New region restrictions for ESL

Don't know if it has been posted here or not(haven't been here for weeks):

The new regional restriction will be activated starting today, 5th of February and will apply to all cups that are organized after this date. The only exception from this rule is the January Monthly Finals, where players that already qualified and are part of other regions will be allowed to participate.

2.1. Definitions of each Region

2.1.1. Europe
Only players that have citizenship in the following countries are allowed to participate in this region:

EU cluster – Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and Vatican City.
RU cluster – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.
Including states with limited recognition: Abkhazia, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Transnistria and South Ossetia.
Including dependent territories: Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey.
Including special areas of internal sovereignty: Aland and Svalbard.
Including all countries in the geographical area of Middle East.
Including all countries in the geographical area of Africa.

2.1.2. North-America
Only players that have citizenship in the following countries are allowed to participate in this region:

NA cluster – All countries of North and South America.
ASIA cluster – People’s Republic of China and all of Asia, Australia & Oceania, India, excluding countries listed as part of other servers but in said geographical zones.

The only person I could see winning in Asia is paul.

finally. i guess all of the protest tickets finally got through to ESL. It's about competition and money - no reason why europeans should compete in 2 cups while cramping up the NA cup

The only person I could see winning in Asia is paul.

He doesn't live in Asia tho

????

He life New York (I hear) (???)

He doesn't live in Asia tho

????

He life New York (I hear) (???)

I thought it was based on where you hold citizenship?

I guess NA can enjoy without the fear of EU now
I hope this doesnt lower the viewers even more cuz GG does prety good job.

They missed off the Falkland Islands.

Edit: Reading things before Coffee is really fucking hard...apparently.

I have American citizenship and live in Denmark. Who comes up with rules like these?

I have American citizenship and live in Denmark. Who comes up with rules like these?

Reverse that ..... so .....? What to do about us folks who have this problem? (Well pretty sure Im not gonna pass to the monthly cup, but its still bothering me)

Guys?

I thought it was based on where you hold citizenship?

And that is why no asian is allowed to participate neither in the NA nor the EU cup - according to the rules.

If the country of the citizenship of a Player is not listed and/or a Player feels that he/she deserves an exception from the above rules, the ESL Administration will review these issues on a case by cases basis.

If it doesn't make sense for you, make a support ticket explaining why and it will be reviewed on a case by case basis.

I guess NA can enjoy without the fear of EU now

But seriously:

What if someone from the US prefers an early morning game? Or some EU player prefers late night gaming?

And this is even worse for those outside of NA / EU timezone.
Congratulations to all geographical asian players, who may start the NA cup at 4 am in the morning.
These rules are certainly fun fun fun

How will ESL enforce this?

Will you be asking all participants for proof of citizenship or will it only be players who win prizes be requested to submit proof?

What forms of ID are acceptable? bearing in mind a high percentage of people from the USA do not have passports.

How will ESL enforce this?

Will you be asking all participants for proof of citizenship or will it only be players who win prizes be requested to submit proof?

What forms of ID are acceptable? bearing in mind a high percentage of people from the USA do not have passports.

State Drivers license or military ID would be alternative ID choices. For proof of citizenship birth certificate is the only thing I can think of, I'm sure many wouldn't be willing to send pictures of that to others though. And honor system wouldn't work because people would lie. What about those with dual citizenship? I'm interested to hear what ESL has to say.

"citizenship"

i am 100% confident they meant to say "residents"

it is more about time zone and residence than it is about citizenship. people living in Europe should compete in Europe, and people living in North America should compete in the NA cup

at the end of the day, it's not like they are doing ONE cup only, say, for Europe only. Then I could see why they would enforce citizenship screening. But since there are 2 cups for 2 continents, they are just looking for a way to have people participate in only one cup

there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to speculate that people residing in a different continent should play in a different cup

If the rules say citizenship then it's citizenship, otherwise it would say residency.

I think the community can do a good job of self-policing.

Plus Relic has logs from their battle servers of where each player is located (you can see this on Relic leaderboards).

I guess some one could make a new smurf account, use a good paid VPN service to game the system... but that is a lot of extra work just to play in both regions - but if some one really wants to, they will.

I don't think the system is intended to be perfect but to start to address the issue of EU players having a significantly easier time playing in both EU and NA (also causing additional NA no-shows) than NA players playing in both cups.

It is good for ESL and for the community I think. EU will remain the stronger region by a wide margin, and probably become even more competitive. NA could become more of a "minor leagues" where newer competitive players have a chance to make a name for themselves.

The whole "welp I lost EU ESL this week, let me go sign up for NA even though I live 5,000 miles away" was a tad silly and really defeated the purpose of having two distinct regions.

CieZ, i always like your posts, but this is a part where we have to heavily disagree i guess. Let me elaborate.

I think the community can do a good job of self-policing.

Plus Relic has logs from their battle servers of where each player is located (you can see this on Relic leaderboards).

I guess some one could make a new smurf account, use a good paid VPN service to game the system... but that is a lot of extra work just to play in both regions - but if some one really wants to, they will.

I don't think the system is intended to be perfect but to start to address the issue of EU players having a significantly easier time playing in both EU and NA (also causing additional NA no-shows) than NA players playing in both cups.

It is good for ESL and for the community I think. EU will remain the stronger region by a wide margin, and probably become even more competitive. NA could become more of a "minor leagues" where newer competitive players have a chance to make a name for themselves.

The whole "welp I lost EU ESL this week, let me go sign up for NA even though I live 5,000 miles away" was a tad silly and really defeated the purpose of having two distinct regions.

Well, how do they call those again... qualifiers? Lower divisions?
So why do they have the same price money? Right, they usually don't, except in COH2

Just to give a few NA players an easier time winning the same amount of money due plain lack of competition?
Sounds like a lot of marketing money down the drain to me, even followed by a bunch of rather boring games.

If someone plays hours and hours to go through a tourney, then directly signs up for another one, and even wins it, then he deserves it, not? Isn't it actually easier to get up in the morning, than playing till the dawn of next day?

Let's be real here, nothing is gonna change for the broader audience, that's a really bad excuse. The same people will make it to the final spots, excluding the EU guys now, with just way less competition, which results in worse games overall.

And that doesn't even include the issue of "outside timezones", they basically - excuse my language - piss on. Again: yay asian / eastern market being forced to play at ~4am - great idea, and really fair, right?

I want to see "minor leagues" and divisions as well, but creating arbitrary rules based on citizenship is absolutely... retarded stupid not thought through.




Salt aside, i hope you get my point.

I think the community can do a good job of self-policing.

Plus Relic has logs from their battle servers of where each player is located

Where someone is resident doesn't indicate their citizenship!

Where someone is resident doesn't indicate their citizenship!

Yeah the citizenship thing is... awkward. Should definitely be where you are currently living/playing from.

I can see your side of it too Kamk. I just like that more NA players are going to be motivated to play in NA without the people who get knocked out of EU coming in and sweeping everything.

We all know EU is the significantly stronger region, seeing the same winners in both cups would get old.

Despite NA having weaker players I think the matches are more up in the air. No one player in the NA region is as dominant as Luv, Jes, Barton have been so far.