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"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)
I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to. Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547 I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can. I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts. Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T
Intro
"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
"We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
Widespread match fixing
The Pandemic
"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.
CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association
"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
"They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
"Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
"That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission
"They have been put in an impossible position."
RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
Also says more coaches being banned are coming
He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
Stream Sniping
"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?
Match Fixing
"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."
RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
"Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
"It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
"I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."
North America
"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
Talent
"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."
Valve
"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"
Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
Closing Statements
"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."
Coronavirus & Victoria Shut Down Discussion Megathread Part 10
This is a space to talk all things Coronavirus & the recent shut down of non essential services.
All new posts on the sub including (but not limited to); news and information, discussion, questions, national issues, world wide issues, supply hoarding, what essential services will and won't be shut down, will be removed and redirected here. All posts currently on the sub will be left, unless they are not sufficiently focused on Melbourne, they will be removed and redirected.
Shut down info Stage 1: https://www.vic.gov.au/coronavirus-stage-1 Will be updated as we find out more. From midday on Monday 23 March, the following businesses will be closed: pubs, clubs, cinemas, casinos, nightclubs, indoor places of worship, gyms, indoor sporting venues Services that will remain open: supermarkets, banks, petrol stations, pharmacies, convenience stores, freight and logistics, food delivery, bottle shops, hairdressers and beauticians Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-22/coronavirus-lockdown-what-it-means/12079242
Job resources
As part of the $1.7 billion Economic Survival Package, the Victorian Government has announced a $500 million package to assist >people who have lost their jobs at this difficult time. Under the Working for Victoria Fund, displaced workers will be eligible to apply for different types of work. This presents opportunities for paid work and an opportunity to contribute to Victoria’s ability to manage this event and support the community. Some displaced workers will have skills that can be readily transferred to new roles. The Government can also assist skills development or help people in obtaining immediate accreditation to commence work. The Government will work across the public sector, local government, the not-for-profit sector and key private sector employers to facilitate job matching. Businesses that need workers can get in touch at business.vic.gov.au.
Coronavirus & Victoria Shut Down Discussion Megathread Part 11
This is a space to talk all things Coronavirus & the recent shut down of non essential services.
All new posts on the sub including (but not limited to); news and information, discussion, questions, national issues, world wide issues, supply hoarding, what essential services will and won't be shut down, will be removed and redirected here. All posts currently on the sub will be left, unless they are not sufficiently focused on Melbourne, they will be removed and redirected.
Shut down info Stage 1: https://www.vic.gov.au/coronavirus-stage-1 Will be updated as we find out more. From midday on Monday 23 March, the following businesses will be closed: pubs, clubs, cinemas, casinos, nightclubs, indoor places of worship, gyms, indoor sporting venues Services that will remain open: supermarkets, banks, petrol stations, pharmacies, convenience stores, freight and logistics, food delivery, bottle shops, hairdressers and beauticians Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-22/coronavirus-lockdown-what-it-means/12079242
Job resources
As part of the $1.7 billion Economic Survival Package, the Victorian Government has announced a $500 million package to assist >people who have lost their jobs at this difficult time. Under the Working for Victoria Fund, displaced workers will be eligible to apply for different types of work. This presents opportunities for paid work and an opportunity to contribute to Victoria’s ability to manage this event and support the community. Some displaced workers will have skills that can be readily transferred to new roles. The Government can also assist skills development or help people in obtaining immediate accreditation to commence work. The Government will work across the public sector, local government, the not-for-profit sector and key private sector employers to facilitate job matching. Businesses that need workers can get in touch at business.vic.gov.au.
Other Reviews As some of you may know, I’m publishing a series of reviews covering modern Doctor Who, these are stories I’ve watched many times before and where I know every plot twist. Watching Spyfall is a totally different experience because I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen. So, this is my review based upon my first watch. Sometimes a title tells you exactly what to expect from a story and Spyfall, obviously taken from the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, is a case in point. The espionage theme is played up with a globe-trotting opening featuring camouflaged creatures emerging from walls to attack some spies. After the opening music, we arrive back home in Sheffield to catch up with the “Fam”. One of my favourite parts of series 11 was the domestic scenes at the start of Arachnids in the UK, and I thought the similar moments in Spyfall were cleverly done because it reminded more casual viewers of character background such as Yaz’s police career and Graham’s health problems. One thing that did annoy me is that Ryan’s dyspraxia seems to have been forgotten again, I know it wouldn’t stop him playing basketball but my reading of the scene is that he must be a talented player because his coach misses him enough to remember every reason he missed a game! The Fam