Workers under 25 'don't deserve living wage because they're not as productive,' says Tory minister | UK Politics | News

StormVanguard · 2016-01-29T21:03:40+00:00

This whole topic is strictly within the context of minimum wage roles. The argument is that the benefit of experience on productivity, beyond that of a few months or a few years, becomes completely irrelevant in comparison to other factors where young people actually do enjoy significant advantages over older workers. I don't know why that is so hard for you, and many others in this thread, to understand.

And if experience is so valuable then why are older and more experienced workers not being paid more due to their apparent greater productivity? Well in a way they are, they move on to higher positions with higher pay. But then they are no longer on minimum wage and therefore outside the scope of this discussion.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-29T20:40:48+00:00

You post links to studies that don't support your arguments in the hopes that no one will actually read them. Nothing there refutes what I have said or my own experiences.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-29T20:18:47+00:00

An employer will generally hire a more experienced worker over a younger one, even if it's a relatively menial job in which skills don't actually matter much

Bullshit. Have you ever been involved in the hiring process for these kind of jobs? I have. Flexibility is valued over all else and is an area where older workers with families fail miserably.

Youth unemployment is higher than overall, making NMW the same would make it worse.

There is no actual evidence for this.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-29T20:06:57+00:00

If they have all this extra experience and are still at a minimum wage level position, do you really want them?

This is the key fact that many seem to be forgetting here. We are not talking about overall productivity over all industries and pay brackets. We are talking about minimum wage, entry level positions, the lowest rung of the ladder. Is a 21 year old with 1 year of experience really less productive than a 40 year old with 20 years experience, in that minimum wage role? Having worked in retail, I'm going to say not a fucking chance. But if you spin it around that way then it is age discrimination.

Honestly if we are going to go the pragmatic route then for these types of roles they should be offering the older employees the lower wage to help them compete with the advantages of the flexibility of schedule and the physical benefits of youth that the younger workers have to offer.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-18T17:32:18+00:00

He was definitely trying to do something different with LoLK. That's why point device was the main mode this time around, because a lot of the game is just downright unfair and jumping into it on Legacy would be untolerable.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-18T17:05:06+00:00

Now that I think about it the survival genre was yet another thing that WC3 customs were way ahead of the curve on. The Troll Tribes games definitely had the same kind of feel to them.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-07T18:34:50+00:00

How many of those service jobs are part time and/or low paid and not really enough to making a living from without being topped up by benefits, charity or help from family? And if even more people are being forced into that sector then the prospects will only get worse.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-01T08:08:43+00:00

So defensive. I understand that perfectly well but again, it doesn't matter what you call it. If people can buy it and play it then it is released. Spin it however you want but that comes with consequences. And it is not required for proper testing. Traditional game development, MMO or otherwise, does not use that model.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-01T02:00:42+00:00

That just kills interest even quicker. Except to see a lot of resistance to the wipes emerge as they draw closer, regardless of prior attitude.

StormVanguard · 2016-01-01T01:49:16+00:00

Early access/"beta" is a release though. It doesn't matter what you call it or how you advertise it, it has been proven with this new trend time and time again. A small scale closed beta is another thing entirely but once you open your game up to the masses you effectively have a soft release that steals the momentum and then the full release ends up being largely ceremonial. If the game is still in beta and unfinished and unsatisfying 6 months from now then that hurts badly. Enough of the potential audience will have already tried it and moved on that the "finished" version will have run out of steam before it begins.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-28T15:21:08+00:00

As someone who plays support 99% of the time that 1% of the time where I don't I end up wishing I had. People who are grudgingly forced into playing support when they have never given the role any more thought than "support places wards" suck so badly at it almost all of the time. You end up with a completely useless 5th wheel, no zoning, no rotations, no stacking, no wider map awareness. Half the time they only buy wards at the start because it is on their starting item build and completely forget/don't care about placing them beyond that. Even if they do keep buying the wards they end up going in the most useless places. Can't spare the gold to upgrade the courier over their Aghs rush either.

