Apologies if this has already been brought up a week ago, just listened to most of Ep. 101 of the Pylon Show. I'm a huge fan of the Pylon Show and I hope it goes on forever, nothing but kudos an appreciation for all the folks that help make it happen but wanted to give some feedback as a long time listener (mostly I listen on Spotify).
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As a listener, unfortunately Episode 101 was (in my opinion) not a good episode. It was actually the first episode where I had to turn it off and stop listening about halfway through. I think the quality of the discussion and listener's experience really went down due to the drinks a couple of the guests were having. I understand its fun having drinks with your friends and to have these discussions (I'm normally the first one in on this for drinks and arguments as a participant) but as a listener I had to turn it off.
Maynarde and Wardi, I felt like I could feel the frustration coming from you guys and as a listener that's how I felt as well which is why I had to turn it off. Constantly being interrupted and spoken over when you were trying to talk by loud, swearing, incoherent rants just made me so pissed off for you guys I couldn't listen to it anymore. Kudos to you two for sticking the episode out, much respect.
2) Everyone was very opinionated about the whole tournament regions / server discussion for who can play where and who is a part of which "scene". Just an idea, but would it work to have the rules such that whichever server you play the majority of your ladder games on for the previous season that's the "region" you are a part of with regards to tournament qualifiers, etc. Get away from all the country/passport/physical location ties because as we know there are loopholes with that. We want StarCraft communities to grow in all parts of the world regardless of where the person lives or is from. Ie, if any UK players (or any other players in the world) want to play in the SEA Qualifiers, then have a rule state that the SEA Qualifiers will only be played on the SEA Servers (Singapore, Aus, etc.) AND if a player (regardless of where they live) plays the majority of their ladder games from the previous ladder season on one of those outlined SEA servers then they can play in the SEA qualifier. This allows for basically only players from the SEA "scene" to be a part of the SEA qualifier. And since you only can have one majority of previous ladder games played on a server, a UK player who players >50% of their previous season games on SEA now cannot also play in say an EU qualifier as well so they have to choose which scene they would like to participate in and this makes sure they are actively contributing to that region's scene (by playing on that scene's ladder primarily since basically all offline events are cancelled indefinitely right now) prior to the tournament (not just coming in last minute, taking the prize pool, and leaving). Let the players make a choice for which "scene" they want to be a part of.
Now the first argument might be well what if a bunch of players from Korea now decide to join the SEA or NA region and play on one of those servers for the majority of their season's ladder games opposed to the Korean servers. Well I would say if they want to play with that big ping disadvantage as a baseline, and sacrifice their eligibility to participate in the Korean scene then I'd say let them join the SEA or NA scene and then let them participate in the SEA or NA qualifiers! I don't think we're trying to be exclusive of people being part of a different scene, we're just trying to discourage players from coming in at the last minute and "stealing" tournament winnings when that player really hasn't had any past engagement in that scene. As someone from NA (Canada) I would say having someone like Stats or Dark playing the majority of their ladder games on an NA appointed server and then playing in the NA qualifiers, I would totally rally behind them even though they are not from NA because they fee like a part of our scene now (thinking of something like Polt who was essentially our NA hero back in the day even though he's from Korea).
Now you may say something like well what if say Stats or Dark decide to now move to Canada (because no one wants to live in the states right now) and start playing in NA (something like True did a few years back). Well that would also be fine. First, they would have to spend a "Blizzard SC2 ladder season" on NA before they could participate in any NA events (either playing from Korea with a big ping disadvantage prior to their move or moving to NA and playing a ladder season there first) to satisfy the "majority of games from the previous ladder season" requirement at which point they are making their way into the NA scene and then I'd be all for letting them play in the NA Qualifiers (keep in mind they are now sacrificing their eligibility to play in the Korean scene because they no longer have the majority of their previous ladder season games on Korea). I'm skeptical if many/any Koreans would actually go this route and physically move to another region but in the case it does happen then I don't think there would be much of an issue including them in the NA scene.
Anyways, Just a couple comments/ideas from a humble SC2 enthusiast (don't even know if anyone will read them). Again don't mean to be negative about the Pylon Show comment but wanted to provide some feedback. Much love and I hope all 4 of those guests do hop back on the Pylon Show sometime soon as they do account for some of my favourite episodes as well :)