and the Doctor are kidnapped by ‘men in black’ and taken to MI6, I thought the scene in the car was awesome; I loved the Doctor’s ‘private’ conversation with her friends as their captor is in the driving seat next to her. Evil Sat Nav was very well done as a laser beam kills the driver, and the car is reversed into oncoming traffic, I was very pleased with myself that I thought of using the mirror at the same time as the Doctor! When they eventually reach London, the head of MI6 (‘C’) is only Stephen Fry!!! Casting is an interesting thing, reading the comments on Gallifrey, most people liked his performance, but I think he’s reached that level of celebrity where he’s pretty much Stephen Fry in everything he appears in. There was a strange decision made in Resolution to close down UNIT and in Spyfall it’s mentioned that Torchwood no longer exists either, I know MI6 fits with the whole ‘spy’ theme, but it would have got a lot more fan love if it had been either of these other organisations. After giving the gang a bunch of secret agent hardware and details on the main suspect, C is assassinated and camouflaged creatures appear from the walls forcing the gang to flee in the TARDIS. Nothing has changed my opinion that three companions are too many for the series structure, because giving them something to do means the Doctor takes the unlikely step of sending Ryan and Yaz to infiltrate the headquarters of Daniel Barton, the Jeff Bezos/Mark Zuckerberg/Elon Musk figure at the heart of the plot. While they do this, the Doctor and Graham go to visit an old friend in the Australian Outback, I don’t know if anyone else thought the secret agent was going to be an old friend, but when we saw the back of O’s head I thought it was Captain Jack for about 2 seconds! I really liked Sacha Dhawan’s O, there was something of the likeable geek about him, but unfortunately, he also illustrates one of the problems with the presentation of the Doctor. In The Age of Steel, the Tenth Doctor is talking to the creator of the Cybermen and says “I’d call you a genius, except I’m in the room” and this illustrates my view of the Doctor; she should be the cleverest person in any scene, she won’t show off her knowledge like Hermione Granger, but if there’s a problem, she should invariably be the person who solves it. When O’s home comes under attack from creatures made of light, the Doctor seems to stand around helplessly when the agent activates a defensive shield, the Doctor’s main contribution is to use her sonic to drop a physical cage around the intruder. I really like the concept of the creatures, they seem to possess the “perfect hiding” referred to in Listen, and the way they create themselves out of the surface they use to camouflage themselves makes them visually distinctive. In their light form, they did remind me of Cyber-ghosts from Army of Ghosts, but in terms of outline, I thought there was something of Omega from Arc of Infinity (please no!). Yaz and Ryan manage to pass themselves off as journalists and get to interview Daniel Barton; there’s something about Yaz’s character that means she fades into the background when all the group are together and it was good to see her channelling Sarah Jane Smith when questioning Barton. If a career in the Police doesn’t pan out, journalism is definitely an option as she quizzes the head of VOR on some of his companies’ working practices. Like Stephen Fry, Sir Lenny Henry is incredibly famous in Britain, but I don’t think he has quite the same public persona. Also, his comedy and acting career has been built on playing a range of different characters – see series three of Broadchurch, which meant I was able to focus more on his performance. Some of Ryan’s and Yaz’s spy gadgets enable them to scan Barton’s DNA and to copy his security pass and they use this to return to his office at night. They see Barton meeting the light creatures and one of these attacks Yaz, sending her into a strange realm, before she appears in Australia in the cage where O and the Doctor had trapped another light creature. I thought this was quite a dynamic way to link events between the two locations. Based upon the information Yaz and Ryan have gathered, the gang and O crash Daniel Barton’s birthday party. The party sequence is pretty dreadful on a number of levels; let’s start with the music – a James Bond pastiche which is just too obvious, then all the characters attend the party in James Bond style tuxedos – it’s like they know they’re appearing in a Bond parody. Their mission is to find and question Barton but, because this is their one chance to get all the Bond clichés in, they have to play casino games. The moment where the Doctor is playing Blackjack and shouts out “snap” was on a par with the “I suppose we’ll have to have a conversation” line in Resolution. When the Doctor finally tracks down Barton, he dances rings around her in their conversation, leaving her staring after him as he leaves, driving away from the party in his car. When Yaz was interviewing Barton earlier, she mentioned his collection of motorbikes – a collection that he’s so casual about that he leaves them right outside the front door of his house. The gang steal the bikes and chase after Barton. I liked the car stunt at the start, but the bike chase isn’t great, partly because the series hasn’t got the money a sequence like this would demand, but also because of the reactions of the characters. Barton pulls out a gun and starts shooting at his pursuers, many bullets hit the bikes but none of the characters react like they would in real life by pulling out of the chase, instead they all stay hot on Barton’s tale like they know they’re in a Bond film and won’t actually be shot. The gang pursue Barton to an airport, where he boards a plane and the Doctor uses her sonic to open the baggage section and they chase the moving plane to smuggle themselves on board. Yaz’s DNA scanner revealed that Barton was 93% human and they have a discussion about how Barton could not possibly be an alien because he’s got an established history, I bristled at this, thinking back to Harold Saxon in The Sound of Drums, but then O reveals that he is the “Spy-MASTER!” This is an OMG moment, but actually it’s done more for the cliffhanger than because it’s justified by what we’ve seen on screen. O struggles when running after the plane telling the Doctor that he’s a terrible runner, but she’s read his biography so she knows this isn’t true. Think back to Utopia, where all the plot threads come together at the same time to reveal that Professor Yana is the Master – this isn’t in the same league. As soon as O unveils his true identity, he switches to full on villain mode, even going as far as to pull out a match box containing the real version of his persona that he shrunk with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. I thought the effect was dreadful, looking worse than the Auntie Vanessa doll in Logopolis. It’s strange, but the only convincing TCE corpse is in the first Master story 1971’s Terror of the