CSL presents Azubu Collegiate Champions - Page 9

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On October 30 2012 05:19 Qurmish wrote:
I completely agree with everything the clm100 said in his post above, and apologize for the way my previous concerns were voiced on the CSL website, which contributed to a massive flamefest. I am extremely disappointed with many of the decisions that the CSL has made this season. I think it is great that there is a big name sponsor and there will be a live event---it sounds like a ton of fun and I can't wait to watch it; but, so many features that made the CSL such a great league were sacrificed to make this happen. This season's format does not make very much sense in the context of a college league. I only say this because of how much I have enjoyed participating in the CSL, and want the league to continue to improve in coming years. I believe that with this format there will be a dramatic decrease in participation from schools in the future. It is completely untenable and is antithetical to (what I thought) was the spirit of the league.

I wanted to bring to your attention some of the concerns that I and many of my teammates who participate in this league, have with the current format.

1) The timeline is not appropriate for a college league. For anyone that has not looked at the season schedule yet, the regular season will be only four weeks long. In most divisions this will mean a total of 6 matches in the regular season. The season itself (including the grand finals) will end in February, after a month long break between the semi-finals. The most enjoyable part of this league was that it stretched throughout the entire school year. We played matches that everyone got excited about, and were an extremely enjoyable distraction from schoolwork.

This season will not offer that investment from everyone in our community in Starcraft throughout the entire year. During the CSL season, interest in Starcraft goes way up, and our participation in Starcraft based campus events is much higher than usual. With this format, we will have a very short burst of excitement, which will die off quickly. We are looking for other ways to keep this excitement up through other leagues and clan wars, but it is a shame that the CSL, which filled this role all of last year, will fall short.

The best part about the previous format was that it ran at a relaxed schedule. People could put the time into practicing as their schedules permitted with school. Having two matches per week makes this a lot more difficult than it had been previously. It will be very demanding to practice for two matches, put in 3 hours of continuous play over the weekend, and maintain schoolwork.

2) Matches scheduled through winter break. This was such a bad idea---I can't even begin to understand why this was deemed acceptable. The vast majority of college students will travel over winter break, and many will travel out of the country to places without easy access to internet. Two of our best players will be travelling outside of the United States over the break and will be unable to play at all. Irrespective of that, you now force players to choose between spending time with their families and friends and practicing/playing in the playoffs. This is a terrible burden to place on people who have very limited time home, and will make many of them lose interest in the competition altogether. Nobody should have to choose between these two things.

3) The division system does not allow for competition between a variety of schools. As a consequence of only playing six regular season matches, there will not be any inter-division competition. I really enjoyed meeting and testing the mettle of other teams from other parts of the country during the second half of the season. Now, we will only get exposure to a very small number of schools and will not interact with the vast majority of other schools that compete in the CSL.

4) The complete overhaul of the website weeks before the season started. There have been so many problems with this website that have already been mentioned and are not worth repeating. I do not understand why, if a site redesign was necessary for coding reasons, this couldn't have happened months in advance of the season starting. The likelihood that everything will be functional and on the level of the previous site look very bleak now. If it was too much to manage to get a new site up and running and put the new league together, then why try to do both?

5) The misinformation that was given out just days before the season started. From the perspective of a community organizer and someone who was trying to increase interest in Starcraft, this misinformation made our lives a lot harder than they needed to be. We specifically tried to recruit players of lower skill levels and get them engaged, only to be shut down hard at the last minute. Xeris, you said that he hopes that this will be featured in upcoming seasons, which is great, but the part that I don't think you understand is that it was extremely frustrating that you laid out the season format months in advance, only to completely renege on all of those decisions literally at the last minute. At some point you just have to make a decision and stick with it instead of leading everyone around by the nose because it adversely affects the people that you have participating in your league. It is extremely bad practice to continue to put out incorrect information.

I guess I want to know what other schools think. I can say when I read the changes I was immediately disappointed and was very surprised by the reaction from everyone else in the community. Obviously there were some trade-offs, and some of the new additions are very exciting. But, the additions came at the expense of the core elements of the league. Is everyone happy with the fact that the entire season will only be 6 matches, and that the vast majority of schools will only be able to participate for the month of November? I would want to know if these changes were 100% intentional, or a consequence of putting this deal together with Azubu at the last minute. It seems pretty objectively bad from the perspective of having an enjoyable league, which allows for participation from schools of all different skill levels.

Participating in this league forged some tremendous friendships at our school, and we have all been very excited to participate. Honestly, I thought that last year's league format was nearly perfect, and the changes that were announced back in August (2 division system, 2 seasons per year) would have made the league even better. I can't really understand the logic behind many of the recent changes, and I know it is too late to change anything now. I am hoping by writing this that the CSL will reconsider all of the changes that they made this year, and return to the original format in the future. I also, maybe naively, hope that there will be some effort put into arranging some sort of league for after February, when the league finishes. What is the possibility of some sort of season 6.5 or Spring/Summer season happening to supplement the extremely truncated season 6?

Thank you to Hazleynut, Xeris, and all of the folks at the Collegiate Starleague. I don't write this because I want to add unneeded negativity to the community, but because I think this league can be a lot better.

Thanks,

Benji
Columbia University

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On November 26 2012 15:10 Martinni wrote:

You're right on every point.. they had something very nice going on last year and now so many changes without consulting the community before. This current season is just a disaster.

