I have to wonder where critical thinking has gone, some of the posts here are straight incredible and hard to believe anyone could even think of them, much less type them without a reason check.
The types of discussions we have here regularly, curiously enough often tied to something ZeroEmpires has done, are signified by one dominant thing - unquestioning faith, supported by aggression and arrogance towards anyone who's not afflicted by the same. And I hope you can see that being a problem for everyone, no matter if the initiative is okay or not, as it doesn't allow for constructive criticism or way forward - you cannot live on hype forever (however it seems to be the business model of some). If you want to respond there are not many dissenters and it's just a few naysayers, I would point you to the fact that not everyone wants to be subject to public beating just for different opinion, which is, if you look around, exactly happening even here. Just for posting a different, and actually very relevant, as it touches him personally, point of view. And that's a respected player. Why would anyone else with worries about the effects of this (or anything else) want to be subjected to even worse if someone already respected is treated this way.
Regarding the issue at hand, I've posted about what I think of it somewhere else on Saturday where it was attempted to be hyped:
While the last bit could be history and doesn't need to repeat itself (I just wonder if the players were told about such a significant and rather recent thing), future will tell, turns out I was right in the rest. Just from looking around at things and analysing them. How is it literally nobody else (at least from the posters) figured the same, and it had to be ZeroEmpires himself posting it (curiously enough, probably even him realising it's getting out of hand), and then Viper confirming, for you lot to get it?
To look at this issue with Team Secret more broadly, the conflict of interest mentioned by the brave few in this thread is absolutely evident and undeniable, and it doesn't matter how many teams he might be trying to get on board somewhere - I get it it's tempting to downplay it because we're a community and all, but, well, that's where you're wrong - that's not true anymore. ZeroEmpires is running a business. ECL is a hard-on business. He's not a "community organiser" anymore, and he is proving it lately quite often, pursuing first and foremost how to make more money, just look at the complicated ECL scheme, how much effort he put into that. And this fits right in.
Just look what has happened with ECL, how are they bending the competition so that they get the results they want, which they think will yield them the highest viewership - they don't even shy from purposefully changing qualification system after they know the sign-ups, so who would be playing whom, and they even purposefully introduced a mod to remove a playstyle deemed unattractive, therefore maybe lowering viewership, ahead of its potential official release (which is another fun story of them not being straightforward, somehow mysteriously missed by the community - Cysion has clearly stated this is just a tournament mod, testing some options, and the changes are not ensured to be in the official release, because they have a whole array of different, collateral changes coming as well). If you think these things were motivated by wanting a fairer competition only, you need to put down your rose-tinted glasses and realise one simple thing - they had about half a year to prepare everything. To think of every detail. And tbh these things are really basic, especially the qualification, so you would imagine they would've thought of it all. So you are down to two options here - either they are changing things on the run to suit their business needs, or they're incompetent and unprofessional if they cannot figure out a solid system in half a year and stand by it. Looking how many changes they made soon after announcement just based off community ideas, which were pretty much things anyone who would be truly thinking about the players and the community for just a moment would figure out pretty early on their own, tbh both options are viable and probably combine.
And Team Secret ties right in - increased ECL profit due to increased exposure. Thinking this is not part of the motivation is just silly, I mean it's proclaimed that it should bring more attention to the game, as more exposure for Viper (as an example) means more exposure for ECL, as let's not be naïve, the main reason for tournament viewerships, even something like NAC, are the players and the match-ups. Otherwise Nili would have those 5k viewers on his regular stream. But he doesn't, does he.
So of course, ZeroEmpires as the host of the tournament, getting some of the players who compete in it such partnership is obvious heating of one's own soup, as we say in Czech, and even if he'd be logically attempting to get these sorts of deals for every participating team, increasing the overall bottom line for him even more, until/unless he does, it's obviously up in the air that he might be motivated to make some kinds of concessions as far as the team with most value to him goes (and it doesn't necessarily have to be conscious). Since this is all a business to him, and so far he's doing a lot to maximise the profits, including exactly facilitating this/these deal/s.
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Just to point out how this line of thinking is lacking, you're not alone in not seeing beyond this - you're telling him to close the gap when the gap is already pretty big, and on top of that has just been artificially widened.