Autons. Events start to speed up, Barton is not on the plane and instead his seat is occupied by a “cockpit bomb.” The Doctor tries to use her sonic to diffuse this, but of course the Master has thought of this, so the Doctor pretty much stands there and stares at the bomb. I get that the Doctor can’t solve every problem but Chibnall needs to make her more proactive – she could be snipping wires or trying to detach the bomb to throw it out of the plane – instead all she does is shut the cabin doors. The Master tells the Doctor “Everything that you think you know is a lie” and teleports away. A light creature takes the Doctor to the realm visited by Yaz earlier, leaving her companions on the plane and the end music screams in – using the old-style sting effect. I haven’t loved a TV Doctor Who episode since World Enough and Time, and I really wanted to love Spyfall; it looks fantastic, the monsters are cool, it’s got the shock return of the Master, but it’s somehow less than the sum of its parts and I think that’s because of the writing. I don’t remember laughing at any jokes and I can’t remember any quotable lines. As a series opener, it’s reasonably competent and the cliffhanger sets things up for a story where potentially anything can happen, but I still want more from my favourite show. (6/10)
Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives. PREVIOUS YEARS ARCHIVE: 1991 • 1992 • 1993 • 1994 • 1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000
The wrestling industry in the United States is in uncharted waters right now and Dave is starting this issue by examining the overall situation. Part of it is due to outside factors. The mood of the country is still shaken by the events of 9/11 and the effects of the attack on the economy are still uncertain. WWF is the only major pro wrestling company and its closest competitor is UFC, which isn't even wrestling. Dave says it's been a horrible year for the business, with WCW and ECW folding. Wrestling magazines closing up shop. The Invasion angle was totally botched. By every metric, business is declining. It's a terrible time to start a new company in the U.S. because getting a major league product off the ground is a just too expensive. Dave thinks the WWA idea in Australia might be the best option right now. Build some buzz over there where the market is easier and then try to strike a deal to air it in the U.S. But the biggest problem with WWA is, well, Vince Russo is the guy in charge. Dave says that Russo's idea of wrestling was a massive failure in WCW and the problem is that he didn't learn from it, and to this day continues to blame his WCW failures on outside forces (18 years later, that hasn't changed). Dave expects WWF to feel the crunch of business declining and suspects that many of the low-paid developmental wrestlers under contracts should probably start being concerned for their jobs.
WWF and DirecTV struck a temporary deal to air the Unforgiven PPV. If you recall, they have been negotiating a new deal and it wasn't going well. But the two sides agreed to air Unforgiven under the terms of the old deal while they continue to negotiate a new one. Not airing the show would have cost both sides around $1 million each in lost profits, so needless to say, they both want to settle this. So for now, negotiations continue...
The unpredictable concerns over the economy in the wake of 9/11 are already becoming noticeable. Merch sales for WWF were down significantly since the attacks. House shows this week did okay but most of those tickets were bought when they first went on sale weeks and months ago, prior to the attack. The next round of house shows go on sale this week and seeing how those sell will be the real test. One WWF house show in Fairfax, VA was already cancelled this week due to low advance sales. WWF is also scheduled to return to Madison Square Garden in 2 weeks. Tickets for that show went on sale before 9/11 and were already weak and needless to say, they aren't picking up any steam now. Rock is working that show (one of the few house shows he's doing) and it seems that since returning from filming Scorpion King, even the Rock doesn't have the same drawing power he had beforehand. That being said, WWF has lots of revenue streams, lots of cash reserves, lots of stock they can sell, and they pay their wrestlers far less than any other sport. So WWF is uniquely positioned to weather this storm and probably still be okay.
For UFC, on the other hand, 9/11 couldn't have happened at a worse time. UFC's parent company Zuffa is based out of Las Vegas and the attacks have hit the Vegas casino business hard, with cancelled trips, people spending less money, etc. Nobody wants to get on a plane these days, much less just to fly to Vegas and throw away money in an uncertain economy. Zuffa owner Lorenzo Fertitta, who operates casinos in Vegas, also owns an investment company whose major offices were in the World Trade Center. Financially, Fertitta is getting hit on all sides right now, right as he's trying to get the revived UFC off the ground.
Oh yeah, speaking of WWF Unforgiven, that show is in the books and was highlighted by Kurt Angle winning the WWF title from Steve Austin in his hometown by making Austin tap out clean. The crowd was kinda flat for most of the show, despite a lot of good matches. From a long-term booking standpoint, Angle winning the title doesn't make a ton of sense, because there's a lot of mileage in Austin as champion, but it seemed as though the decision was made to give the crowd a feel-good ending considering the last few weeks the country has had (Bruce Prichard later admitted that, yeah, having Angle win the title here was purely a short-term "give the American audience something patriotic" decision). There were also a bunch of minor injuries during the show with Perry Saturn, Edge, Jericho, and Austin all got busted up lips or eyes.
The biggest story coming out of the show was the UndertakeKane vs. Kronik match which was so bad that it resulted in Kronik leaving the company after only debuting 3 weeks ago. Dave says it was the worst WWF PPV match of the year. No word on why Kronik left yet (some say they quit after the match and others say they were fired) but they have already reached out to Russo about working the WWA tour in Australia. The big story going around is that Jim Ross told them they would be sent to OVW or HWA for more training and in protest, they quit but Dave hasn't been able to verify that. If it's true, Dave suspects WWF was hoping they would quit because those 2 guys have lots of experience (both have worked for WWF in the past) so Dave feels like this might have been a way to push them into quitting. Considering they're not great workers anyway and they were notorious troublemakers in WCW, Dave doesn't understand why they were even hired in the first place, aside from the fact that Brian Adams and Undertaker are friends and it was basically a favor for Taker. (Dave clarifies a bit of this in later issues, not all of that is entirely correct).