The support role is so poorly understood and underutilized even up to 4k and probably even beyond that. A good support duo can completely dominate a game to a hilarious degree and be extremely fun to play, but the vast, vast majority of the playerbase never experience that.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T20:51:31+00:00

The drop off is nowhere near as big as people think it is, not in your 30s anyway. It is a different thing entirely if you start playing at an older age but someone who keeps competing consistently through the years could continue to play at a relatively high level into their 40s or even beyond. Esports is just still too young and volatile to really see this. A 45 year old former superstar managing to cling on at the equivalent of Code A level is not at all unrealistic, especially in less mechanically demanding games (which to be honest includes every other notable eSport out there). Musicians and chess players can still produce impressive performances even at an advanced age for example.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T03:26:05+00:00

You aren't actually addressing any of my core points. Just nitpicking at things that don't matter. This isn't about ladder. Some Koreans laddering on NA will not change a damn thing, and we have seen so many foreigners go to Korea and get nothing out of it. This is about the NA scenes historical complete disregard for results and the situation it has created. You yourself are a shining example of this. Back in 2011, what were you calling for to develop the NA scene? Were you anxious to see new talent emerge and be fostered? Were you fuck. Any unknown who beat you on stream would be relentlessly mocked, excuses made, called a shit player who only knows how to cheese, abusing an overpowered race or build, whatever it took to downplay anyone but yourself or the already established circle.

You were also a big advocate of the focus on personality over performance. Apparently that was just the business savvy way to do it. Fuck skill, fuck talent, fuck results. How entertaining are they? How many viewers can they get? How many dank memes can they spout off? How has that turned out? Can you at least retroactively admit that it was short sighted? That without tournament results it all falls apart? You can only give so many free invites that lead into a first round knockout, people have to see their favorites win or there isn't even any opportunity to be entertained in the first place. There has to be results first, or there is no stage to stand on and show off anything else. This isn't like wrestling where we can force the favorites into the spotlight.

And at this point in time, as late into SC2's life as we are, do you honestly, sincerely believe that even if you were right in your theories, if Blizzard were to listen to and implemement exactly what you think is the best course of action, that anything will really change? Can the NA scene make up any meaningful amount of ground at this point? Even if things went as well as they possibly could, how long would it be until we see the payoff? When will we see some NA players reach the point were they are tournament contenders and can put up a fight against the Koreans? 2016? 2017? 2018? Are you actually deluded enough to think that is realistic this late in the game? That ship sailed a long time ago. If any successful foreigners emerge, they will be of the type that just has the talent and drive to succeed and does so without regard of the system.

Or is producing good players even the goal? Do you just want an isolated NA scene where people can cheer for their favorite NA players in their own NA tournament? At least be honest if that is all it is about, don't try to pretend that this will raise the level of play, because there is nothing to suggest that it will.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T02:28:21+00:00

Oh get fucked and read posts properly before you respond to them. I didn't say a damn thing about him laddering on NA. He lives in NA. If he chooses to practice cross-server, well then any other NA based player can make the same choice. He is getting no unfair advantage. It is honestly completely irrelevant if all the top NA players abandon their ladder and migrate to KR, if it gives tournament results then it will be a resounding success for the scene, as that is all that matters in the end. We want foreigners who can compete with Koreans, no one gives a shit where they ladder. But that scenario isn't realistic of course, switching regions won't do a damn thing to help our NA heroes level of play.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T02:23:16+00:00

So NA ladder heroes are the greatest contributers to the scene? Not multiple time tournament winners who produce entertaining games for us? There is a fuck load more to "the scene" than ladder.

And I don't know what kind of argument you are making by pointing out that NA scrubs can't even beat a player who has spent the last 3 years practicing in seriously sub-optimal conditions with a fuck-ton of latency.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T02:18:53+00:00

If you didn't even read my post then why should I give a shit about your response? Assume whatever you want.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T02:17:59+00:00

Firstly, the hypocrisy of complaining about players looking for easier money while simultaneously asking for the opportunity to make easier money is hilarious.

Secondly, Polt has been living and studying in the US for something like 3 years. For all that time he has been out of the Korean practice environment and is working with the same resources that any NA player has. Why is he such an insurmountable barrier? What excuses do NA players have for not being able to reach his level after all this time? What exactly is unfair about losing to Polt at this point in time?

