[PiG]

this thread isn't about FXO. Soundwave, infeza, im looking at you.

Quick Comments

	Meatex:	make this man mod already - he deserves it :P
	inFeZa:	DW I'll make a seperate thread.

[PiG]

Originally Posted by aLtShortizz

This.

Unfortunately the people doing it are usually the most vocal and somwhat 'popular' people on these forums/Chatbox. U disagree with one of them and a herd of morons come at you even though your points might be valid.

2nd: Trolling. I never understood it and i bet 99% of you dont either. Someone made a fantastic blog about this topic as well although i cant seem to find it. It really isnt funny to pick on one person and have your friends come and laugh with you even though most of the ppl around dont know exactly whats so funny.

In short, alot of people are bullies on Sc2sea and ive seen alot of players left our community just because they said something silly or disagreed with a ''popular'' figure in our community.

On the topic of declining stream numbers and lack of SEA players in global tournaments. IMO it will only get worse. Stream numbers have not been increasing and will probably start to decline, the gap between top players and SEA players will only increase with the exception of a few(Mafia). I just dont see how we can compete without real Pro teams paying you wages to train. How is it possible to close the gap when you have school, jobs and other committments?

NA has a pretty sick SC2 scene that whilst not ideal, is still thriving. And yet they don't have proper pro teams other then EG. Nonetheless there are passionate young dudes who put it on the line to get insanely good: Huk, Illusion etc... We don't need to necessarily be able to be as competitive as the Korean scene to be successful. Does Australia stop playing Soccer because Brazil or Spain will always have stronger sides then them? Hells no!

We already have a lot of sc2 fans here and my key point is it's simply a few small things not getting them down to LANs!

[Cyanide]

Should prolly reword title and headers to reflect that it is a response to the POINTS he brought up.
I guess putting "response to FXOBoss" would make people more inclined to discuss about FXO and/or Boss. =P

Quick Comments

PiG:

added thing at start in big red writing :P Cheers

[Another]

what in fighting and shit slinging? i havent seen anything of the sort, i couldnt really name any two people who hate each other in SEA. am i living under a rock or something?

Quick Comments

	NvRossi:	yes
	TCPLemminks:	There hasn't been for a while
	Stallion:	yes yes u are mr ShireToss
	iM yang:	you know full well of my hate for zanooku, he's the only top player i hate
	ToRSpartaz:	Hehe shiretoss

[PiG]

Originally Posted by IrisAnother

what in fighting and shit slinging? i havent seen anything of the sort, i couldnt really name any two people who hate each other in SEA. am i living under a rock or something?

Basically there have been personality clashes, rivalries, jealousies and petty hatreds between a few of the key organisers, players and casters has led to mini circle-jerk fights between groups of friends and players etc. It really hasn't gotten too bad as an overall forum pattern. But the fact that influential figures as well as groups of friends backing them up have at times acted this way has created some bad blood in the community.

The funny thing is around the time of big events like ACL, GESC and all the tournaments around them this behaviour tends to die down to a degree as everyone players, casters and organisers are all knuckling down and working towards something beautiful: ESPORTSSS. I think just keeping those attitudes to private areas and people treating each other professionally and with respect would aid this.

Quick Comments

Cordance:

I know you dont want this to be about FXO but they where a significant cause of such actions hence the minor derailment

[Dox]

Originally Posted by aLtShortizz

This.

Unfortunately the people doing it are usually the most vocal and somwhat 'popular' people on these forums/Chatbox. U disagree with one of them and a herd of morons come at you even though your points might be valid.

This is a slight de-rail, but I just wanted to chime in and say I agree with this. It bothers me when two people are discussing/disagreeing on something and people blindly ride in on their high horses and tell them to cut it out / get along / take it to PM's. Discussion leads to disagreement. Disagreement leads to debate. Debate leads to change. Change often leads to improvement.

Some people call this "bickering", whilst others recognise it as a valuable step in cultural/social advancement.

Quick Comments

	syfChadMann:	I like this post..
	x5_Potter:	Take it to PM's buddy...
	frequency:	I hope everyone else read that in Yoda's voice
	NOM:	agree 100000%
	cruxSpoon:	I thought you were going to say, disagreement leads to hate, leads to anger, leads to dark side
	Baldie:	I agree, the only thing that needs to be avoided is making things personal.