Other notes from the PPV: Dave points out that Raven is in the best shape he's been in years. The first Edge vs. Christian match, which needed to be a star-making performance for both guys as they branch off as singles stars, was good but the lack of crowd reaction hurt it a lot. The aforementioned Kronik match gets negative-2 stars. RVD was one of the few guys to get a reaction, as the crowd was nuclear for him. This is the match where Jericho got his eye busted from a kick and needed stitches and Dave says RVD is getting a reputation for this sort of thing, which isn't good. And Angle's family celebrated with him in the ring after he won the title and they played it up as if he finally achieved his life-long dream, conveniently forgetting that Angle's already won the title once before. Lots of 3 and 4 star matches here, but the crowd really hurt the show overall.
UFC 33 is happening before you read this but after press time, so Dave hasn't seen it yet. And I wouldn't normally cover this but this show is legendarily bad, so here we go. Things were looking good at first. The show sold out weeks in advance, setting a record live gate and attendance for the company and UFC did a hell of a job promoting the main event for months beforehand. But then 9/11 happened and the economic woes of that are expected to take a toll on the buyrate. Then, due to 9/11, the high-profile Felix Trinidad vs. Bernard Hopkins boxing match got moved to within 24 hours of the UFC PPV, which is also expected to cause a major hit to UFC's PPV numbers. Then 10 days before the show, Vitor Belfort had to pull out of the show due to an arm injury in training, completely derailing the main event they spent months building. Vitor somehow fell through a glass window during training and suffered a horrible cut that required 40 stitches and partially severed his tricep. When he couldn't go, UFC scrambled to find a new, big name opponent for Tito Ortiz. First, they reached out to Ken Shamrock and offered him $180,000 to take the fight on a week's notice. Shamrock countered, asking for $500,000 and that pretty much ended those negotiations. So then Frank Shamrock was offered $150,000 but also turned it down, not wanting to risk his 4+ year unbeaten streak by taking a fight on such short notice with no time to train and prepare. It eventually went to Russian fighter Vladimir Matyushenko. Many insiders are predicting Matyushenko will win because he's a better wrestler and punches harder. Dave gives credit to Ortiz for also taking this fight without having time to prepare for it and thinks it's a hell of a risk for Ortiz. So we'll see.
Antonio Inoki and the promoters from PRIDE and K-1 held a joint press conference in Japan to announce another Inoki New Year's Eve show taking place on 12/31. It will be a joint show with PRIDE fighters, K-1 fighters, and pro wrestlers. The hook for the show is that there's expected to be a lot of Inoki's guys (all of whom fight for PRIDE) going against K-1 fighters, so basically inter-promotional MMA with a wrestling twist.
The idea of Universal getting into the wrestling biz is back on the table and it looks to be a go starting in November. Hulk Hogan had been in talks with Universal off and on for most of this year about starting a new promotion but as of press time, word is Hogan is not involved in this. Hogan is said to be more interested in returning to WWF than he is running his own promotion but until his lawsuit with Time Warner (over the whole Vince Russo/Bash 2000 incident) is settled, he probably won't be doing anything. Hogan is trying to argue in the lawsuit that the incident damaged his career, and it's going to be hard to prove that if he goes back to WWF and has a big money-making run there. Plus he's still recovering from a recent knee surgery. Jimmy Hart has continued negotiating with Universal and it appears he and Nasty Boy Brian Knobs will be running this new promotion, with Kevin Sullivan helping with booking. A 2-hour pilot is scheduled for filming in November and several former WCW stars and other unsigned names (mostly old 80s stars) have been contacted about coming in. They're also looking at some younger indie names and seem especially interested in former ECW star Super Crazy. Dave expects this to be run like an old Memphis-style studio territory show and figures Jerry Lawler will probably be involved too unless he re-signs with WWF before then. Anyway, Dave doesn't seem to have high hopes for this succeeding (indeed, it does not).
And now we have an article from Ben Miller. Dave drops an editor's note and says to welcome Ben Miller as a columnist for the Observer and expects him to have a column in here once a month or so. It's fine I guess, but it's really just an opinion piece by some guy who isn't Dave. But to his credit, it's a well-written column that makes some good points about what WWF needs to do to improve and make the Invasion angle and upcoming brand split work. But it just feels out of place here in the Observer. I believe Miller later become a columnist on the website and was involved for years after this.
In Puerto Rico, former WWF wrestler Tiger Ali Singh now wrestles for IWA and since 9/11, he has become the biggest heel in the promotion, with the fans chanting "terrorist!" at him (just in case you're wondering, Singh is from India and is not Muslim).
Remember the MMA fighter Brian Johnston who suffered a major stroke backstage at the last PRIDE show? Good news! It was originally thought he would be paralyzed from it and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, but in the last few weeks, he's made a miraculous recovery, regaining a good deal of movement on his right side and is even able to stand with assistance. He still can't talk but he has total recognition of people who visit him. Doctors are optimistic that he will make a full recovery and should be able to walk again, although it would take an even bigger miracle for him to ever compete in MMA or wrestling again. (Here's an article about him from 2013. Long story short, he mostly recovered. He still suffers symptoms and doesn't have full motor control, but he recovered well enough to pretty much live a full life. But no, he never fought again).
Antonio Inoki finally made it back to Japan after being stranded in the U.S. after 9/11. As soon as he got back, he spoke with the media and criticized NJPW for the main event of their upcoming Tokyo Dome show, saying nobody wanted to see it and bashing them for not booking Fujita vs. Ogawa instead. Dave thinks this is some peak-WCW shit. The most popular icon in company history rips into his own company right before a big show, saying their main event sucks and nobody wants to see it. That's gonna do wonders for ticket sales. At least in WCW, the owners of the company weren't criticizing it publicly. While we're on the subject, Dave reviews the most recent NJPW TV show and says it's WCW-in-its-last-year levels of bad. Three different matches get negative star ratings. ("dAvE iS bIAsEd fOR neW jaPAn!")