I would also like to add the BO1 format they currently run isn't really suited for a starcraft league. You can't judge a player's strength by just one match. Having BO3 would add a very real mental aspect to it. Sure it would be at lot more time consuming (maybe an hour), but I feel like it be overall worth it.

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On November 26 2012 16:02 Megaliskuu wrote:


Its fine for a team league, just look at every proleague ever.

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On October 30 2012 05:19 Qurmish wrote:
I completely agree with everything the clm100 said in his post above, and apologize for the way my previous concerns were voiced on the CSL website, which contributed to a massive flamefest. I am extremely disappointed with many of the decisions that the CSL has made this season. I think it is great that there is a big name sponsor and there will be a live event---it sounds like a ton of fun and I can't wait to watch it; but, so many features that made the CSL such a great league were sacrificed to make this happen. This season's format does not make very much sense in the context of a college league. I only say this because of how much I have enjoyed participating in the CSL, and want the league to continue to improve in coming years. I believe that with this format there will be a dramatic decrease in participation from schools in the future. It is completely untenable and is antithetical to (what I thought) was the spirit of the league.

I wanted to bring to your attention some of the concerns that I and many of my teammates who participate in this league, have with the current format.

1) The timeline is not appropriate for a college league. For anyone that has not looked at the season schedule yet, the regular season will be only four weeks long. In most divisions this will mean a total of 6 matches in the regular season. The season itself (including the grand finals) will end in February, after a month long break between the semi-finals. The most enjoyable part of this league was that it stretched throughout the entire school year. We played matches that everyone got excited about, and were an extremely enjoyable distraction from schoolwork.

This season will not offer that investment from everyone in our community in Starcraft throughout the entire year. During the CSL season, interest in Starcraft goes way up, and our participation in Starcraft based campus events is much higher than usual. With this format, we will have a very short burst of excitement, which will die off quickly. We are looking for other ways to keep this excitement up through other leagues and clan wars, but it is a shame that the CSL, which filled this role all of last year, will fall short.

The best part about the previous format was that it ran at a relaxed schedule. People could put the time into practicing as their schedules permitted with school. Having two matches per week makes this a lot more difficult than it had been previously. It will be very demanding to practice for two matches, put in 3 hours of continuous play over the weekend, and maintain schoolwork.

2) Matches scheduled through winter break. This was such a bad idea---I can't even begin to understand why this was deemed acceptable. The vast majority of college students will travel over winter break, and many will travel out of the country to places without easy access to internet. Two of our best players will be travelling outside of the United States over the break and will be unable to play at all. Irrespective of that, you now force players to choose between spending time with their families and friends and practicing/playing in the playoffs. This is a terrible burden to place on people who have very limited time home, and will make many of them lose interest in the competition altogether. Nobody should have to choose between these two things.

3) The division system does not allow for competition between a variety of schools. As a consequence of only playing six regular season matches, there will not be any inter-division competition. I really enjoyed meeting and testing the mettle of other teams from other parts of the country during the second half of the season. Now, we will only get exposure to a very small number of schools and will not interact with the vast majority of other schools that compete in the CSL.

4) The complete overhaul of the website weeks before the season started. There have been so many problems with this website that have already been mentioned and are not worth repeating. I do not understand why, if a site redesign was necessary for coding reasons, this couldn't have happened months in advance of the season starting. The likelihood that everything will be functional and on the level of the previous site look very bleak now. If it was too much to manage to get a new site up and running and put the new league together, then why try to do both?

5) The misinformation that was given out just days before the season started. From the perspective of a community organizer and someone who was trying to increase interest in Starcraft, this misinformation made our lives a lot harder than they needed to be. We specifically tried to recruit players of lower skill levels and get them engaged, only to be shut down hard at the last minute. Xeris, you said that he hopes that this will be featured in upcoming seasons, which is great, but the part that I don't think you understand is that it was extremely frustrating that you laid out the season format months in advance, only to completely renege on all of those decisions literally at the last minute. At some point you just have to make a decision and stick with it instead of leading everyone around by the nose because it adversely affects the people that you have participating in your league. It is extremely bad practice to continue to put out incorrect information.

I guess I want to know what other schools think. I can say when I read the changes I was immediately disappointed and was very surprised by the reaction from everyone else in the community. Obviously there were some trade-offs, and some of the new additions are very exciting. But, the additions came at the expense of the core elements of the league. Is everyone happy with the fact that the entire season will only be 6 matches, and that the vast majority of schools will only be able to participate for the month of November? I would want to know if these changes were 100% intentional, or a consequence of putting this deal together with Azubu at the last minute. It seems pretty objectively bad from the perspective of having an enjoyable league, which allows for participation from schools of all different skill levels.

Participating in this league forged some tremendous friendships at our school, and we have all been very excited to participate. Honestly, I thought that last year's league format was nearly perfect, and the changes that were announced back in August (2 division system, 2 seasons per year) would have made the league even better. I can't really understand the logic behind many of the recent changes, and I know it is too late to change anything now. I am hoping by writing this that the CSL will reconsider all of the changes that they made this year, and return to the original format in the future. I also, maybe naively, hope that there will be some effort put into arranging some sort of league for after February, when the league finishes. What is the possibility of some sort of season 6.5 or Spring/Summer season happening to supplement the extremely truncated season 6?

Thank you to Hazleynut, Xeris, and all of the folks at the Collegiate Starleague. I don't write this because I want to add unneeded negativity to the community, but because I think this league can be a lot better.

Thanks,

Benji
Columbia University

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