kind words and support for this! It's really comforting to hear that people like this thing you've been working on for the past ~3 months! Anyways, let me respond to some of the other posts addressing concerns.
UUUUUUUUUUUUUGH I screwed up the zerg-creep opacity. UUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.
So much work to do still, such stressful, so art. wow.
Looking forward to seeing this. First real project I've been involved in, it'll be exciting to see what you do with what I could do, Feardragon
Woohoo!
This is the guy who did all of the artwork guys for the player intro's and will be making all of the overlays for the actual broadcast itself! Be sure to check him out! He's been supppper awesome!
I´m thankful for every tournament there is, so pls take the following as constructive critizism, because I really appreciate this, regardless of the points I´ll make.
The NA scene needs grass roots events like this to evolve into a more or less stable state again, but doing invitationals is another side of the problem, the NA scene currently has: People in NA get big through there pesonality, not through actually playing the game better (For example, if you look at the streaming list right now, you´ll see, that a less skilled, but more whiny american version of Strelok/GoOdy is leading the stream numbers). You invite people, that you think, might have a break through sooner or later, why do you not give those guys a chance to have their first small breakthrough right now, by making it into your event instead of getting invited?
I see the problems, coming along with this: If Scarlett signs up, she willl probably get through without much trouble and destroy everyone. Same goes for HuK. But one can relativly simply avoid that by just doing, what IPL did with their amateur qualifiers and just let people with less than a certain amout of prize earnongs compete. Let´s say, you set this border at 5k: With that you eliminate VIBE, qxc, Suppy, Xenocider, Goswser, Illusion, puck, Idra, Sheth, Kane, TT1, HuK and Scarlett from the competition, so basically all the established pros, who could farm your grass root event. But on the other side, you still give every upcoming player a chance to shine and even old veterans of the early days, like iNcontroL or Nony could show, that they still have the power to compete with the next generation. I mean, how cool would it be, if Machine suddenly qualifies, shows amazing play and wins the whole thing (I mean, everyone likes Machine, right?). I know, iNc has the chance to do that in Krefeld, but lets be honest, Polt will do things to him, more horrible, that even Vincent Longborn could ever imagine. And being in a scene with less oppurtunities, than Kor or EU, would´nt it be fair for those veterans to get a chance to prove themselves as well, even though they aren´t the fresh new blood?
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with this event.
First of all, thanks for the feedback! I'm all about feedback! <3 Anyways, I actually agree a lot of what you're saying. I especially love the idea of eliminating potential high tier signups with something like a a prize earning barrier. A lot of the reason I picked to do an invitational is because this is a follow up invitational to the series I'm doing called Breaking Out. The 8 players have all had a full week of being highlighted on the show, so have an open qualifier specifically for the tournament would really mess with that idea, unless I make the open qualifier to determine who actually comes on. In which case, it's certainly something to consider. My counterpoint for that is more along the lines of, I was(and still am) a "nobody." The chance that I would even be able to get enough visibility to the players who would deserve a spot ABOUT the open qualifier would actually be pretty low. Not to mention, actually adminning the qualifier(remember, besides my art guy, this has been a one man operation), finding a time to do this while working full time, etc. this became a lot of reasons for me not to go this root for now. I definitely see your point and agree with a lot of the advantages, but there are a lot of hidden disadvantages just given my position in the community as an "unknown."
On November 13 2013 09:03 Xoronius wrote: I´m thankful for every tournament there is, so pls take the following as constructive critizism, because I really appreciate this, regardless of the points I´ll make.
The NA scene needs grass roots events like this to evolve into a more or less stable state again, but doing invitationals is another side of the problem, the NA scene currently has: People in NA get big through there pesonality, not through actually playing the game better (For example, if you look at the streaming list right now, you´ll see, that a less skilled, but more whiny american version of Strelok/GoOdy is leading the stream numbers). You invite people, that you think, might have a break through sooner or later, why do you not give those guys a chance to have their first small breakthrough right now, by making it into your event instead of getting invited?