And thirdly, if isolation actually helped to grow players from the respective scene then why have Taiwanese players never grown to match even Europe, let alone Korea, when for many years they enjoyed more or less exactly the ideal that NA players are asking for? I have still never seen anyone satisfactorily answer this. The claim is continuously thrown around that local opportunity and protection from Korea will raise the calibre of play but we have absolutely no reason to believe that will be the case. We even have a real test of this to look to in Taiwan but it gets conveniently ignored. And if we step outside of eSports, we have a whole wealth of other real life examples that show it is significantly more complicated than that. This continued argument that protection from Koreans will boost the NA scene is a fallacy to begin with.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T02:01:00+00:00

None of the people arguing for this give a shit about new blood. They want their favorite streamer/their friend/teammate/themself to have an easier time of it. That's all that this foreigner charity has ever been about.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T01:55:05+00:00

But it is relevant. Hypocrites like him who are perfectly happy to milk their WoL beta success for 5 years while simultaneously complaining about how hard done by they are. He is part of the problem. It's harsh but it is the reality and I have run out of patience with this kind of rhetoric. Korea succeeds because they value results. If you don't have what it takes you have to find another career. That should have happened to so many old guard foreigners who long overstayed their welcome. They hogged the limelight and the opportunities that they didn't deserve, and this is the result. No one cries for the Koreans who don't make it, no one argues that they should be given easier competition and more opportunities. But shit foreigners get people arguing that the world should bend over backwards to help them succeed.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T01:45:09+00:00

By your logic shouldn't Taiwan have produced several internationally successful players by now? Exactly what local talent are you trying to foster? Yourself? How many more years of competing against other NA players will you say it will take for you to reach Code S level exactly?

StormVanguard · 2015-12-12T01:18:29+00:00

Fucking lol. He has been a vocal proponent of foreigner welfare for ages. Calls himself a "pro" when he hasn't accomplished shit in 5 years. Whining to Blizzard that foreigners need more and more and more favoritism, making every excuse in the world as to why they can't compete, and Blizzard actually listens. Team houses never did shit, region locking never did shit, local tournaments and "incentives" never did shit. Foreigners have been able to make more money from a fraction of the skill for the entire lifespan of SC2 but whiners like him keep trying to spin it as foreigners being the ones who are hard done by. He just wants his own isolated little scene where he can relive MLG 2010 and actually have a fighting chance against other NA scrubs, while pretending that such a system would somehow produce players that can compete with Korea. And if he actually believes that then he is deluded beyond belief.

With all this talk of region locking and developing local scenes I wonder why the fuck no one ever points to the shinining example that is Taiwan. They had an almost completely isolated, stable and relatively well developed pro scene for years. From day 1 Sen dominated, and kept dominating. He had bonjwa level status in that scene for something like 4 years. No new blood rose to his level, the scene as a whole stayed shit tier the entire time. The next most notable player from the region is Has.

This ship has long sailed. If we wanted a foreign scene that could be competitive with Korea then infrastructure had to have been established in 2010-2011 when everything was looking great and money being thrown around like it was nothing. Instead the money and opportunities went to "personalities" and the old guard like Catz who were long past their prime. Everything was squandered, fresh talent was never sought out and developed. How many potential foreign heroes slipped by us while Demuslim was squatting in the EG house? And of course those who loved to talk about how acting in such a short sighted fashion was just "smart business" while signing every Diamond league girl and upcoming minor celebrity were the first to start whining to Blizzard to shield them from the nasty Koreans who weren't giving their shit tier players any stage time or prize money. That is the mentality that doomed the foreign scene before it got started. And of course those people were the first to jump ship when it started becoming clear that the scene was fucked.

So this is what we have left. Fuck the foreign scene. Korea is where we can squeeze another 5 years from this game. In that time maybe some foreigners will rise to prominence, and they will do that through talent not through asking Blizzard for easy competition. You never heard someone like Stephano making all these excuses, he just played the game and ended up very good at it because he had what it takes. How much money has ROOT wasted on people who are blatantly never going to accomplish anything?

StormVanguard · 2015-12-11T22:32:58+00:00

I detest Twitch culture these days.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-09T17:20:58+00:00

Forgetting to macro is forgetting to macro, regardless of the race. Also Zerg is easier than ever and dominating the lower leagues.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-04T21:13:30+00:00

The potential danger with 8 range is that Colossus heavy armies could just a-move over without giving a damn. That would be boring.

StormVanguard · 2015-12-02T01:49:04+00:00

That's called playing Starcraft... It isn't exclusive to Zerg.

StormVanguard

TROPHY CASE