From Korea to China: Player Importing

I recently read an article in LoL Reddit addressing how Faker is single-handedly carrying not the whole Korean region - the LCK. As I read through it, I was feeling pretty sad about the current situation which Chinese organizations importing all the top-tier Korean players to their league with money power. It is indeed a good thing for the players who were underrated as well as in terms of salary in Korea, but it is, in wide point of view, still a loss of the competitive scene in Korean region. Here is the article that I captured- hope you get a general idea of how the changes are being made nowadays. And imagine what would happen if Faker manages to leave LCK. How would the competitive scene of League of Legends in Asia change? How hard could that wind blow, and somewhat affect other regions?

Click on the image, right click the following, click 'Open image in new tab', and click on the image in new tab for a better resolution.

"Gaming can make a better world"

Gaming used to be considered as a medium of time-wasting, expressing laziness, and a meaningless task.

You know what? If you do think so, I would say you're more like a lame old politicians who doesn't even try to live the real progressive world, than the rest of the people on the earth.

Gaming is not a meaningless task which you run away from your life, but a work that spend time experience bunch of interesting things.

Check out how many people in the world spend how much of their time experiencing epic things throughout playing games, and further learn what humanity would be like when there is not even a similar thing to the 'gaming'.

New LoL gamemode that I designed

The idea is from the dream that I had like a week ago. I tried to sort out and arrange those to design an actual LoL gamemode, and I also revised those idea a day after the designing.

So here it is:

- The map's like the one in the Maze Runner. There's a huge maze and the Jungle creeps are here and there.

- Players are summoned in a random place as a Jungler, so they level up by killing the Jungle creeps, have a skirmish when they meet other players, and the results proceed to a ranking. Players who earned the most points at the end of the game are rewarded better.

- There are also some time that a 'Random Box' with potions, armors, weapons, and so on, falling from the sky randomly.

- The location of the box fallen is visible, so champions gather up and fight around it.

- There could be some fun finding a treasure chest while players are Jungling.

- Certain time limit exist. When some amount of time like, a minute before the end of the game is left, the first place player become publicly visible so that other players can turn the game around by killing him.

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And here's some questionings to my idea and revisions.

- Since Riot does love the 'teamplay',



this might not be considered as a legit idea of their gamemode. But the construction of the mode itself shouldn't take much effort. The queue timers will be a lot faster too.

- Champions that are strong in 1:1 or skirmishes would be considered OP in this gamemode.
I personally think that it'll be Talon and Nidalee.

- If the 'Random Boxes' fell down, it'll be a better strategy to hide in a nearby bush and wait for the others to come.

- The way of making the first place player to be publicly visible, would be better to notify the location with a constant (like 5 seconds delay) ping, rather than just giving a vision of them.

- ★ New picks/bans methods also must be designed. Since this is an individual sports, the last pick is absolutely disadvantageous than the first pick. If it's like a normal game, the dodges will be insanely frequent. If repetitive champions are allowed, then there will be too much similar champions throughout the game.

- Some health regeneration method should be provided, since there won't be a recall. Some place like 'Sanctum of Stamina' (this also provides a possibility of inducing a fight around it), or an ability for every champions that 'restores the health to full if not interrupted by an enemy ability in 10 seconds after casting', similar to the recalling option, could be a solution.

- That ability is also essential for champions who are vulnerable to the Jungle creeps.

- Not only gaining the point after Kills, but also rewarding some golds for an item, to make them slightly stronger.

- Similar to the Shurima mode before, reinforcing the first place player for the compensation of giving a vision of him would also be an idea.

- While writing down, I realized that 'the Random Box' has too much problem. Too much elements related to luck, such as the random items coming out or the falling down location. There must be a way that provides a balanced itemization method.

- To help Jungling and to induce early skirmishes, every champions should be around lvl. 3~5 (not sure about this) at the beginning of the game.

- The starting location could be totally random (so there could be a skirmish happening at the beginning of the game when the two or more spawns at similar location), or just start at a chosen location. The former one depends on the luck more.

If you're a 'Pro-gamer'...

TSM Lustboy's Twit, on April Fools (his name isn't Eugene Park).

I was pretty disappointed by Lustboy's Twit, so I'm going to write few sentences down.