[Sunset]

Oh, I am so getting amongst this thread when I get home from work ^_^ Good job, Piggu.

[PiG]

Originally Posted by Dox

This is a slight de-rail, but I just wanted to chime in and say I agree with this. It bothers me when two people are discussing/disagreeing on something and people blindly ride in on their high horses and tell them to cut it out / get along / take it to PM's. Discussion leads to disagreement. Disagreement leads to debate. Debate leads to change. Change often leads to improvement.

Some people call this "bickering", whilst others recognise it as a valuable step in cultural/social advancement.

There's disagreeing constructively and debating using the forum as it's meant to be. Then there's making snide or derogatory comments or simply disagreeing with no reasoning behind the disagreement. That sort of forum activity is counter-productive and it especially becomes a problem when the friends of those people hop on and back up those unsubstantiated points with a series of attacks or blind reinforcements of what was a trash original statement.

There have been times where the original statement when called out for it's lack of substance ends up being fleshed out by people who didn't even make the original post. Hence the reference to circle-jerking, bandwagonning etc etc.

As I said it hasn't been a major problem recently and I haven't seen it happen in the last week but there have been a few phases where it has just dragged the forum culture into the ground. Multiple people have spoken to me in those phases about why they hadn't been visiting sc2sea. Otherwise I would probably be convinved it's just my imagination/all in my head.

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

perfect

[randomness]

boss is soooo right about the scene in malaysia right now. it's practically non-existant. There's no barcraft around here, no one plays the game too.

[breadfan]

Originally Posted by Dox

This is a slight de-rail, but I just wanted to chime in and say I agree with this. It bothers me when two people are discussing/disagreeing on something and people blindly ride in on their high horses and tell them to cut it out / get along / take it to PM's. Discussion leads to disagreement. Disagreement leads to debate. Debate leads to change. Change often leads to improvement.

Some people call this "bickering", whilst others recognise it as a valuable step in cultural/social advancement.

I wholeheartedly agree - most of the time. There is a fine line with this that often gets crossed though, and there are times when the people involved would do well to realise that as someone centrally implicated in the whole thing, they are not necessarily in a position to objectively evaluate how badly devolved an argument has become. There are also times when this approach to things just flat out is inappropriate. There are definitely people who chime in when they have basically no business doing so, and their calls to "knock it off" create a fierier situation than there originally was. But then there's people who actually step in as a voice of reason, and their words should be heeded (I am thinking specifically of people like PiG here).

Basically, I think a lot of it comes down to respect for others, and particularly managing to not be disrespectful, whichever role you play in this.

[Konnect.4]

Let me put in my 2 cents here (even though I'm a diamond scrub at sc2 lol)

There are 2 scenes in Australia which I closely follow, dancing and (obviously) starcraft. There are actually a huge number of parallels that can be drawn from my 2 hobbies.

The dance scene in Australia is about half a decade or so more matured than the eSports scene which, as you have said, PiG, is really growing rapidly right now. Like sc2 the global dance scene is dominated by Korea, they have a harder work ethic and more rigorous training schedule. We have dancers that try to keep up, but at the end of it they are hindered by the Australia's remote location.

Aside from limited exposure we are removed from the current 'metagame' of dance until it is actively published via blogs, YouTube etc. This is my worry for eSports down under, do you think this can be overcome in the sc2 scene?

For example, in dance, the newest move or latest technique may have already been used at a battle/competition but we won't hear about it until days or even months later. The same can be said for sc2, the koreans, americans etc. may have already moved on to a newer greater meta but it takes so long for this information to trickle down we are just months behind and, therefore, not competitive.

Do you have any ideas on how you are able to overcome this?

Quick Comments

	breadfan:	Many people play on KR/NA/EU, plus we have access to every stream/tournament - gameplay wise I think we're up to date
	PiG:	diamond isn't scrub! modest!
	nirvAnA:	in the past some of the FXO guys moved to korea just to have the exact enviroment the koreans did!

[Asrathiel]

Originally Posted by Konnect.4

Let me put in my 2 cents here (even though I'm a diamond scrub at sc2 lol)

There are 2 scenes in Australia which I closely follow, dancing and (obviously) starcraft. There are actually a huge number of parallels that can be drawn from my 2 hobbies.