Bushwhacker Butch was hospitalized this week with a staph infection. He had complained of a neck injury and then passed out and was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with staph and pneumonia. As of press time, he's still hospitalized and breathing through tubes (yeah he ended up getting sepsis and nearly dying).
In regards to the WWA tour in Australia, Vince Russo is reportedly pushing to have toplessness or maybe even full-frontal nudity for a women's bra & panties-type of match on the PPV they're filming. One of the women is former ECW/WCW valet Kimona/Leah Meow (so yeah, this match happened, but she wasn't in it. It was 3 women and a guy in drag, all nameless people who never went anywhere in the business. It was called a Skin To Win match. Two of the women (Penthouse Pets brought in to "wrestle" end up getting their tops taken off but they were wearing pasties because I assume they were forced to. When this PPV aired in the U.S., the match was edited off. Russo's brilliant billion dollar idea that would have revolutionized the industry, foiled by the censors again!).
Dave has been hearing rave reviews about a 4-way indie match featuring American Dragon, Low Ki, Christopher Daniels and Scoot Andrews, with many who saw it calling it the independent match of the year. Dave hasn't seen it yet but expects to have a tape in a week or two and will report back.
The New York Times did an interview with Linda McMahon for a story about how WWF is handling the current real-world situation in the wake of 9/11. The story hasn't ran yet but it's expected to reference WWF's exploitation of the Gulf War in 1991. In the interview, Linda mentioned that the name 'Raw Is War' is going to be changed to simply 'Raw' and that the December PPV Armageddon will be renamed (it becomes Vengeance). She also admitted that the events of 9/11 did play a part in Kurt Angle winning the WWF title this past week (I completely forgot Linda admitted it here).
Notes from Raw: Dave says it was a strange show. For starters, the night before at the PPV, they talked about having a big birthday celebration for Stephanie on Raw the next night. But that didn't happen. Stephanie's birthday was acknowledged, but there was no big party or angle about it. They also spent the entire episode teasing what would happen when Austin showed up but the entire show aired and....he never arrived. Dave again points out that hyping something for 2 hours and then simply not delivering is some WCW shit (it's also some 2019 WWE shit). There were several little things like that throughout the show also. Dave thinks back to 18 months ago when WCW used to do dumb shit every episode and he would always write, "WWF would never do this," and here we are 18 months later and it's happening all the time. Shane McMahon announced a match with Kurt Angle defending the WWF title against Booker T, leading Dave to wonder how in the hell Shane, as part of the Alliance, has the authority to make WWF title matches. DDP is now doing a self-help gimmick (who'da ever guessed?). RVD has been getting over huge as a face lately, so of course they put him in a match with Rock (the most popular guy in the company) and had him lose clean, which accomplished nothing other than killing RVD's momentum.
Sean O'Haire got into a fight in the crowd at an indie MMA show last week and was actually choked out by another fighter before the police broke it up. The guy who choked him out was also a lot smaller than him, but he also came up behind O'Haire to do it. But size doesn't matter and Dave says when a trained fighter gets the jump on you from behind and puts you in a choke, you're probably going to sleep no matter how big you are. That being said, O'Haire is lucky he doesn't work for Bill Watts because losing a real fight (to someone smaller than you no less) as a pro wrestler would get you fired back in Watts' day. O'Haire and the other guy were arrested after O'Haire was awakened from his slumber.
Eddie Guerrero is expected to leave rehab soon. During his time in treatment, Guerrero has been living with Tom Prichard, who has also been battling some addiction issues. Guerrero is still being paid his downside guarantee and is expected to be brought back to TV when he's done with rehab. Dave talks about how some guys don't succeed in rehab but then points out how William Regal is seen as the best case scenario. Regal had a nasty drug habit and was on the verge of washing out of the business and being deported, but he cleaned himself up and is now back on WWF TV in a prominent role and doing great. Dave hopes the same for Guerrero. When he's out, he'll probably spend some time in OVW first before returning to WWF.
Jim Ross answered a bunch of media questions on some conference thing last week. It was mostly a discussion about the future plans for WCW and since there isn't any definite plan yet, he had to be vague. Praised Booker T, RVD, and Kanyon for being 3 of the WCW guys to adapt well to WWF. Others praised Hurricane for the same but Ross was kinda dismissive of him, seeming not to agree. Noted that Jazz from ECW has signed and will be working with Sharmell Sullivan in OVW. Speaking of Sharmell, she was pretty much only signed as a favor to Booker T. He also praised Rey Mysterio and Juventud Guerrera but basically said there's no place for them in WWF right now. Ross was asked about Ken Shamrock and praised him but said Shamrock has a lot of MMA stuff he wants to do and only wants to wrestle in WWF part-time. But they want him full-time, which is why he hasn't been brought back at all. In regards to Rock's blooming Hollywood career, Ross shrugged it off and basically said Rock is under contract to be a wrestler full-time and that's what he loves to do. Ross predicted that Rock may take off once a year to film a movie but that the WWF is his priority. Time will tell on that. If his movie career takes off, Dave doesn't see Rock sticking around.