I see the problems, coming along with this: If Scarlett signs up, she willl probably get through without much trouble and destroy everyone. Same goes for HuK. But one can relativly simply avoid that by just doing, what IPL did with their amateur qualifiers and just let people with less than a certain amout of prize earnongs compete. Let´s say, you set this border at 5k: With that you eliminate VIBE, qxc, Suppy, Xenocider, Goswser, Illusion, puck, Idra, Sheth, Kane, TT1, HuK and Scarlett from the competition, so basically all the established pros, who could farm your grass root event. But on the other side, you still give every upcoming player a chance to shine and even old veterans of the early days, like iNcontroL or Nony could show, that they still have the power to compete with the next generation. I mean, how cool would it be, if Machine suddenly qualifies, shows amazing play and wins the whole thing (I mean, everyone likes Machine, right?). I know, iNc has the chance to do that in Krefeld, but lets be honest, Polt will do things to him, more horrible, that even Vincent Longborn could ever imagine. And being in a scene with less oppurtunities, than Kor or EU, would´nt it be fair for those veterans to get a chance to prove themselves as well, even though they aren´t the fresh new blood?
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with this event.
I'm confused, you're either missing the point of what this is for, or you've been very vague about the "issue" you have with this tournament.
So in short you're saying there shouldn't be invitational events for new people to play against other new rising players? The point is to expose the community to new players, it's not to show them that these guys are "AMAZING OMG HE JUST BEAT JAEDONG" - it's to actually get their name out there so people know who they are, their playstyles and to give a face to a name, so that when someone does take a few games off Bomber, or Scarlett, or Naniwa at the next big open/LAN tournament - we don't have the same bullshit expression from the community of "well who the hell is this guy".
Of course the true test of newer "rising" players is when they go to a Dreamhack Open, an IEM qualifier, or a Challenger League qualifier and then take a spot, take a game, take a series off a known player - but to say that there shouldn't be "exposure" tournaments like this is incredibly short-sighted in my opinion.
In many traditional sports, top players get scouted by people who head out into community grass-root events (say for example, the "local football game") to see young, fresh new talent. In eSports we don't really have anything similar to that, besides the possible situations like former Root player "Succeed" who was seen on ladder by Catz and was slowly brought into that team. We occasionally have players that appear at big events and stun the crowd, such as Scarlett at IPL, Trimaster at early MLG's and whatnot who are then recruited into big teams. But rarely do we ever get to simply give some exposure to newer players who are rising up and can compete on a high level. Partly this is just the nature of how the SC scene works at the moment, partly it's because many players simply don't know how to market themselves (with exceptions of people like Grubby, PiG and WhiteRa I guess) - and because sometimes they just don't get a chance.
A long time ago when I started casting, a local player here in Australia Rossi said to me "hey it'd be cool if you could put my twitter and stream on the cast somewhere so people know where to find me" and we had a long discussion about it, which delved into the main point of "it's hard to get exposure for new players" and so I started doing it whenever I could in my casts. This is taking it another step forwards - hosting a simple tournament that showcases some new talent up against other new talent, so that people can say "Hey, that's Bones I've heard of him before, he's that Canadian Protoss who has 50 minute PvP games" or something like that. It gives identification and starts the basis of a story for players.
I don't disagree with your point about players actually showcasing true skill needing to be in real tournament situations - but in my opinion to think this isn't a good idea is folly, I believe we should have more of this kind of thing, instead of simply catering to the top level professional players. It's an issue overall with the SC2 scene, and it's an issue the community needs to deal with too - it's not just a problem that organisers can fix, we as the people appreciating this game need to be more respectful of new rising players too.
You hit a lot of the big points for me! Thanks! It is about giving exposure to some newer players that haven't been able to "Break Out" to the higher echelons. Especially the 2nd to last paragraph. It really hit one of the biggest reasons I'm doing this. I know I, myself, am way more likely to watch a game with a player I know over two complete unknowns to me.
To everyone talking about the invitational vs open thing, you've got to understand this is a direct tie-in to Feardragon's show, Breaking Out. This invitational is a tournament showcase of the players that he's had on so far. There's a specific purpose to the event that pulls everything together. There are huge benefits to having an open tournament, but also extreme difficulties as well (how do you run it? how many people? what format tournament? who can join? etc).
Feardragon's got a very specific theme going here, whether he intended it or not. It's a very interesting take and something that I personally think is a great idea. He's giving each player the same amount of time and giving us an in depth look at each one.
There's really no reason to compare the tournament style that you'd rather see and what he's doing because they don't have the same goals, they're not doing the same thing. I'm sure he agrees with the majority of your points because they all make sense, but this ties things together really well in my opinion.