I'm just going to simplify the situation here a bit, there are going to be various shades of this, but the principle stands - the gap is already there - take player A who is full-time AoC player. Now take player B, who needs to work for a living. While player A is not at risk of anything if he continues playing and even increases his investment, player B is already at or near his maximal commitment potential in the current situation, as he has real-life engagements, and risks his actual life if he were to commit more, as he doesn't know if he'd get the same treatment as player A. Now player A receives further support, making him even more safe and comfortable in his current situation, increasing his play quality potential, as he has everything he needs and, mainly, has a bright and set future in front of him. Player B is still in the same situation he was in before, maybe you could say his risk factor of committing more has decreased a bit due to overall better future prospects, but it's still a live-or-die situation for him, and he now faces a player whose potential and their mutual potential difference have just increased even further, as he's at his current limits and the only way forward is full commitment. Gap widened. And you're telling him to take a dive down the cliff and hope there's deep enough water below.
Now sure, some players can make the jump because they have a safety net down there just in case, this pertains mainly to young players supported by families or something along those lines, but asking this of someone with an actual adult life already, or someone who is not living with the same kinds of securities as for example we have in Europe, is just naïve.
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While development such as this is inevitable as long as the game is not dying, the forcefulness with which it is being pushed is unhealthy for the community, especially and mainly for the competitive part of it, because it also very publicly doesn't care at all what happens "at the bottom," or rather even just below the very top. All these efforts do is try to milk the top money, and all the way trying to be some paragons of virtue maybe hoping to inspire "someone else" to use theirs and fix the bottom line so that they can continue getting the easy cream. They just don't have a real long-term plan for the community, no matter what they try to tell anyone - their idea of a long-term "plan" is that someone else will emerge to do it. While they continue being the top dog. Think of such behaviour what you will, but I certainly wouldn't call it "having community and players truly in mind."
--------------------
Context. Context, ladies and gentlemen, is very important.
The types of discussions we have here regularly, curiously enough often tied to something ZeroEmpires has done, are signified by one dominant thing - unquestioning faith, supported by aggression and arrogance towards anyone who's not afflicted by the same. And I hope you can see that being a problem for everyone, no matter if the initiative is okay or not, as it doesn't allow for constructive criticism or way forward - you cannot live on hype forever (however it seems to be the business model of some). If you want to respond there are not many dissenters and it's just a few naysayers, I would point you to the fact that not everyone wants to be subject to public beating just for different opinion, which is, if you look around, exactly happening even here. Just for posting a different, and actually very relevant, as it touches him personally, point of view. And that's a respected player. Why would anyone else with worries about the effects of this (or anything else) want to be subjected to even worse if someone already respected is treated this way.
Regarding the issue at hand, I've posted about what I think of it somewhere else on Saturday where it was attempted to be hyped:
Wouldn't be so overexcited and certainly wouldn't call it as "being bought," from what I've seen it seems they might not even be getting paid, or at least nothing substantial (they're not going full-time), and it could simply be just a rebranding with not many strings attached - it seems it could be like a "pre-order," so no benefits until/unless AoC really kicks off - I mean it's all really business, and there's no reasonable way how to make money in this manner off AoC yet.
It seems way over-blown for what it probably is (and tbh it's not really exactly hyped as you would expect if it was a major-eSport-level deal). We'll see. Anything ZeroEmpires touches needs to be taken with a whole mine of salt and you're advised to look in all kinds of directions to find the true things and meanings behind it.
Btw Team Secret has a really unsavoury history of not paying their players what they're owed, and even though they apparently changed some leading people involved with that, the owner, who was part of it, too, is still there^^
While the last bit could be history and doesn't need to repeat itself (I just wonder if the players were told about such a significant and rather recent thing), future will tell, turns out I was right in the rest. Just from looking around at things and analysing them. How is it literally nobody else (at least from the posters) figured the same, and it had to be ZeroEmpires himself posting it (curiously enough, probably even him realising it's getting out of hand), and then Viper confirming, for you lot to get it?
To look at this issue with Team Secret more broadly, the conflict of interest mentioned by the brave few in this thread is absolutely evident and undeniable, and it doesn't matter how many teams he might be trying to get on board somewhere - I get it it's tempting to downplay it because we're a community and all, but, well, that's where you're wrong - that's not true anymore. ZeroEmpires is running a business. ECL is a hard-on business. He's not a "community organiser" anymore, and he is proving it lately quite often, pursuing first and foremost how to make more money, just look at the complicated ECL scheme, how much effort he put into that. And this fits right in.