The dance scene in Australia is about half a decade or so more matured than the eSports scene which, as you have said, PiG, is really growing rapidly right now. Like sc2 the global dance scene is dominated by Korea, they have a harder work ethic and more rigorous training schedule. We have dancers that try to keep up, but at the end of it they are hindered by the Australia's remote location.

Aside from limited exposure we are removed from the current 'metagame' of dance until it is actively published via blogs, YouTube etc. This is my worry for eSports down under, do you think this can be overcome in the sc2 scene?

For example, in dance, the newest move or latest technique may have already been used at a battle/competition but we won't hear about it until days or even months later. The same can be said for sc2, the koreans, americans etc. may have already moved on to a newer greater meta but it takes so long for this information to trickle down we are just months behind and, therefore, not competitive.

Do you have any ideas on how you are able to overcome this?

DrGooSe here: t0o lazy to relog. By virtue of the fact that sc2 is an online sport and beamed direct to everyone's computer, being behind is likely to be a matter of weeks rather than months. However, This lag is going to persist until such time as we have the kinds of tournaments where the current meta is being developed (i.e GSL's IEM's Dreamhacks, etc.), and more importantly, the kinds of practice sessions (team houses, 8 hour/day practices among teams) that allow for understanding of new meta. More importantly, is that this infrastructure is perhaps required to not just follow new meta, but create it.

To use an analogy from science. I can read something in a science paper coming from Aus, Europe or the US, and then find it again 3 months later coming from a Chinese author. In China, perhaps that's considered OK. In western science, you would never get funding because science (and sc2 meta game) is about being the first to invent/discovery/explain, not the first to understand and incorporate what someone else did 3 months ago. Now this is something we a definitely capable of, but not without the proper infrastructure - entire team(s) of full time players.

I think sc2 is gonna be a bit like soccer for a while. For a long time, Australian soccer was nothing. Them we made a world cup, and Frank Lowy and Anthony Lapaglia invested millions into the sport, likely expecting to lose it all. And now we have a fantastically more popular and powerful sport. SEA SC2 requires a catalyst. Someone to go and win IEM, Dreamhack, etc. We need a rally point - we need Mel Gibson on a horse with face paint.

ETA: OMG will you stop posting as me you silly boy Or at least proofread if you do!!!!!

Edit 2 (DrGooSe): ETA = estimated time of arrival...??? Silly person. Mmmm Southern Comfort (^_^)

EDITED TO ADD: you are silly, getting me drunk and posting on my account.... I finished my drink btw...

Quick Comments

x5_dot:

LOL mel gibson?? can't we have harry potter instead? :P

[PiG]

Konnect I think the strength of esports is its accessibility! I think if people have more meetups or train harder they can match those Koreans! I think we will always be at a disadvantage whether in dance or in esports but it doesn't need to be as massive as some make out. Australia, a country with next to no snow has given rise to some of the best snow-sport athletes in the world! I think we just need to develop one step at a time and for the moment our best might have to travel overseas to reach the top international level but the goal is to nurture a strong enough scene at the grassroots and national levels so that our future talents can develop fully here. What this takes is a hell of a lot of passion from a lot of people. But I don't think it's beyond us!

[Konnect.4]

Originally Posted by Asrathiel

we need Mel Gibson on a horse with face paint.

SOLD!!!

Originally Posted by PiG

Konnect I think the strength of esports is its accessibility! I think if people have more meetups or train harder they can match those Koreans! I think we will always be at a disadvantage whether in dance or in esports but it doesn't need to be as massive as some make out. Australia, a country with next to no snow has given rise to some of the best snow-sport athletes in the world! I think we just need to develop one step at a time and for the moment our best might have to travel overseas to reach the top international level but the goal is to nurture a strong enough scene at the grassroots and national levels so that our future talents can develop fully here. What this takes is a hell of a lot of passion from a lot of people. But I don't think it's beyond us!

It definitely isn't and it's obviously all our dreams to have this be the case one day. Good point with the snow sports. I guess, the way I see it, there is no "snow boarding 2" etc. I'm cautious as to how long it will take for the Aussie scene to mature to a point where we are competitive. If it took, say, winter sport events 20 years to get to a point where Australia was at the lead, could the sc2 scene replicate those results and that evolution in a quarter of the time before the next instalment of sc where it's a rat race back to the top again? I guess only time will tell, and the support for our Aussie progamers. PiG hwaiting!!

