Woa Poi, a hell of a nice job! Grande!!

And so deserve a better experience (in Blizzard's eyes at least) than every other customer? I mean we all paid for the game.

Let's put it like this, is of course not the end of the world, but if you have 2 clients that paid the same for the same product/service, you don't treat them differently when it comes to "customer service".

Unless you deeply believe the only client worth keeping is one, but even then, if you are smart, you don't yell to both "oh look I gave a better support to the other client, cause reasons :)

That's one of the "excuses" that were suggested, but, If a GM smurf is in silver/bronze/gold he/she's there for a reason:

1. Boost some friend (boosting shold be punished, heavily imo)
2. Doing some sort of "challange", from Bronze to GM in 24 hours, or something on the line
3. Trolling

Why should they help this specific category to rank-up faster while not focusing on the actual players of those SR levels?

1. I mean, if you truly are GM/master, you'll breeze through lower ranks no matter what hero you play, and your friend (unless he really sucks) as well.
2. Do challanges on QP, do not waste the experience of other (less skilled) players to boost yr ego.
3. This won't fix it, 'cause if he/she wants to troll lower ranks, he can simply lose games to lose the "quick" SR gained in the wins.

To be more explicit, the reason lower ranked players are at lower ranks, are not smurfs, it's a matter of skill (and all aspects involved into this) and general level of trolls, that is true are present at every level, but again, a GM team can try and cover-up for a single troll, a bronze/silver(gold/plat one will have way more issues.

"As many know, performance-based skill rating is being removed in season eight for those rank diamond and above"

Still no mention of this for other ranks, I doubt the majority of players is diamond or above (gold/plat probably?), and onetricks at high SR at least ar good at playing their hero, at lower levels they are not.

Honestly don't get why implement a change just for a part of the community...

I agree, but do not forget that in theory their plan was to have home and away matches, not adding more fanchises in EU, KO and China would mean hell for the 3 already existing ones.

That said for EU I'd say probably Paris (or a DE one), for China Hong Kong and/or Beijin?

Would be nice yes, thanks mate.

When an organization, big or small, winning or not, closes is always a sad day...
:candle:

And gl with your future adventures!

Wasn't there already an article about this? I guess I'm having visions from the future! -.-

Anyway, sick intro video (did they pay to use that OST?), best of luck to the new iteration of Kungarna!

Merry Christ...wait is it too late? Oh well whatever happy holidays guys!

Indeed!
Do you guys think we'll be able to see some of these matches? Maybe the finals?

Hahah that's the secret, not the silly screams he makes when using his ulti, it's from Mandalore! :)

VR can be pretty heavy for guys that can't stand it.

I'm a videogame tester, our company this past year had to test a couple of VR games, it was a disaster, half of us guys got nausea/sick etc...

A strong suggestion if you suffer of migraines, have a doubt you might suffer of motion sickness, or simply don't have the moeny to buy the good ones (HTC and Oculus) avoid VR at all costs.

Nah he was talking of teams/organizations not players, I was just wondering how "fair" the league would be in the long term if the first few teams that joined in will never be relegated out of it due to the entry fee they paid some months ago.

Let's say OWL in it's final form will have 20 spots, 12 of which are guaranteed never to be relegated out of it (at least not due to results or minor infractions), can we still call it a real fair competition?

EDIT: and yes I know it's a private owned competition, so it's based primarly around agreements between the owner (Blizzard) and the teams.

That sounds more doable, and I'd be tempted to give it to Genji.

Oh and btw Grevious could really be some sort of a pseudo-omnic himself

well that's an easy win for the sith I fear.
I mean Genji can have trouble with Winston's tesla gun and surely doens't like to be pushed around by Lucio, neither of them are even close to Vader. :)

"There’s no guaranteed spots in the League"
Meaning that one of the teams already in could be kicked out from one day to the other?

"as similar deals are likely set to be finalized in other regions."

So is OWL going to end as a pay to view esport? :)
'cause I wouldn't be surprised, if they contact "traditional" brodcasting networks.

Well maybe Blizzard could allow 3rd parties to hold their tournaments for them instead of "choking them".
Is not like we didn't have cross-regional matches before the OWL league was even announced, right?

:(

Poi it's a shame our FR cousins have so many talented players while we don't...
Ok not completely true but our scene is def not at the level of the FR one.

Anyway I really hope for all the actual pros (but also potential new ones!) who spent months scrimming and playing in tournaments to find a proper collocation, being them teams in OWL, Contenders or anything else.

Heheh yes they are not even existing anymore... :(

All your points are valid, what I'm left wondering is, how much are the players actually paid?

The moment star players will start getting paid like LBJ or Steph Curry (Messi or Ronaldo if we speak of football) I'll give up and admit Blizzard was right and I was completely wrong.

As of now I really can't see it.

Esport fans are and act different from traditional sport ones (I'm a bit of both hehe, but in esports I look for something different than from trad. ones).

Town/City teams have imo a smaller appeal in esports, banking everything on it, and making it so that it will take time to have a proper "world-wide" league, while in the meantime the rest (except a couple of notable exceptions) rots...

Let me be blunt (and yes I know many won't like what I say), the truth is, Blizzard simply doesn't care.

They care about their game of course, it's their top product at the moment, but they don't look at it from a real "esport" point of view, someone in there (being it Nate or some other shot caller) just wants to turn esports into "traditional sports".

Why? I imagine there are variopus reasons:

They want full control of what's surrounding OW, so in their eyes many small tournaments are bad, better have less torunaments and have them all under their "umbrella".