"Just had another bad dream about being a league pro in Korea. The dream was horrible. Hope we win today so It won't even happen."
"Yeah I mean, they were so mean to me and It was definitely worst period of my life. I'm so glad that I'm a part of NA so far."

If that 'they' is Korean fans, this will be a sentence that will cause my personal disappointment.

There are several opinions about this, but here's what I think.

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 There are so many problems in the fan-community of League (especially Korea), so a current pro-gamer trashtalking about his (previous) fans is an understandable thing?

 1. In Season 3 Worlds, Samsung White's Dade had experienced this kind of problem. He was critiqued and even insulted by his fans because of the result that he made in Worlds. I'm not saying that a pro being insulted is acceptable. The shoutcasters at the moment even officially asked the fans to restrain some excessive criticism. Though they didn't stop despite of that...

 However, Dade tried to accept those criticisms or insults and not even did a single reaction. He surmounted the negative actions of the fans only with his efforts and skill. At last he is now being praised by being the best Mid-laner in the world, and his status get much higher due to his wisdom.

 Lustboy must've reacted like that after suffering from those excessive things, but withstanding those things, in some ways, is a destiny of a professional gamers.


 2. "The problem is that e-Sports fans are young, and the subject is related to the Internet, which is making people sure that they're shown as anonymous. Also it is hard for the pros to have a mature sportmanship becuase the cycle of pro life is way shorter than other sports."

 It is pretty possible for the problem to have such side. But I saw an enormous amount of criticisms and insults being threw to other professional sports (soccer, baseball, basketball, and etc) players.

 There was one soccer player who was flamed by his fans like he's in hell. Sun-Hong Hwang, was the player who was insulted through PC communication or newspaper, at 1994, when the Internet wasn't even being used in Korea. He was even called 'the most insulted person in the history of 5000 years of Korea.' He grinded his teeth for the 98's World Cup to redeem his reputation, but he got injured right before that.

 Despite of all that, he finally demonstrated his skill in 2002 World Cup with a fancy first goal in the first preliminary game and continued his fame to his manager career. He is now called 'the regent Hwangsun' (this is the term that is related to Korean history), and being loved by his fans.


 3. So the ultimate factor of the problem is Korean people's national character, or the fan culture?

 There are countries that assassinated the player who missed the penalty in the World Cup. There are some players in other countries who commit suicide due to an extremity of the pressure that his fans make. It is somehow natural that most of the fans are having a quick alternation of joy and sorrow, and this is not only a problem of Korea.

 There is a slight difference with the degree, but fans of NA and EU do the same thing. I think it is a right of the fans in the first place, that 'criticize' professional players. (But profanities and an excessive blames should be sublated.)


 4. What is the best reaction of those pros?

 In the first place, I don't think that fans having an emotion or criticizing their players are not the wrong thing. Fans are originally like that. If one's analyzing a sports with a mature insight, he's an analysist. Most of the fans have their own emotion to their interest and don't make a judgement with a rational eyesight, so they support certain player or a team and have an emotional, economical, and timely expenses even though it is not that of a benefit to them.

 I sometimes think that fans (including me) are close to 'idiots,' but it is a discourtesy when telling an idiot an idiot in idiot's face.

 Professional sports exist as fans exist. So those remarks of Lustboy could've been better to not be spoken. But those apologies such as CJ Shy's was quite a bit. He should've not apologized in the first place, because his team (not even himself) simply just missed the chance to get to the second place.

CJ Entus Shy's apologies on missing a chance to get his team to the 2nd place of LCK Winter.
Like, what the hell is this for? You weren't even bad!

 If, Lustboy Twitted that with a mindset of something like 'IDGAF to Korean fans from now because I'll be continuing my career in NA,' then that itself will be another sad thing. There must've been fans who supported him when he played in CJ Blaze and even now when he's playing in TSM. (I personally am a huge TSM fan, even though I'm a natural born Korean.)

 Actions like CloudTemplar took, asking fans to refrain an excessive actions against pros after his retirement, is indeed acceptable. But most of Korean fans might not take Lustboy's action like that.

 It would be important for the fans to improve and self-clear their community to help e-Sports pro-gamers who are mostly young, to not be mentally tired. Also pro-gamers should not have an interest with those extremities, and prove themselves with their own efforts.