Plagued by disqualifications, map hacking and registration problems, the recently finished WCS NA premier league qualifiers were a topic of much discussion. Gamespot approached MLG and Bllizzard for their comment.
Although the WCS NA premier league is soon to begin, the fiasco of its qualifiers is still a hop topic. Approached by Rod "Slasher" Breslau, representatives of Blizzard and MLG discuss the issues, starting with the problems that Chinese players faced during the qualifier process.
Because of the first come, first served basis, a few Chinese competitors remained way down the registration list and were essentially left out of the competition, their spots already taken by, arguably, less deserving players. This led to a couple of another issues such as Chinese Terran Comm using another player's account to compete and facing disqualification as a result.
While Blizzard acknowledge the problem as well as the miscommunication and misinformation, an apology and a reminder about the challenger league qualifiers is what they can offer at this point of time. Said challenger league qualifier is also said to give priority to Master and Grandmaster player, which was one of community's suggestions towards giving the better players a higher chance.
The interview further discusses the map hacking problems, DeMusliM's lack of invites for neither NA or EU circuits as well as the complete Korean domination in the qualifiers.
There were several reports and accusations of a cheater named 'PhysicsLee' in the qualifier. Has he been confirmed to have cheated? What happens to those players who were eliminated by a confirmed cheater? What is his punishment (if found true)? What is being done to prevent cheating not only in the qualifiers, but the online/Ro32 portion of the main tournament? This includes both map hacks, and the possibility of stream cheating.
MLG and Blizzard have a zero-tolerance policy against cheating and foul play. During the qualifier there was suspicion of player maphacking, cheating, and account sharing, and admins immediately began an investigation. After gathering proof, guilty players were punished by being disqualified. PhysicsLee has been banned from the ladder and from future WCS competition.
Players beaten by a confirmed cheater will now have the opportunity to compete in the Open Qualifier for Challenger League.
For future tournaments, we will continue to closely monitor play to identify cheating, and will always require concrete evidence before moving forward with repercussions. More specifically, the online portion of WCS matches are run on a delay of several minutes, which will mitigate stream cheating. On maphacking, Blizzard is working in conjunction with partners to streamline processes so investigations of cheating can be handled more swiftly and on-the-fly.
Why was Evil Geniuses’ Benjamin “DeMusliM” Baker not invited to either the North America or European WCS? Additionally, was there any discussion of disqualifying DeMusliM due to his revealing tweets of results at the end of the tournament?
Blizzard, MLG, and ESL jointly analyzed 2012 global performance results to determine invites for the WCS Season 1 Premier League in America and Europe. In the end, DeMusliM didn't perform well enough in 2012 competitions to receive a seed. He's been competing fantastically well on ladder and we hope to see him compete up through Challenger level and perhaps get to Premier League through that route. As for questions about a DQ, there was no discussion about disqualifying DeMusliM for anything he said on Twitter.
Some have suggested only allowing Masters/GM players to participate, as GSL does in Korea. Is this something that will happen?
We do plan on giving priority to Master- and Grandmaster-level players. The WCS America Challenger League open qualifier this weekend will be restricted to Master- and Grandmaster-level players only .
MLG and Blizzard have a zero-tolerance policy against cheating and foul play. During the qualifier there was suspicion of player maphacking, cheating, and account sharing, and admins immediately began an investigation. After gathering proof, guilty players were punished by being disqualified. PhysicsLee has been banned from the ladder and from future WCS competition.
Players beaten by a confirmed cheater will now have the opportunity to compete in the Open Qualifier for Challenger League.
For future tournaments, we will continue to closely monitor play to identify cheating, and will always require concrete evidence before moving forward with repercussions. More specifically, the online portion of WCS matches are run on a delay of several minutes, which will mitigate stream cheating. On maphacking, Blizzard is working in conjunction with partners to streamline processes so investigations of cheating can be handled more swiftly and on-the-fly.
Why was Evil Geniuses’ Benjamin “DeMusliM” Baker not invited to either the North America or European WCS? Additionally, was there any discussion of disqualifying DeMusliM due to his revealing tweets of results at the end of the tournament?
Blizzard, MLG, and ESL jointly analyzed 2012 global performance results to determine invites for the WCS Season 1 Premier League in America and Europe. In the end, DeMusliM didn't perform well enough in 2012 competitions to receive a seed. He's been competing fantastically well on ladder and we hope to see him compete up through Challenger level and perhaps get to Premier League through that route. As for questions about a DQ, there was no discussion about disqualifying DeMusliM for anything he said on Twitter.
Some have suggested only allowing Masters/GM players to participate, as GSL does in Korea. Is this something that will happen?
We do plan on giving priority to Master- and Grandmaster-level players. The WCS America Challenger League open qualifier this weekend will be restricted to Master- and Grandmaster-level players only .
Links
Gamespot - Full Interview