Yep! Hitting the nail on the head! Again, I am looking into taking a lot of these suggestions into account in the future!
I kinda feel the skill gap between some of these players might be to high. I mean a high master can take out a GM, sure, but not consistently.
also side note, I feel by having an invitational your actually stagnating the growth of "breakout" players. You shoudlve had an open tourament to non-pros, or invite last 100 GMs on NA.
Pretty much feels like youre inviting friends you know to a tournament, promotion for 1000$? Money not well spent. You coudlve started a weekly "breakout" tournament. Have these guys you had on your show seeded farther into the bracket to see if they are "true" breakouts and have the people that beat these guys on your show next. Maybe a koth or open bracket. So many good options, your choice being not optimal. Would have been better marketing for you.
@Eggi, I've addressed this issue a few times in my previous posts so please refer to that for my response. I actually hadn't personally spoke to a single one of these players before this as well. =] Thanks for the input though!
Eggi, you realize he is not inviting "his friends", but rather than inviting the players, which were the initial participants in his show? I for one think it's awesome initiative, that he goes all the way to support these players, to help them get name for themselves; which is extremely hard, because unless you are already known, you rarely get as much space, if any. I for one, am hoping to see an awesome tournament.
That being said, making an open tournament for NA talent wouldn't be bad, but there's no reason to say this type of content/player promotion is any bad.
On November 14 2013 02:25 BabyToss! wrote: Eggi, you realize he is not inviting "his friends", but rather than inviting the players, which were the initial participants in his show? I for one think it's awesome initiative, that he goes all the way to support these players, to help them get name for themselves; which is extremely hard, because unless you are already known, you rarely get as much space, if any. I for one, am hoping to see an awesome tournament.
That being said, making an open tournament for NA talent wouldn't be bad, but there's no reason to say this type of content/player promotion is any bad.
Yes but why and how did he choose these "8"
Unless I missed a qualifier or something his choosing must of been off some bias no?
Kitty and snow make sense but rest are just a little.. random Regardless you cant grow the ametuer scene with an invitational. You start invitationals from qualifiers that he would hold. He skipped step 1 and jumped to 2
his idea isnt bad never said that. it just could be alot better with huge growth potential. unless he can supply 1000$ tourny every month then by all means go ahead .
from a finicial aspect its bad. This has happened times times times before in sc2 esports someone comes in injects a big chunk of money for a very short term period and next month their gone. Its not a good way to do esports. Always collapses.
On November 14 2013 02:25 BabyToss! wrote: Eggi, you realize he is not inviting "his friends", but rather than inviting the players, which were the initial participants in his show? I for one think it's awesome initiative, that he goes all the way to support these players, to help them get name for themselves; which is extremely hard, because unless you are already known, you rarely get as much space, if any. I for one, am hoping to see an awesome tournament.
That being said, making an open tournament for NA talent wouldn't be bad, but there's no reason to say this type of content/player promotion is any bad.
Yes but why and how did he choose these "8"
Unless I missed a qualifier or something his choosing must of been off some bias no?
Kitty and snow make sense but rest are just a little.. random?
Regardless you cant grow the ametuer scene with an invitational. You start invitationals from qualifiers that he would hold. He skipped step 1 and jumped to 2
his idea isnt bad never said that. it just could be alot better with huge growth potential. unless he can supply 1000$ tourny every month then by all means go ahead
I see where you're coming from, but it's really more a matter of growing those 8 individuals or growing nobody.
It would be impossible for a guy like Feardragon to just up and shoot the scene single-handedly through the roof. If he's able to take these 8 guys and give them some exposure, then if it's successful there's no reason he can't do another 8 later, and then 8 more. If it grows, maybe someone would be willing to pay him to continue doing it, or front the money for monthly tournaments.
It should be understood that what he's doing is not bad, is positive, and is going to help the amateur/semi-pro scene. It might not help everyone, but it helps 8 people that he was able to find (regardless of how he did it, maybe he did a ton of research or just started messaging high masters or gm players) and provides a proof of concept for the continuation of the event in the future.