Just look what has happened with ECL, how are they bending the competition so that they get the results they want, which they think will yield them the highest viewership - they don't even shy from purposefully changing qualification system after they know the sign-ups, so who would be playing whom, and they even purposefully introduced a mod to remove a playstyle deemed unattractive, therefore maybe lowering viewership, ahead of its potential official release (which is another fun story of them not being straightforward, somehow mysteriously missed by the community - Cysion has clearly stated this is just a tournament mod, testing some options, and the changes are not ensured to be in the official release, because they have a whole array of different, collateral changes coming as well). If you think these things were motivated by wanting a fairer competition only, you need to put down your rose-tinted glasses and realise one simple thing - they had about half a year to prepare everything. To think of every detail. And tbh these things are really basic, especially the qualification, so you would imagine they would've thought of it all. So you are down to two options here - either they are changing things on the run to suit their business needs, or they're incompetent and unprofessional if they cannot figure out a solid system in half a year and stand by it. Looking how many changes they made soon after announcement just based off community ideas, which were pretty much things anyone who would be truly thinking about the players and the community for just a moment would figure out pretty early on their own, tbh both options are viable and probably combine.
And Team Secret ties right in - increased ECL profit due to increased exposure. Thinking this is not part of the motivation is just silly, I mean it's proclaimed that it should bring more attention to the game, as more exposure for Viper (as an example) means more exposure for ECL, as let's not be naïve, the main reason for tournament viewerships, even something like NAC, are the players and the match-ups. Otherwise Nili would have those 5k viewers on his regular stream. But he doesn't, does he.
So of course, ZeroEmpires as the host of the tournament, getting some of the players who compete in it such partnership is obvious heating of one's own soup, as we say in Czech, and even if he'd be logically attempting to get these sorts of deals for every participating team, increasing the overall bottom line for him even more, until/unless he does, it's obviously up in the air that he might be motivated to make some kinds of concessions as far as the team with most value to him goes (and it doesn't necessarily have to be conscious). Since this is all a business to him, and so far he's doing a lot to maximise the profits, including exactly facilitating this/these deal/s.
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So worried? Close the gap! Show other teams you are worthy.
Just to point out how this line of thinking is lacking, you're not alone in not seeing beyond this - you're telling him to close the gap when the gap is already pretty big, and on top of that has just been artificially widened.
I'm just going to simplify the situation here a bit, there are going to be various shades of this, but the principle stands - the gap is already there - take player A who is full-time AoC player. Now take player B, who needs to work for a living. While player A is not at risk of anything if he continues playing and even increases his investment, player B is already at or near his maximal commitment potential in the current situation, as he has real-life engagements, and risks his actual life if he were to commit more, as he doesn't know if he'd get the same treatment as player A. Now player A receives further support, making him even more safe and comfortable in his current situation, increasing his play quality potential, as he has everything he needs and, mainly, has a bright and set future in front of him. Player B is still in the same situation he was in before, maybe you could say his risk factor of committing more has decreased a bit due to overall better future prospects, but it's still a live-or-die situation for him, and he now faces a player whose potential and their mutual potential difference have just increased even further, as he's at his current limits and the only way forward is full commitment. Gap widened. And you're telling him to take a dive down the cliff and hope there's deep enough water below.
Now sure, some players can make the jump because they have a safety net down there just in case, this pertains mainly to young players supported by families or something along those lines, but asking this of someone with an actual adult life already, or someone who is not living with the same kinds of securities as for example we have in Europe, is just naïve.
--------------------
While development such as this is inevitable as long as the game is not dying, the forcefulness with which it is being pushed is unhealthy for the community, especially and mainly for the competitive part of it, because it also very publicly doesn't care at all what happens "at the bottom," or rather even just below the very top. All these efforts do is try to milk the top money, and all the way trying to be some paragons of virtue maybe hoping to inspire "someone else" to use theirs and fix the bottom line so that they can continue getting the easy cream. They just don't have a real long-term plan for the community, no matter what they try to tell anyone - their idea of a long-term "plan" is that someone else will emerge to do it. While they continue being the top dog. Think of such behaviour what you will, but I certainly wouldn't call it "having community and players truly in mind."
--------------------
Context. Context, ladies and gentlemen, is very important.