I told myself I'm not going to watch professional Brood War anymore. I switched myself mostly to Dota 2. Once in a while I'll play some brood war, only to find that there's not much games on iccup and retreating back to playing Dota 2.
But after tonight, I just couldn't let this game die without trying my best not to let it. Sure, some of you may ask, isn't it too late now? I thought so too. But where's the harm in trying? KeSPA themselves said that they'll take into consideration the fans' comments and reactions. Whether you want to believe it or not, I'll let you decide it for yourself. But if I don't do anything about it at all, I'm sure I'll regret it for the rest of my life.
So I need you guys' help. All my fellow Brood War fans. What I need are these (from either TL, Reddit or even korean community sites, youtube links, highlight videos, whatever, anything, even posting your love for the game, no matter how short or long would do):
- Posts that show our dedication and love for the game (LR threads, specifically) - Threads that shows our continued interest and support in the game (the Chinese OSL is one example) - Views on what might be the current problem with the state of Brood War scene (lack of sponsors? Lack of confidence? Bad PR? etc) - Suggestions on how it can be improved
etc. Anything that may help. I will compile all this into a long letter before emailing it to some people over at kespa. It may work, or it may all be a futile attempt in the end, but hey, at least we tried, didn't we?
Of course, I would need to come up with my own suggestions. Here are some issues that I feel should be addressed:
Problems with current BW scene: - Lack of interest by sponsors (to what extend, I'm not sure). - Lack of confidence by sponsors (old game, bad PR (the matchfixing scandal was the biggest blow)) - Blizzard using BW to "blackmail" KeSPA (with its legal copyright and whatnot) - Lack of funding/financial returns - Expensive to run - Many of these problems not being addressed to public, so the public is unaware (especially the financial part)
How they may be overcome: - Show the investors how dedicated and passionate the fans still are (both local and foreign) - Examples of how some fans may have gotten more aware of their products? (eg: People flying Korean Air/Jin Air more, drinking more Bacchus, etc) - People who have been very disappointed at the loss of MSL/BW OSL/BW PL (ex-MSL commentators, posters/fans' reactions, etc) - Show that the matchfixing scandal was not a huge deal as people make it out to be (eg: Korea's own soccer and volleyball league had their own matchfixing scandals, yet hundreds or even thousands still support and turn up for the games) - Maybe paid tickets for finals? I'm sure people wouldn't mine paying 10,000 won for an epic finals? - Give players a decision to choose between BW and SC2, and make teams have 2 separate teams for 2 separate leagues for each game, both under kespa.
(About the "blackmailing" part, I really have no idea what to do with it.)
I only got till like end of this week to compile everything before I have to book in back to camp (currently on a week-long block leave), so... let's do this guys.
Brood War hwaiting.
TL's suggestions: - Crowdfund leagues (scope and range?) - Convincing corporations and gaining their confidence once again (how?) - Making epic compilations of epic games (I can't do this... maybe someone can link some other highlight videos on youtube?) - Valve makes BW2 (unlikely, not until 2025, given valve time) - Sales of progamer merchandise
Reactions and passion:
(fans react to Jangbi vs Zero, Game 4)
(fans react to above series, diff perspective, game 5)
(Kim Carry on thinking of this being the last OSL...)
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It takes a lot of money to create the storylines that get us interested and make for exciting finals. It takes stories and stats. It takes houses and teams of players, chemistry between them, and extremely dedicated players. It takes multi room houses and maids and coaches and computers and food and salaries for kids so they can live for years practicing this game. Funding that as fans seems out of reach.
Honestly, we could probably fund an OSL finals. But what would an OSL finals provide when the players can't fully commit to practicing their game because they can't afford to. The quality if the games we currently see is due to over a decade of large corporate support that fostered an environment where up and comers can succeed and legends can thrive. Without a similar amount of corporate support the pinnacle of gaming will be what we see now and it will go downhill after this.
So, there's really only one relevant question in my mind: how does one convince corporations to continue providing sponsorships to this game? If KESPA couldn't answer that question, can I? I can't see myself coming up with an answer to this, but you've inspired me to give it a worthwhile shot. I'll be mulling over these questions in the next few days.
Kona, you're not going to make the finals, right? You helped us get tickets for Proleague, is there any contact information you could provide to help a Teamliquid group get tickets? FuRong is pretty good but I know you had some inside contacts that helped you out last time.
floor exercise Canada. July 10 2012 23:01. Posts 5509
I'm sure it'll pick up when the Chinese OSL picks up. The problem I think is that there's barely anything going on besides the last OSL since Proleague quality is lower due to SCII.