Improving the gaming scene is not an all or nothing endeavor. Small steps are just as worthwhile as big ones, and should really be analyzed in the context of what they're trying to do. Feardragon (to my knowledge) isn't trying to be the savior of amateur competitive starcraft. He's simply putting a freaking huge amount of time and effort into doing what he can. Include the hours of casted games and interviews with these players and he's clearly putting more of himself towards the scene than the vast, vast, vast, vast, vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast majority of us. One man can only do so much, ya know.
Like I said, I agree with some of your points, and I don't speak for Feardragon at all, but just keep it in perspective is all I'm saying. This goes for everyone that thinks this will single-handedly save the scene, it's a small step in an extremely positive direction, but that's all it is. It will be wonderfully entertaining and I can't wait to see it.
Obviously what he is doing is good. Some esports is better than no esports.
but the majority of the amateur community is "what about me?" Wcs NA quals were brutal this year(almost) no point to play in unless you knee you could go toe to toe with high level koreans.
While 8 for 1000$ is nice, xxx for a $25 weekly to maybe handpicked for rank100-200gms(keep the incentive to ladder like shoutcraft did for top16)
That would be optimal way to go about it and not much harder too. No pros, gms 100-200(or w.e criteria) save money and have weekly/daily content
these guys are mostly ladder warriors. Incorporate ladder warriors into your show, give them incentive to play grow scene. Hell make a show called ladder warriors.
Make it based on win percentage/games played/ w.e criteria so people have incentive to turn on the game.
On November 14 2013 06:58 Eggi wrote: Obviously what he is doing is good. Some esports is better than no esports.
but the majority of the amateur community is "what about me?" Wcs NA quals were brutal this year(almost) no point to play in unless you knee you could go toe to toe with high level koreans.
While 8 for 1000$ is nice, xxx for a $25 weekly to maybe handpicked for rank100-200gms(keep the incentive to ladder like shoutcraft did for top16)
That would be optimal way to go about it and not much harder too. No pros, gms 100-200(or w.e criteria) save money and have weekly/daily content
these guys are mostly ladder warriors. Incorporate ladder warriors into your show, give them incentive to play grow scene. Hell make a show called ladder warriors.
Make it based on win percentage/games played/ w.e criteria so people have incentive to turn on the game.
this will go like a volacano and fizzle out.
considering the nature of GM, one should include top lvl masters in that list as well.
On November 14 2013 06:58 Eggi wrote: Obviously what he is doing is good. Some esports is better than no esports.
but the majority of the amateur community is "what about me?" Wcs NA quals were brutal this year(almost) no point to play in unless you knee you could go toe to toe with high level koreans.
While 8 for 1000$ is nice, xxx for a $25 weekly to maybe handpicked for rank100-200gms(keep the incentive to ladder like shoutcraft did for top16)
That would be optimal way to go about it and not much harder too. No pros, gms 100-200(or w.e criteria) save money and have weekly/daily content
these guys are mostly ladder warriors. Incorporate ladder warriors into your show, give them incentive to play grow scene. Hell make a show called ladder warriors.
Make it based on win percentage/games played/ w.e criteria so people have incentive to turn on the game.
this will go like a volacano and fizzle out.
I think you underestimate just how much time and effort is being put into this, and I honestly don't agree that your method would be better for the scene. I want to hear more about the players themselves, what they do, why they do what they do. I think that this generating the interest in the players themselves will generate interest in the game among non-players or casual players, and that is how we begin to grow the scene.
I think this will be a great event, and if there aren't more then there aren't more. But I know a lot about 8 players I wouldn't otherwise who are way better than I'll ever be. That's pretty damned awesome imo, and makes me wonder who else is out there that I don't know about, what kind of lives they lead, what kind of BM they show on ladder, or how they deal with it when it's shown to them, etc.
Yeah I'll try and give this a watch, tournaments like this are needed for the growth and survival of the scene - we need local heroes! I wish someone would do something similar in the UK though :/
First of all, paypal donation boxes are pretty much all up! and ready for donations! You can find them below the stream on: http://www.twitch.tv/feardragon64 ! There's one for the tournament itself(labeled "The Breakout Invitational"), as well as one for each player. Sorry if the structure on the page is a bit messy! I'm still getting that sorted out. Also, I do not have Xtraterrestrial Jowj's donation box setup quite yet! It should be done soon though!