Various WWF notes: the list of wrestlers who are hurt right now in WWF is absurd. Dave says it would be easier to list who's not hurt. Anyway, Dave lists everyone who's hurt, their injuries, their surgeries, when they're expected back, etc. There's going to be a WWF-themed episode of NBC's The Weakest Link show featuring WWF stars taping this week. Mick Foley is appearing on Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Shane McMahon was on the Opie & Anthony Show and was asked about Stephanie's breast implants, which led Shane to respond that "they are 2 good reasons to tune into Smackdown this week." Dave thinks that's kinda weird. Sara Undertaker has dyed her hair brown and is training to wrestle.
WWF is meeting with former WCW wrestler The Wall next month. He was originally going to be signed and brought in when they bought WCW, but then they learned he had a pretty nasty drug problem so they passed on him. Dave kinda doubts they'll hire him. He's big, but he's also not very good and already in his 30s with a drug strike against him. They might sign him and send him to developmental but they already have a ton of guys wasting away down there already.
If you've been noticing all the references to Ric Flair on WWF TV lately, it's not an accident. There has been a lot of consideration recently of buying out the remainder of his Time Warner contract. The reality is WWF has completely failed to create any new stars out of the WCW names they signed and if they are serious about running WCW as its own brand next year, they need big names. The other names discussed were Sting and Goldberg, but they both have a lot higher contracts with more time left on them and economically, it just doesn't make sense to WWF right now to bring them in. That being said, Dave kinda questions how valuable Ric Flair could be in WWF these days. WWF has a younger audience than WCW did and Flair isn't getting any younger. He can talk his ass off but as far as working matches, Dave doesn't seem to see much value in Flair as an in-ring guy beyond a few nostalgia matches with big name WWF stars. All in all, Dave feels like bringing in these big name WCW stars would have worked much better if they did it at the beginning of the angle months ago. Although in the end, it doesn't matter who they had. The way it was booked, with WWF just rolling over WCW like they were nothing and nobody wanting to sell for or put over the WCW stars, it would have still failed no matter who they had.
The latest on Triple H is that he isn't expected to make it back by Survivor Series as originally hoped. Now it's looking more like December (not quite).
FRIDAY:First season of Tough Enough comes to an end, WWF ordered to pay the World Wildlife Fund's legal bills, details on new XWF promotion, more on Kronik, NJPW ticket sales, and more...
How to determine which gyms are eligible from EX Raids: Findings from a worldwide analysis of 1000+ EX Raid locations
Updates as of 2018-01-16
Magicarpic PMed me details of a Ukraine EX raid which had a leisure=park polygon created 15th July 2016. This sets a new earliest date.
MzRed found EX raids corresponding with landuse=grassland
Montagemz found an EX raid corresponding with landuse=farmyard
0Geert0 found an EX raid corresponding with natural=heath
Groschenprinz05 found an EX raid corresponding with landuse=vineyard
Flitzer09 found an EX raid corresponding with landuse=farmland
GizzlySGD found an EX raid corresponding with landuse=orchard
Given the complete lack of evidence for leisure=nature_reserve even being a nesting tag, I have removed it from the query. It is a much more common tag than orchard, vineyard, heath, etc., yet we still haven't had a single person with a leisure=nature_reserve EX raid. (Edit 2018-01-27: Fixed an issue where I had left part of the leisure=nature_reserve code in)
Last week I posted an analysis of 49 EX raid locations in Western Australia. The key findings were:
100% of EX raids from December, 2017 in Western Australia corresponded with OpenStreetMap tags associated with nests (e.g. leisure=park, landuse=recreation_ground)
In three instances the gym was slightly outside the polygon of the park from OSM, but if the park was overlayed with level 20 s2 cells then the gym was inside these cells. I proposed that Niantic stores information about parks as level 20 s2 cells and this is why these three gyms were eligible for EX raids.
There still remained some follow up questions:
When is the OSM data for EX raids sourced from?
What is the full range of OSM tags that can lead to EX raids?
Was the level 20 s2 cell overlap just a coincidence with those three gyms from Western Australia, or could this be confirmed with other EX raid gyms?
To answer those questions I have spent a good chunk of the last week performing a larger analysis of EX raid locations from around the world. The following post describes my key findings.
Note #1: Throughout this article where I refer to ‘parks’, I am generally referring to the entire collection of tags on OSM which lead to nests, including landuse=recreation_ground, leisure=garden, landuse=grass, etc. If I want to refer to leisure=park polygons specifically then I will use that term.
Note #2: This research will only deal with the crietria that allows a non-sponsored gym to be eligible to host EX raids. It does not deal with the selection mechanism (i.e. which gym is chosen each week).
2.0 Methodology
2.1 Data collection
Data was collected about EX raids from locations worldwide. This was sourced through collections previously posted on Reddit, local Discord groups and data sent to me as response to a thread I posted a few days ago (both publically and via PMs). The following table shows the number of gym locations from each country/region. The distribution of gym locations is also shown in the following graphic: https://i.imgur.com/QnL1vPe.png
Region
Number of EX Raid Locations
Canada
248
Australia
224
Hong Kong
140
Singapore
134
United States
130
United Kingdom
61
France
52
Brazil
29
Germany
22
Belgium
15
United Arab Emirates
5
Total
1060
The dataset included non-sponsored gyms only. Dates of EX raids ranged from 30 September, 2017 to 25 December, 2017 (encompassing all non-sponsored EX raid dates prior to the latest January wave). 1010 out of the 1060 were for dates ranged from 11 November, 2017 to 25 December, 2017.
