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Sat, 25 May 2013 20:27:38 +0100
Submit newsBrood War OSL a Vita ad Mortem
@ Spotlights channel
Let us dive into the world of one of gaming's gems, the OSL of Brood War, from Life to Death (as the title suggests). Come along with me as we travel deep into the history of Korea's most prestigious gaming tournament.
This article is the sole opinion of the author and does not represent the opinion of Heaven Media Ltd or the opinion of any affiliates. All credit for pictures goes to their rightful owners including fomos.kr, ThisIsGame, esportsdaily and others. The author takes zero credit for the photographs.
Have you ever been introduced to Starcraft by a friend, only to leave with the impression that it's a religion in South Korea? We've all had the impression to some extent of this massive arena in the middle of Korea with tens of thousands of fans jumping up and down as two of the top players in the world duke it out. There's fireworks, the hype is off the charts and the competition is so fierce that some bonjwas still do not have the ability to say they've won it. The OnGameNet Starleague is the most prestigious and legendary tournament in the world for Starcraft and arguably gaming, dating back to 1999 and packing stadiums and arenas ever since. This is the old school Brood War era atmosphere we all think of when someone says "Starcraft". Let's take a look and what exactly the OSL is, as we head into its final stages in a few weeks and put Brood War to rest as one of the best games of all-time, both as a well-developed masterpiece and revolutionary title for the RTS genre as a whole.The aspect that makes OSL a league above the rest is the interaction with fans and the eras within the Brood War era, somewhat of era-inception. The legendary stories, the tales that only few have heard, the celebrity-status players that have been around longer than e-sports itself spawn from this league. Each tournament takes nearly 4 months to finish, despite containing only 40 players once seeding and groups have been completed. There's five trademarks that make this league more liked than any other, so let's take a look at what those are.
The Royal Road We touched on this back in the preview for the eight KeSPA players that attended MLG Anaheim, but I didn't bother delving into it. Think of the Royal Road as a rookie in any given league winning the championship. The chances of this happening are insanely low, and the ones that have been lucky enough to travel on the road due to their superior skill are regarded some of the best players to grace the keyboard. As it stands, only seven individuals have set foot on said journey. Think of it as an unknown name qualifying for GSL and taking the Code S title on their first try -- again, chances are very low. Below you can find small fragments of each Royal Roader's story, giving you a sort of insight into their unique journeys.
BoxeR [Show]
Garimto [Show]
NaDa [Show]
July [Show]
Anytime [Show]
sAviOr [Show]
Jaedong [Show]
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[multipagempu]
Coming back to the eras in Brood War that made it what it is -- this is one of them. The story behind this one is that in 2001's OSL, Garimto (a Protoss player) defeated BoxeR, denying him a three-peat OSL run. This happened in the autumn (hence Fall). During the 2002 OSL, the same thing happened, as Reach knocked out BoxeR as a Protoss. This went on and on, and still continues as recently as 2011 where JangBi knocked out Fantasy in Jin Air's OSL. Some say this is just chance, others say it's a legendary fable, but it's all in good fun at the end of the day. Strangely, unlike it's younger brother, game balance wasn't all the rage.
We've seen this before in many other games and sports. The reigning champion fails to advance past a certain checkpoint, in this case the Ro16, and simply can't make it back up to the top. As we open the pages of Starcraft history, the book flips to a page with huge bold letters at the top that read "2008 [BEST] EVER OSL," a tournament that many old school fans and veterans regard as one of the solid series of games ever played, including a huge upset that revived this title of the curse: Luxury demolishing Flash, knocking him out of the tournament, with Flash being on top of the world and reigning champion.
Although this occurred in Ro8, it still applied. With some classy Guardian/Ultralisk play in Game 1 and a rush in Game 2, the massive underdog Luxury reigned supreme and knocked out God, taking 3rd in the tournament. This was also the tournament that solidified July as one of the best Zergs to ever play, coming exactly 1 year after the famed game in the 2007 OSL where his APM spiked at 818, the highest ever recorded in any Starcraft game (636 being Starcraft 2's highest, achieved by DongRaeGu at MLG Anaheim).