Secondly, due to the recent MLG announcement, the final day of the tournament will be streamed over on my channel(twitch.tv/feardragon64) instead of MLG's. For the moment, Axeltoss and I are still planned to be the commentators for this final day though!
Anyways, as soon as I get a chance, I'll put the donation boxes in the opening post as well! Thanks guys!
Edit: Donation boxes now on TL page! I will update for XT Jowj as soon as I can!
The second hype post is out for The Innovator - Clarity Gaming's SaroVati. Learn more about this Protoss and see why he's one of my favorite protoss to root for!
Quick update! You might notice the prize pool is now more than double what it started! A large thanks goes to our new Sponsor, "Let's Kung Fu"! It's a great Starcraft2/Hearthstone podcast you can check out by clicking on the banner below or in the original post!
Also, Clarity Gaming's Wyrd(@cWyrd) will be casting for the event! He's a great commentator and a ton of fun to commentate with so I hope you all are as excited as I am for it! =D
I almost missed this invitational due to the sheer amount of other tournaments that are going on. I think what you are doing is great. Looking forward to the tournament. Thanks for helping the NA scene!
I'm really happy to be able to help support this event! Feardragon is doing something that the NA scene desperately needs, and I'm glad to be a part of it.
The next hype post is out! Read about CORE Gaming's JonSnow - The Challenger. He's an amazing Zerg player who is starting to make name for himself after an impressive run in WCS Challenger league. He's shown he can compete with some amazing players, so will he be able to take the Invitational? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=435694
Since this tournament is a follow up, just wanted to say that the stream for the FINAL episode of Breaking Out just went live! Come watch CORE Gaming's Sonic do his Funday episode and also give his thoughts on the bracket! http://www.twitch.tv/feardragon64
Also, We are announcing another sponsor, Barcraft Apparel! Be sure to tune in for the broadcast to learn how you can win one of their totally badass t-shirts! Check out Barcraft Apparel here! http://www.barcraftapparel.com/
Ok all! It's game day! Hope everyone is excited! The tournament is kicking off with group A today, casted by myself and Wyrd and observed by KurenTV! Be sure to tune in at 5:30pm PST and 8:30pm EST! We're even going to have a giveaway! http://www.twitch.tv/feardragon64
so the TL thread says a one group is playing, while the event on TL says another group is playing. Who da fuck is playing tonight? is it the one int his thread, or http://www.teamliquid.net/calendar/2013/11/#event_19517 these guys?
On November 21 2013 10:04 Bonkarooni wrote: so the TL thread says a one group is playing, while the event on TL says another group is playing. Who da fuck is playing tonight? is it the one int his thread, or http://www.teamliquid.net/calendar/2013/11/#event_19517 these guys?
You're right, the participants listed in the event are messed up. Group A is playing tonight. SaroVati, NuBrGNi, Arium and Sonic. However, just above the "participants" section, the 4 players for tonight are listed correctly.
On November 21 2013 10:04 Bonkarooni wrote: so the TL thread says a one group is playing, while the event on TL says another group is playing. Who da fuck is playing tonight? is it the one int his thread, or http://www.teamliquid.net/calendar/2013/11/#event_19517 these guys?
You're right, the participants listed in the event are messed up. Group A is playing tonight. SaroVati, NuBrGNi, Arium and Sonic. However, just above the "participants" section, the 4 players for tonight are listed correctly.
So actually it's not that the participants list is messed up, it's just misleading. I listed all the players playing in the event total under the Players section, but TLpedia only parsed 4 of them. The players ACTUALLY playing that day are in bold on the event. Just for future reference.
Was a TON of fun today guys! Check out the vod if you couldn't catch it. There were some ABSURDLY awesome games. Can't wait for Day 2 tomorrow with Temp0 Starcraft! http://www.twitch.tv/feardragon64/b/481632835
LOL @ your voice in the trailer. It's so ridiculous it's funny <3 no insult intended, I just genuinely found it amusing and as such, I'm gonna watch your stream. Haaa..
Tonight(won't spoil it in case you missed a previous day and want to watch those games), the semi-finalists will face off against each other! With commentary from @Feardragon64 and @Axeltoss and observing from @KurenTV, it's going to be a show you'll want to catch! Tune in!
I would love to hear the thoughts of anyone who tuned in to the tournament for feedback on it! Always looking to make changes for the better in Season 2!