[FXOBoSs]

Pig,

I must thank you for a very competent, intelligent response to my blog. Its actually really nice for me personally to get such a response rather than the various twitter responses I have been getting.

Of course, as stated in my blog, there are exemptions to the facts such as yourself being sick, with what happened with our event and I have been following your career quite a bit of late with the media you are getting as well as watching various games and tuning into the SEA events when I can.

I am going to go way out on a limb here and address not your point so much, but the points that have been brought up within this thread.

Firstly, the "he has dumped SEA" so on so forth comments.

I live in Malaysia, I support the local scene, I provide help and advice to those who wish to start their own events in this area of the world, and when I have time, I run my own events. I would be doing it more often if the SC2 scene was not dead here. I like to give back to my community and thats just how I am. Everything I have ever invested into SEA, except for SEA players, is from my own pocket.

I think one big illusion of SEA is that AUS/NZ = SEA. It doesn't, reach out to AUS means you are hitting the same people all the time. There is a HUGE viewership available to the SEA region that is not being utilised, but I do not have the means at this point in time to capture it, and also its hard to then make it monetarily viable for a company with large consolidated cash sponsorships (i.e all money in 1 place for easier management).

But at the same time, accessibility to events is extremely difficult for Australians, and given that E-sports actually hasn't got huge amounts of money in it, it is very difficult for Aussies and Kiwis to get a great chance to travel to events. I won't argue that its extremely hard for AUS/NZ people to part take in what is a growing international scene.

All this being said.... The best opportunities for SEA players, are those that are international. You want to lure the money to your scene, you want to get the support you deserve/demand, then these events (such as FXOIS but there are more important ones) are the ones you should be making sure you get to on time and stick to the schedule and rules (not directed at you pig). This is how you will get the true growth in the scene.

As for practice, I have no idea how SEA players practice. I can believe its extremely difficult for some with latency issues and what not. But there are enough of you as friends with great minds and skill to collaborate together and grow quickly and skillfully. Your advantage is that no one has exposure to you as players, with a bit of creativity, you guys can bring out the strategies that have never been seen before.

There are players with Korean experience, Tgun, Glade, both have enough knowledge to pass on about training environments and schedules. I know some people don't believe in the large practice time = large pay out method. But so far only Stephano has proven the world wrong. The others who have been saying that are now mid tier at best. Things such as a collective vent discussing GSL matches etc can be considered practice.

Anyway.

I am more than happy to invest in SEA... I am just not going to invest in something that is SEA only. It doesn't achieve anything, right now, for a number of reasons. The first reason being that the player numbers are just too small. The skill gap between last and first is too great and the exposure is miserable (almost 50x less than an international event).
One idea I have been personally toying with is an NA vs SEA style tournament. The fall of NA and the rise of SEA should keep it relatively even in terms of skill and the viewership will be triple that of any SEA event. More viewership = more money, plain and simple.

I applaud those of you who are in SEA doing the hard yards to try to get events up and running such as Dox. But at the same time, having power struggles and mental crisis' are not going to achieve your own goals, or help anything.

Its very easy to have the "so why don't you do it mentality" actually its the easiest way out of fixing the problem. I have too, invested thousands of my own money and company money, not to mention the resources I have to try to prop up SEA, but I do work for a company, business, which will always come first. Not to mention, I am not the only person who makes the decisions.

Anyway, I do wish everything to come out rosy in SEA and I wait for the next Legionnaire (or return of). So that I can cheer for him/her/them the same way I did when I was 15.

Peace

Sorry for the Essay, I hoped to just nail it all in 1 post.

[eCKo`Switch]

I feel like the problem with SEA is the fact that people outside of those that frequent this site just aren't really giving it a chance. I see so many posts outside on the more popular sites like TL and reddit trashing SEA as though it doesn't even exist. I'm fairly new here, and before I got a chance to get to know some of the people here, I kind of had the bandwagon mindset of "HURRR SEA GM = EU DIAMOND" seeing as I only posted on TL/reddit etc, but after I lurked here for a while, I realised that everyone here is nerd baller out the ass, and that there are some sick world class players.

TL;DR SEA needs more exposure, and people from the more popular websites need to stop being f--king sheep.

Edit in respose to Konnect.4
I think we have people with enough skill to do extremely well in a major foreign event to be that catalyst - it's kinda down to who has the balls to put the money behind the players to get there. It's a risk that I doubt a whole lot of people are willing to take.