This is the equivalent of a platinum bracelent from the World Series of Poker. If you have a Golden Mouse, you're the top dog and nobody can say otherwise. Valued at over $8,000, any player that wins three OSL tournaments is awarded a life-size pure gold mouse, consisting of 300g 24k gold. Although it's never been done, a player that achieves five titles will receive a pure platinum mouse, and if you're the reincarnation of Jesus Christ himself and manage to win seven titles, you'd be awarded with a pure diamond mouse made of, well, diamonds.
Again, the names associated with this award are household names -- NaDa, July, Jaedong, Flash. If you remember just a while back, we discussed Legend of the Fall, an event that denied BoxeR his Golden Mouse. This award in and of itself is the highlight of the players' career, marking their skill in history as an elite tier of gamers that are truly few far and inbetween. Think of it as winning the largest LAN in a given game three times over.
This was the blunder of OSL in its long history, and it was all on them as they've stated. Basically what happened here was a team entitled the OnGameNet Map Architecture Team (OMAT) went ahead and thought they could create a map pool that the players would like and the fans would enjoy. Again, let me stress that they thought they could.
Although some very solid maps arose from this disaster, including the mysterious 815, Fantasy and Peaks of Baekdu (modeled after the Korean landscape itself near Baekdu), the failed attempts included the Pioneer Period favoring Terrans to an unbelievable degree by allowing them to abuse high ground advantage, Tears of the Moon which gave Zerg an unfair advantage due to the multiple openings at the naturals (meaning the Zerg could easily engage at multiple points, making it near impossible for a Protoss to retaliate), and Demon's Forest, a map sourced from hell that was just all around bad -- obstacles, in-game objects and grass made the line of sight restricted and the map layout itself made certain units actually get stuck or glitch inside walls and landscape.
As we've gone over the Golden Mouse winnners, let's take a look at the unique aspects of OSL and why it made the league so respected.
This article is the sole opinion of the author and does not represent the opinion of Heaven Media Ltd or the opinion of any affiliates.
Coming back to the eras in Brood War that made it what it is -- this is one of them. The story behind this one is that in 2001's OSL, Garimto (a Protoss player) defeated BoxeR, denying him a three-peat OSL run. This happened in the autumn (hence Fall). During the 2002 OSL, the same thing happened, as Reach knocked out BoxeR as a Protoss. This went on and on, and still continues as recently as 2011 where JangBi knocked out Fantasy in Jin Air's OSL. Some say this is just chance, others say it's a legendary fable, but it's all in good fun at the end of the day. Strangely, unlike it's younger brother, game balance wasn't all the rage.
We've seen this before in many other games and sports. The reigning champion fails to advance past a certain checkpoint, in this case the Ro16, and simply can't make it back up to the top. As we open the pages of Starcraft history, the book flips to a page with huge bold letters at the top that read "2008 [BEST] EVER OSL," a tournament that many old school fans and veterans regard as one of the solid series of games ever played, including a huge upset that revived this title of the curse: Luxury demolishing Flash, knocking him out of the tournament, with Flash being on top of the world and reigning champion.
Although this occurred in Ro8, it still applied. With some classy Guardian/Ultralisk play in Game 1 and a rush in Game 2, the massive underdog Luxury reigned supreme and knocked out God, taking 3rd in the tournament. This was also the tournament that solidified July as one of the best Zergs to ever play, coming exactly 1 year after the famed game in the 2007 OSL where his APM spiked at 818, the highest ever recorded in any Starcraft game (636 being Starcraft 2's highest, achieved by DongRaeGu at MLG Anaheim).
This is the equivalent of a platinum bracelent from the World Series of Poker. If you have a Golden Mouse, you're the top dog and nobody can say otherwise. Valued at over $8,000, any player that wins three OSL tournaments is awarded a life-size pure gold mouse, consisting of 300g 24k gold. Although it's never been done, a player that achieves five titles will receive a pure platinum mouse, and if you're the reincarnation of Jesus Christ himself and manage to win seven titles, you'd be awarded with a pure diamond mouse made of, well, diamonds.
Again, the names associated with this award are household names -- NaDa, July, Jaedong, Flash. If you remember just a while back, we discussed Legend of the Fall, an event that denied BoxeR his Golden Mouse. This award in and of itself is the highlight of the players' career, marking their skill in history as an elite tier of gamers that are truly few far and inbetween. Think of it as winning the largest LAN in a given game three times over.