2.2 Analysis of parks
Data was exported from OSM using overpass-turbo. A list of the exported tags is available here: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/vs3. Data was exported from one-month intervals (1 Mar 2016, 1 Apr 2016, 1 May 2016 … 1 Jan 2017). Data was also exported from the date of the latest nest update (22 Jan 2017), the date of the visual map data in the game (13 Aug 2017) and current (1 Jan 2018).
I analysed gyms using each month’s data via a point-in-polygon method using R (see description here). For gyms which failed the point-in-polygon test I checked level 20 s2 cells using osmcoverer by MzRed which was being developed as I was completing my analysis. (At that stage osmcoverer did not have gym marker capability or I would have just used osmcoverer instead of R). For any gyms which showed a difference in the monthly data (e.g. fell inside a park polygon using data from Jul 2016 but did not fall inside a polygon using data from Jun 2016) the data was manually investigated on OSM to check for the specific date resulting in that change.
3.0 Findings
3.1: Changes in EX raid eligibility criteria over time
My previous analysis only included data from December 2017, whereas now I had collected data dating back to 30 September, 2017. After analysing which gyms fell inside or outside parks, it became clear that Niantic changed the way that non-sponsored gyms were chosen for EX Raids between the 20 October EX raid and the 11 November EX raid.
EX Raid Date
% Parks
% Non-Parks
30 Sep/1 Oct
41%
59%
20 October
27%
73%
11 November
100%
0%
18 November
100%
0%
26 November
100%
0%
3 December
100%
0%
11 December
100%
0%
18 December
100%
0%
25 December
100%
0%
Since the change, 100% of non-sponsored gyms can be explained using OSM tags, without exception. This could also explain why there was a three-week break in non-sponsored raids; during this time Niantic was modifying their selection algorithm to target parks.
Future research will need to pay attention to EX raid release dates, as the difference between pre-November and post-November raids does affect analysis. A number of comments in my previous thread provided examples of EX raids not in parks, however follow ups confirmed that these invites were for raids in SeptembeOctober. Additionally, there is no guarantee that Niantic will not change the formula again.
Implications: Unfortunately, if your town's park areas were not adequately mapped in OSM and you don’t have sponsored gyms then it appears you are out of luck for EX raids. Despite having over 1000 EX raid locations from November and December, not a single instance was found of a non-sponsored EX raid occurring without a corresponding OSM tag.
3.2: Use of level 20 s2 cells to determine if gyms are inside parks
In my previous thread I established the idea that the boundaries of parks are defined by level 20 s2 cells. This was used to account for three gyms in Western Australia which had EX raids despite falling just outside the polygon of the parks on OSM.
I can confirm after looking at the expanded dataset that this was not a coincidence. In total there were 40 gyms (out of 1060) which fit this circumstance: they could only be explained based on s2 cell overlap. A few examples from these 40 gyms are shown below (maps generated using osmcoverer by MzRed).
I am confident enough to say that this confirms that level 20 cells are used to determine whether gyms are in parks.
Implications: Previous tools which have looked solely at whether gyms lay within polygons might have excluded a small proportion of eligible gyms. Based on this dataset, ~4% of gyms would not have been predicted to be EX raid eligible if level 20 s2 cells were not considered.
3.3: Date range for OSM data
Establishing the earliest date of OSM data is straightforward: look for locations that have had EX raids, and then look for when the corresponding OSM feature was created. There are three gyms which were able to place the earliest starting date in July, 2016:
Finding the oldest possible date of the data is expected to be more challenging. It requires an EX raid to be held at a place that has had the tag removed, either because the park itself has been removed or because the park was plotted incorrectly and has been corrected. Finding the oldest possible date for the data therefore depends on luck.
LimboMon had already discovered a possible date of August, 2016 for the OSM data based on a Singapore gym which had landuse=greenfield. At the time it was difficult to assert this with confidence for two reasons: firstly,landuse=greenfield was a tag that had not previously been linked to nests; secondly, not enough data had been collected to clearly establish that 100% of EX raids correspond to OSM tags.
Using a separate line of data I have been able to prove that the EX raid data pre-dates the nest data (January 22, 2017). Towers Baptist Church in Canada (49.142106, -123.109827) held an EX raid on 18th December, 2017. Until 6 January 2017 the gym was covered by a leisure=park polygon which covered the church, however after this date a user modified the park polygon to exclude the church building. Compare the level 20 overlay before 6 Jan 2017 and after 6 Jan 2017.
In my last analysis thread, DrKillerZA provided me coordinates of an EX raid in South Africa which was at a golf course. The polygon for the golf course had been modified in November 2016 which removed the gym from the range of the golf course (compare the level 20 overlay before 17 Nov 2016 and after 17 Nov 2016). I was recently able to confirm that the EX raid at this gym occurred on December 18, which means it was subject to the parks requirement for non-sponsored EX raids, and hence the OSM data must be prior to 17th November 2016.
Finally, I can also reconfirm the Singapore data. In addition to Jin Fu Gong Temple (1.340732, 103.690463), which held an EX raid on 11 November 2017, there is now also 南洋公园 (1.340382, 103.690883) which held an EX raid on 11 December, 2017. Both of these gyms were in range of a landuse=greenfield tag that was removed 31 August 2016 when a nursing home was built on the site. There are no other nearby tags which could trigger EX raid status, even when considering level 20 s2 cells.