Compile epic moments from epic games? Many people who are new to BW will be turned off by the graphics and will naturally be drawn to more recent games like SC2. I think showing epic gameplay moments that really put BW ahead from any other game could help make BW more popular. I'm thinking of the classic moments like Jangbi vs Nada, free vs Jaedong, Bisu vs Iris, Flash vs Upmagic etc. Not sure how valid this idea might be but I'm just going to throw it out there. With BW being in such dire straits right now, I think the worst thing fans could do would be to remain silent.
On July 10 2012 22:50 Arterial wrote: It breaks my heart that Brood War has to die.
It breaks my heart that Brood War is in a difficult time, but it isn't dead, don't ever say that again, that kind of went against everything I just read in konadora's post... NOW SADDLE UP AND SHOW SOME LOVE FOR THE GAME THAT YOU HOLD SO HIGHLY IN YOU'RE " HEART ".
Well I personally love BW way more than SC2, and I find myself doing the exact same thing you do konadora, go to iCCup to try to get some games, and then eventually give up and go back to SC2 (rather than Dota2) even though I don't really want to play SC2, I just get so frustrated not being able to find games on iCCup, then realizing even if I do get a couple of games, that I will never be able to reach my ultimate goal because it is basically literally impossible to find games past C on iCCup. >_<
I agree that people do need to pull together in this community and make things happen, the other day I saw Husky streaming BW and I thought for a second that he was taking the initiative to try to revive BW, I was so happy, then I saw that he turned on pokemon. ( not hating on you husky , u know we love you <3 ) But the point is that if someone like husky would help promote BW, then it would drastically help the appearance and view that sponsors, and viewers, and even people who have no idea what BW is about, think about BW.
I hope that something amazing happens and the game that we all love is saved, but like konadora said, we all have to pull together in order for this to happen, so lets do it. Calling all BW streamers, get your BW stream thang on.
God bless~
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Chinese OSL is already Crowd-funded, basically the entire chinese scene is crowd funded, and by people who have to work day jobs and practice at night at sub optimal (and disgracefully lower levels when compared to korean or the west) conditions, if it can continue to exist in China it can exist any where.
If you do want this scene to exist it's time to man up and contribute to your own or other organizations and players and do it yourself. I need people to help me with China's BW scene, anything will be appreciated. Start your own projects. I never thought I would get so much support from China's scene until I tried.
One thing that always bugged me is the restriction on players' behavior (discouraging ceremonies, forbidding chatting, etc) - if what you are selling is entertainment, it seems stupid to make your players behave like robots.
I don't think paid tickets are a good idea (the suggestion inspired me to dig this up).
Unless foreign fans can somehow contribute money I don't think our passion will get us anywhere. Outside of somehow raising enough money to support both a BW Proleague and OSL, our only real hope is to somehow get things back on track. Before all the bullshit happened (match fixing, copyright, etc) the scene at least appeared to be self-sustaining, but now it isn't. If this is because it's just not financially sound (too expensive, not enough interest, etc) then there's not going to be much we can do, so our only real hope is if sponsoring BW would actually be a good investment and we just somehow need to convince sponsors that that is the case. Maybe we could ask Tving if they're happy with their sponsorship of the OSL, and then if they say that they are try and spread that word.
Other things - We could try and petition Blizzard to remove the burdens they placed on BW (unless I am wrong about such burdens actually still existing?). II doubt they would go for it, but it can't hurt. One big thing is that I haven't heard anything about the korean fans trying to do anything to keep BW alive. Perhaps the best thing we could do would be to encourage them to do so or try and get korean fans involved in our own efforts or something. Maybe korean fans have been trying to keep BW alive in some coordinated way and I just haven't heard about it, but if they haven't I think there's real potential to try and get them to do so.
brood war for life, brood war forever
Black[CAT] Malaysia. July 10 2012 23:22. Posts 2537
What BW needs is a new BNet (official server that you get connected to by default) that is as good as WC3's. It should let players of any skill level find evenly matched opponents easily. Taking up BW right now is very discouraging. If you could just install the game, go online and find an even match quickly, you could learn the game little by little.
Unfortunately, I can't imagine blizzard helping us since they have been determined to kill BW for the past couple of years.
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Singapore. July 10 2012 22:35. Posts 44521![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gi89B.jpg)
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