This was the blunder of OSL in its long history, and it was all on them as they've stated. Basically what happened here was a team entitled the OnGameNet Map Architecture Team (OMAT) went ahead and thought they could create a map pool that the players would like and the fans would enjoy. Again, let me stress that they thought they could.
Although some very solid maps arose from this disaster, including the mysterious 815, Fantasy and Peaks of Baekdu (modeled after the Korean landscape itself near Baekdu), the failed attempts included the Pioneer Period favoring Terrans to an unbelievable degree by allowing them to abuse high ground advantage, Tears of the Moon which gave Zerg an unfair advantage due to the multiple openings at the naturals (meaning the Zerg could easily engage at multiple points, making it near impossible for a Protoss to retaliate), and Demon's Forest, a map sourced from hell that was just all around bad -- obstacles, in-game objects and grass made the line of sight restricted and the map layout itself made certain units actually get stuck or glitch inside walls and landscape.
 |  |
[multipagempu]
As you can see from the video above, it's truly a family affair and means a lot more than most think to the players and their families. After all that, the OSL still remains to be the single most watched e-sports league in Korea and around the world, having ratings (although not released specifically) high enough to be maintained on national television. It's not the fact that the tournament is insanely hard to even qualify for through offline and online preliminaries, group stages and qualifiers, but the aura and elite atmosphere that has surrounded it for nearly 15 years.
Hearts have been broken, and lives have been changed. The prize pots are massive, ranging from $20,000 to $40,000. Regarding the actual Starleague of Korea, attendance numbers have once peaked over 130,000 during the SKT1 and KT Rolster finals, showing just how big e-sports is over there. These are where the legends of Starcraft are born and others fall. Bonjwas have been made here, others have fallen to their career's demise.
Coming back to what was said initially, the final OSL ever for Brood War will be held in Korea in late August, saying goodbye to an era of gaming that has never been rivaled before, and paving the way for modern e-sports and RTS gaming. It's come time that we say goodbye to the old and in with the new, but one thing is for certain: the old dedicated fans of the Brood War scene will never lose their passion, however small or extinct their game may become. Brood War is eternal in our hearts, regardless of scene status, despite OSL switching to Starcraft 2 after next month's tournament. Let us end on a montage of the OSL. Long live Brood War in the hearts of many. In an attempt to say one last goodbye to the league, I'll be doing coverage of the final OSL come August.
Now that we have some knowledge of its history, let's wind up and reflect. Tissues not included.
This article is the sole opinion of the author and does not represent the opinion of Heaven Media Ltd or the opinion of any affiliates.
As you can see from the video above, it's truly a family affair and means a lot more than most think to the players and their families. After all that, the OSL still remains to be the single most watched e-sports league in Korea and around the world, having ratings (although not released specifically) high enough to be maintained on national television. It's not the fact that the tournament is insanely hard to even qualify for through offline and online preliminaries, group stages and qualifiers, but the aura and elite atmosphere that has surrounded it for nearly 15 years.
Hearts have been broken, and lives have been changed. The prize pots are massive, ranging from $20,000 to $40,000. Regarding the actual Starleague of Korea, attendance numbers have once peaked over 130,000 during the SKT1 and KT Rolster finals, showing just how big e-sports is over there. These are where the legends of Starcraft are born and others fall. Bonjwas have been made here, others have fallen to their career's demise.
Coming back to what was said initially, the final OSL ever for Brood War will be held in Korea in late August, saying goodbye to an era of gaming that has never been rivaled before, and paving the way for modern e-sports and RTS gaming. It's come time that we say goodbye to the old and in with the new, but one thing is for certain: the old dedicated fans of the Brood War scene will never lose their passion, however small or extinct their game may become. Brood War is eternal in our hearts, regardless of scene status, despite OSL switching to Starcraft 2 after next month's tournament. Let us end on a montage of the OSL. Long live Brood War in the hearts of many. In an attempt to say one last goodbye to the league, I'll be doing coverage of the final OSL come August.
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| // Jeff_Kim Posted 10 months ago: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:12:53 +0100 |  |
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