Life In 19x19

Araban wrote:A tempting answer is to say that Master league is equivalent to shodan, but it took a LOT more effort for me to reach shodan (KGS) than to reach Master. However, I've seen people play hundreds and hundreds of games (not portrait farming) and still be < Gold, so for some maybe it is just as, if not more difficult than reaching shodan...

I know go players who've been go playing longer than I have and are still DDK. I know a guy who's been stuck at about 19 kyu even with regular play and occasional study.

The fastest I can imagine someone reaching shodan is maybe a year and a thousand games or so. And that's not typical. There are a lot of people who've reached masters in SC2 from basically no RTS experience, and the game has been out less than a year.

If masters is equivalent to shodan based on rank histograms, then Starcraft has a much shallow learning curve than Go. Either that, or casual players represent a bigger portion of the Starcraft playing population.

I think it's interesting to note that the 2 ranking systems work in opposite directions. In go we start from the top - the best players (let's ignore pros or just call them 9d) can give you one stone so you are 8d, or 9 stones so you are 1d, 1ds can give you x stones so you are xkyu. If the general standard improves than complete beginners are technically worse (if we assume beginners on average are still starting from the same lack of skill), so you might need to go to 20k or 30k. SC2 otoh says the lowest 20% are bronze, so if we assume that level of skill stays the same, but players are getting better (which should be relatively fast in such a young game, I know day[9] goes on about that sometimes) then masters should get harder and harder to get into, so it's being pushed up. Isn't that sort of why Bliz introduced masters anyway? Diamond couldn't hold all the amazing players and the merely good ones?

If anyone wants to chat about MLG while watching the stream, I'll be waiting in #L19 on irc QuakeNet. I'm tired of all these TLers who talk about everything but the game.

EDIT: Then again, the stream would have to start working first.

MLG so disastrous. Can't watch anything. Lag will skew results(as I understand it, today's issues are resulting from the ISP used at the location?). It's pretty disheartening. I don't get why people are surprised mlg is taking the brunt of the viewer's anger. After hyping it up so much, and then failing on the first day. Following up with this on Day 2, even if it's beyond their control to a certain extent, is not going to have anyone happy.

ketchup wrote:MLG so disastrous. Can't watch anything. Lag will skew results(as I understand it, today's issues are resulting from the ISP used at the location?). It's pretty disheartening. I don't get why people are surprised mlg is taking the brunt of the viewer's anger. After hyping it up so much, and then failing on the first day. Following up with this on Day 2, even if it's beyond their control to a certain extent, is not going to have anyone happy.

It was still kind of fun live, for the carnival atmosphere, but I certainly feel bad for my friends who traveled for it. A friend flew in from Los Angeles, and only got to see one game today, which is harsh. Really, it was far from optimal for everybody involved. The free Doctor Pepper helped smooth things over a little, at least =).

Well obviously Saturday was total fail for the main stage. Eventually we got smart and just watched the other games. It seems that as long as they weren't streaming the other games were able to be played, although many games were getting paused a lot. They had 2 stations setup with TVs over the players heads, so you could watch the FPOV more easily for those 2 games.

Sunday was much better, and we watched several matches on the main stage, although they had to mute commentators during the actual game so players couldn't hear (Commentary >>> seeing live player!). Ok enough with the complaints, on to a few things that happened there.

I caught iNcontroL, shook hands and wished him luck with the NASL project. At another point we were waiting behind the FPOV stations, and suddenly we turned slightly and became part of a pro-player circle: Huk, IdrA, Machine, and a couple others. They were just joking around, something about Machine/iNcontroL teamkills etc. After like 30 seconds of being "in", Huk had to leave, and some other players approached and the circle was reformed without us included.

Saturday I was wearing my TESPA shirt (Texas eSports) that I bought at their last tourny. TESPA organizers had a group of people there, and when they saw my shirt immediately came over to say hi. We talked a bit about their upcoming tourny (I can't go all day due to conflict, but maybe go observe later in the day). Later Saturday I notice Day9, and then see TESPA is giving him something. Again the circle is not totally closed so I just walk up and become part of TESPA for the gift giving, I don't even know what they're giving him haha!

For the grand finals Sunday, Halo and CoD was finished, so they put the game up on all 3 stages. I didn't get up from where it looked like the Halo section was totally full, and the CoD section was partially full, making the overall crowd really big.

yoyoma wrote:I caught iNcontroL, shook hands and wished him luck with the NASL project. At another point we were waiting behind the FPOV stations, and suddenly we turned slightly and became part of a pro-player circle: Huk, IdrA, Machine, and a couple others. They were just joking around, something about Machine/iNcontroL teamkills etc. After like 30 seconds of being "in", Huk had to leave, and some other players approached and the circle was reformed without us included.

Saturday I was wearing my TESPA shirt (Texas eSports) that I bought at their last tourny. TESPA organizers had a group of people there, and when they saw my shirt immediately came over to say hi. We talked a bit about their upcoming tourny (I can't go all day due to conflict, but maybe go observe later in the day). Later Saturday I notice Day9, and then see TESPA is giving him something. Again the circle is not totally closed so I just walk up and become part of TESPA for the gift giving, I don't even know what they're giving him haha!

Haha, sounds like you had a good time. So jealous you got to meet iNcontroL. If they have another one in D.C. this season (or anywhere reasonably near Philadelphia), I'm definitely going. Any other people here live near me?

Did I just see Araban off-racing on iNControl's stream?

So I've been taking a break from SC2, in order to get good and frustrated with Go again.

In the meantime, apparently the media thinks the that the international SC2 scene is exploding.

Apparently there's going to be an NASL, and quite a few other leagues in the North American area.

What do you guys think about this? Is North America ready for Starcraft2 on the Ocho?

I hope so.

fwiffo wrote:Did I just see Araban off-racing on iNControl's stream?

o__O...don't think so.

I'm probably not going to catch the rest of the bo5 but here is a summary of the sgf's from the first 2 MKP vs MC games.

Game 1


Game 2

Araban wrote:

fwiffo wrote:Did I just see Araban off-racing on iNControl's stream?

o__O...don't think so.

Heh, he was playing a Terran with a similar ID to yours, and you had talked about maybe trying a different race, so I thought it might be a smurf account.

GSL RO4 spoiler

I just found out MLG Anaheim is the same weekend as US Go Congress begins!
They're only 2 hours drive apart!

ETA: MLG July 29-31. Congress July 31-August 7. For shame MountainGo!

yoyoma wrote:I just found out MLG Anaheim is the same weekend as US Go Congress begins!
They're only 2 hours drive apart!

LOL When is MLG Anaheim? I was going to visit my sister in San Diego this summer, maybe I'll be able to be there.