Based on the above evidence we can conclude that the date range for the OSM data used for EX raids is from somewhere between 9th July 2016 and 31st August 2016. It is likely more towards the July date, given that park additions are more common than park removals and therefore the earliest possible OSM date is easier to locate than the latest possible OSM date.
Implications: OSM received a flurry of attention in Dec 2016-Jan 2017 on Silph Road when the links between OSM and Pokemon Go became increasingly clear. This led to a lot of players checking out OSM and mapping parks in their area to attempt to get nests. Unfortunately, the EX raid data pre-dates this. Players may have been targeting gyms incorrectly believing that they can host EX raids when they actually cannot.
3.4: OSM tags associated with EX Raids
My initial study showed that leisure=park and landuse=recreation_ground were the two most common tags associated with non-sponsored EX raids. I wanted to use the larger dataset to explore which additional tags can be proven to lead to EX raids. For this stage of the analysis, I first removed every EX raid that could be explained using leisure=park or landuse=recreation_ground (including those which were covered by level 20 s2 cells). This accounted for 912/1010 gyms. For the remaining gyms, I manually checked the corresponding way(s) on OSM.
The following table shows the raw number of gyms which SOLELY matched each tag and no other.
Edit 1: Added landuse=farmyard example mentioned here. Edit 2: Some people have asked about parks, etc. tagged as relations instead of ways (rel[leisure=park] instead of way[leisure=park]). 100% of the gyms I tested could be explained only using ways. If you find an example of an EX raid gym that requires relations to explain it, let me know. Edit 3:MzRed provided me two examples of gyms which can only be explained using natural=grassland. I have added this to the table and have modified the overpass-turbo query.
This confirms the ability of 11 tags (including leisure=park and landuse=recreational_ground) to generate EX raids. The lack of results for the last six OSM tags does not mean that they cannot spawn EX raids. These tags may be rare, may not contain gyms, or may not be in well-frequented areas (or possibly all three).
Implications: It appears that most tags that lead to nests can lead to EX raids, however keep in mind that EX raids use older data than current nests so there is not a 1:1 correlation.
4.0 Application of new findings
4.1 Western Australian gyms: A case study
I have a copy of location details for all gyms in Perth, Mandurah and Bunbury, Western Australia. Using these I had previously used the point-in-polygon method using OSM data from 22 January, 2017 to create a map of predicted EX raid gyms. However the latest studies have shown that I would have had some false positives (gyms matched as positive when due to older-than-expected data they should’ve been negative) and some false negatives (gyms outside polygons but inside level 20 s2 cells).
I re-ran the gym prediction tool on my Perth gyms dataset using OSM data from different dates, and with and without accounting for s2 cells, resulting in the following numbers:
OSM source date
Gyms using OSM polygon method (incorrect)
Gyms using s2 cells method (correct)
22 Jan 2017
956
1082
31 Aug 2016
932
1058
9 Jul 2016
928
1054
Overall there was a net increase in the number of eligible gyms, thanks to the extra gyms which were bordering parks and fell inside level 20 s2 cells. There were 24-28 gyms, however, which do not count due to the OSM data being older than I initially anticipated.
4.2 How to analyse your own map data
For this to work, you will need a:
A csv of gyms in your town/suburb
A copy of osmcoverer
The csv needs to be structured with three columns: name, latitude and longitude. Do not include a header row. Example:
Clean and Green Plaque,1.340817,103.743898 Lookout Tower at Yishun Pond,1.425504,103.840164 Autobot Evac,1.254207,103.821722 Clock Tower at Tampines Central Park,1.354006,103.936181
If any of the gym names have commas, either remove those or enclose the gym name in quotation marks. Latitudes and longitudes need to be exact given the precision of level 20 s2 cells – use the Ingress Portal or another source to obtain exact latitudes and longitudes.
Go to http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/vs3. Zoom to your town/suburb and click run. This will collect the OSM data. The linked query is backdated to 2016-07-10. Confirmed areas will show up as blue, unconfirmed areas will show up as grey. Export the OSM data; Click “Export” then “Download as GeoJSON”.
Open Command Prompt and navigate to the osmcoverer directory. Use the following command:
osmcoverer -markers=gyms.csv input.geojson
osmcoverer will output a file called “markers_within_features.csv” which will contain a list of all gyms inside level 20 s2 cells of OSM parks, etc. It will also generate a .geojson file which has the park polygons, s2 cells and colour-coded markers. This can be visualised by going to http://geojson.io/ and opening the export file. osmcoverer has more options such as being able to generate a level 12 s2 cell overlay for gyms, so it is worth checking out.
5.0 Directions for further research
Furthering restricting the OSM date range: People could check OSM tags of their local EX raid gyms to see if it is possible to further limit the possible date range for OSM data. I would be interested in hearing if you think you have found an EX raid gym with a tag that wasn’t created until after 9 July 2016, or with a tag that was removed before 31 August 2016.
Finding additional OSM tags: People could check OSM tags of their local EX raid gyms to see if anyone can find proof of tags such as natural=heath or leisure=nature_reserve. Berlin players could check gyms within the boundary=physiogeographical mega-nest, which might be able to have EX raids at gyms even when no other OSM tags are present.
Monitoring Niantic’s selection processes over time to check for changes: Niantic paused their non-sponsored EX raid releases in October while they were modifying their system to target parks. Was the missed 1.5 weeks of EX raid invites over DecembeJanuary just a side-effect of Christmas, or has there been another modification? We should definitely keep an eye out for whether Niantic expands to non-park areas again and/or switches to newer OSM data for EX raids.
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