They are very American, in an eighties kind of way, so their focus is of course on NA, the rest is, let's say second class (please if you are from the States don't take this personally, things have changed, but people my age or older grew up in that era)

But the real reason is of course "da money", classic esport organizations are by no means finacial colossues, so what Blizzard wants is... well the actual big guys to buy into their game... they see it like the NBA or NFL, the problem is... OW, like all other esports is not the NBA.

In the end they might be right and everything will work out well, I doubt it, but that's just my personal opinion.

p.s. btw thanks for the translation mate!

The :candle: is strong in this one!
GL Puppiez!

Erm, I know I sound like an old grumpy granpa, but...
Isn't a little too late?

I mean check the teams directly invited for EU and NA (but also China), how many of those are still standing?

Second point that I'd like to know more about, since they decided all OWL teams will have their "dev. teams" directly invited, are there rules on how these teams should be composed? Like NA teams need X NA players in their roster, EU teams EU players etc?

Sill hoping for AKM to find a home in OWL, imo he deserves it.

Boosting is equivalent to doping in the old sports, so I'm sorry but no is not "nothing", please dont' let it get out of hand.

That doens't mean we should condone throwers/toxic players 'cause it's more or less severe than Boosting, if you are a private player, well worse for you, but if you are a pro, you should be held accountable for your incorrect behaviours.

I'm giving XQC the "benefit of the doubt", saying that he looks like someone who might need some help in his personal and working life, 'cause if it's not that, well it's even worse he's doing it for the money, so...

Well hit them where it counts, a fine should suffice, proportionate to what they get paid of course (nothing life breaking), if he repeats it, a bigger one, a 3rd episode? Out of the team/league.

Grande poi!
thanks a lot mate ;)

I'm still trying to get my head around this, what's the point of an esport having an Open division, with no one allowed to cast it. :/

Indeed, and let's hope no candle here for a looong time.

Hope it was right?
Nah these are just some of the "bronze" players OWL didn't want... such a waste.

Nice team btw, would get my vote. :)

They "plan", "ideally", "could", Etienne speaks also about legacy if I'm not wrong in that article, I might be very old-style (and I am), but you do not "buy" a legacy, you build it.

If they (C9/Spitfire) were in also for the fans/community they might have found a couple of EU (preferably UK) players, even if just as subs, they went instead the "full double KO roster" way.

Someone was saying that also Football (Soccer for US guys) has teams full of foreigners, that's true, but even in Premier League when it started to get out of hand, they introduced a rule "At least 8 player/roster have to be from the UK", so 8 UK players out of 26 in the roster...

B...but where are the VODs?
Nowhere to be found on the OWL site, you guys got any idea?

Agree, looks like someone thought "double Koreans, double the win", well persons aren't numbers.

And IF they really had to do have 2 full rosters, why not a KO main team and an actual EU "B" Team?

Oh well surprised by the result anyway.

Mistakes hasn't played competitively for such a long time, I wonder how rusty he can be.

That's true. :)

Only problem I have is that besides the sick name (gotta love the Spitfires, such sexy flying beasts), I'm not to much invested in the roster, which surely is top 1-2 for OWL, but...

I'm an EU guy I like to root for the underdogs, possibly European ones. ;)

This sounds so much like what happened in EU some months earlier, and it's a damn pity! Best wishes to OW Chinese community, better times will surely come!

This, this and again this. :)
Sideshow, poke at Blizzard's doors, you have a bright future there (well not just there, but ehi).

"None of the players from those teams made it into the Shanghai Dragon roster, a move that has been met with significant criticism."

This, I know their first match isn't exactely what we should be checking, having them faced one of the top dogs of the OWL, but... If you have some winners, why go ONLY for potential talent?

Don't see many chances for the Outlaws to win it, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Yeh same here, let's hope are good ones, gl to both teams btw.

You (generaly speaking) always have a different choice, life's "just" a serie of choices, it's up to you if you want to take make it or not.

Whatever choice you make you have to accept its consequences thou, being them mild/harsh, positive/negative, and live with them, even more so if you tend to always pick the easy way.

I had just quit high school because I did not feel any satisfaction from my studies, and I felt pressure to bring in money to my family to help support them.>

The world is literally full of people who don't do what they'd love for a living, but break their backs in factories, in the fields, in the army, or straight up live on the street, so yes everyone deserves a second chance (them too).

Best of luck to SADO with his second chance as if he fails to choose again I wouldn't give him a third one.

Nah I endorse this roster as well, looks legit af. :)

Now, I actually never really liked them too much, as a team, but...

1. When everyone was playing the "boring" triple tank meta, they were the only ones not doing iut, and still winning, matches.

2. Everything can be labeled as "compressed" and of course a lot depends on how big of a window you take into consideration, in a scene that's basically 2 years old, being "Untouchable" for even just 4-5 months isn't really compressed.

Are they to be considered THE best OW team in the compressed comp. history of this game? Nope they aren't (not even just in west).
Are they to be considered one of the most winning teams? Yes they are.
Did some of their players "deserve" a better outcome (speaking of OWL)? Absolutely yes, but shit happens to everyone.

All in all, thanks Rogue for the matches you gave us, and GL to all of your players.

OW should give you guys better material to craft those titles! Where are the puns! :)

Honestly feels like what they did with OWL (on smaller scale) again, do they really want for everything outside of OWL and Korea to die? Again?

Btw very sad about 123, was really a nice team to watch, gl to all the players!

For NA? Probably, it's more supported by Blizzard than the Open Divisions or at least looks like it.

For the rest of world? Not a bit

This is indeed a sad news, rest in peace mate!

The question is, will we be able to actually see these games? Or you know, at least the grand final for each region? 'Cause that didn't happen for EU last time.

Nah all according to plans, Canada only wants comebacks!
Well one can always hope :)