Quick Comments

Konnect.4:

Exposure comes with skill, as Goose mentioned above, you need a catalyst. A HuK or an IdrA that brings success.

[VoxMSI.Rogue]

I think people need to understand that population wise SEA may never have the same following as other areas, as well as the popularity of other games such as LoL and dota etc our audiences will always be smaller and our communitiy will never reach the same size as Korea and America.

In New Zealand for example, we have already seen a huge growth in people involved in SC2, once regular tournaments and barcrafts were established more and more people have been taking part in the community and coming here to sc2sea to post etc. I guess most people just know TL and Reddit and don't continue to look closer to home for a number of reasons:

1 - They haven't had a friend introduce them to SC2SEA and they either don't know it exists or they are too afraid to approach what seems to be a bunch of people who all know each other well.

2 - They are getting what they need from places like TL and Reddit and don't WANT to be a part of the local scene

3 - They don't actively participate in tournaments and are more of a casual player who doesn't really have a lot of community involvement at all.

I think in time more people will find there way here and our numbers will grow, already we are getting good turnouts to events such as barcrafts etc, but maybe we need to harness these audiences to make them aware of the wider community? This would draw in new members and there is plenty of untapped potential too. There would be almost 200 regular Auckland Barcrafters who don't post on here, and that is just the tip of the NZ iceburg.

We definitely have the talent and the content, we make posts in all the right places and the world knows we exist, but do the people in our own countries really know we are here?

Quick Comments

	Konnect.4:	I think 2. is the most common. TL and Reddit are huge and fulfil their own niche where does sc2sea fit in?
	nirvAnA:	Such a good post :) Those three factors do seem like the biggest factors!

[syfChadMann]

Originally Posted by FXOBoSs

I am more than happy to invest in SEA... I am just not going to invest in something that is SEA only. It doesn't achieve anything, right now, for a number of reasons. The first reason being that the player numbers are just too small. The skill gap between last and first is too great and the exposure is miserable (almost 50x less than an international event).
One idea I have been personally toying with is an NA vs SEA style tournament. The fall of NA and the rise of SEA should keep it relatively even in terms of skill and the viewership will be triple that of any SEA event. More viewership = more money, plain and simple.

Money where your mouth is.
Host a tournament where you send the winner to MLG (interchangeable for, IEM, GSL, Dreamhack etc...)
meets all of the criteria you've mentioned... and will prove that SEA can compete with the rest of the world.

Quick Comments

	PiG:	You mean FXO pickup a new SEA player?
	nirvAnA:	I think FXO already gave some SEA players an amazing opportunity, MLG, Korea, etc

[FXOBoSs]

Originally Posted by cR.ChadMann

Money where your mouth is.
Host a tournament where you send the winner to MLG (interchangeable for, IEM, GSL, Dreamhack etc...)
meets all of the criteria you've mentioned... and will prove that SEA can compete with the rest of the world.

We already sent tgun to MLG twice, glade to Korea. Tgun has done well at MLG before. Tgun was also part of our GSTL team, and almost qualified for code A.

How about I talk to Choya and let Pig stay in the FXO house in Korea. Housing and food paid for? I think thats a more worthy investment than the one you suggested.

Of course there will be commitments required but I heard recently he is going to KR. And our roster is pretty zerg heavy.

There are sometimes more valuable things to do than spend money. Such as help train someone in the KR environment so they are more competitive internationally.

Edit: The reason I mentioned glade and tgun is because I know the cost and I know there is no way to make up that cost if the player is not on my team. Thus it is not a good business decision by any means.

Quick Comments

	TCPLemminks:	Or send mafia as well?
	iM yang:	SEND YANG
	syfChadMann:	They were your players... why not support the whole scene rather than your team...? if that is what you are all about.
	PiG:	any support and the chance to train with a top Korean team would be hugely appreciated!

[mGGDrGooSe]

Originally Posted by IrisRogue

I think in time more people will find there way here and our numbers will grow, already we are getting good turnouts to events such as barcrafts etc, but maybe we need to harness these audiences to make them aware of the wider community?

sc2sea.com banners at barcrafts??? Surely Paragon wouldn't mind one banner up there somewhere? Get the banners up at CH, ACL and BYOC lans as well?

Quick Comments

	x5_dot:	banner competition?
	nirvAnA:	this sounds brilliant!!!!!!!!!