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BIG WALL OF TEXT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
What do you consider to be competitive gaming?
Generally when there's some sort of prize pool involved on consecutive basis. That doesn't have to translate into there being big $ involved, but as long as sentimental value to practice and WANT to win.
What games have you considered to have played competitively? How involved did you get? How was your performance in these games?
DOW2 always had good potential, it was infact really really strong pre-Chaos Rising with 1.9 patch (I think) and the tournament enviroment was probably at it's strongest back then. There was the EMS and what-have-you. But most of it was tied to ESL, however- it was really an odd position, since our Team-Captain was a member of the ESL Admins(Or at least part of the staff), so there was alot of drama between there, and well- the distribution of the money was really shady as well, it was all abit of half-arsed bake of cake. Ups and downs from my experience on that.
I used to play Heroes of Newerth at a fairly high level as well, but to be honest, it also had it's ups and downs in it's course of events. I eventually just got bored of the game, and moved on. But truth be told, in the early-stages of the game when I played, it was just a copy-paste of DOTA with some fairly unique heroes, but the general gameplay wasn't any different. At least League of Legends had the balls to do something that was more of their own niché, so I moved to that game, and now I'm just facepalmning due to the general stalemate of the game progression, and questionable balance decisions. I can still enjoy watching it, but I don't have that much fun playing it anymore, after playing since it's beta.
For games you don't play do you watch any vods or streams? If so which games?
I really don't watch VODS for the most part, but I do watch streams pretty much nonstop. (I pop in once in a while to see if there's anything interesting going on). Vieweing VODS that last for 3-4 hours is not really ideal, SC2 vods are abit more reasonable due to it's length of games. This is where I think CoH2 might falter abit, due to the nature of the games general length of games.
Have you ever been to an offline or in person competitive event?
Sweden only has one real big e-sport event, unless you're into SM scene, but it's really abit so-so in terms of quality, but the production value has really increased the past year, and it's actually being live-broadcasted by quite big swedish websites and it's being written about in the newspaper quite frequently, even getting some headlines iirc. So it's really good to see it's growing, and its' growing at a steady pace. However, due to the quality of games, I'm not so sure people will be inclined to watch, unless the SM plays goes big, speculations everywhere.
What do you believe makes a game competitive?
First of all, I think the game needs to keep people interested in watching. There needs to be a glimmer of hope for one players to be able to do the big plays and make a comeback. Watching a 40-50 minute game that was decided in the first 5-10 minutes is not fun to watch. It's abit of an exagurration, but w/e.
On the other note, people to stop being so bloody naggy about issues, and stop blowing things out of proportion. "Meta games" don't involve over the course of a night, and balance issues aren't spotted directly, as there are so many different variables and factors to consider. Unless there's a glaring "1 shot 1 kill range 500 stuff" on a vehicle, but again, overdramatic,- but w/e.
The "Expert" scene should at least be abit more "proffesional" if they want to showcase the game. That however doesn't restrict that they can't act abit goofy or "trolly", but it should be evident, and humble about stuff, instead of steering up the hornets nest just because they can. It's just makes the community look like a pile of dump. It's good to have people with different iconic behaviors, and there's also good with some rivalry, but it really should be kept to a reasonable level where the rest of the community doesn't have to put up with two tweens discussing jibberish.
Building up teams is also a good addition, if there's more actual teams (With websits, and misc. stuff) it grows more "support" to some degree, and gets people voting for one over the other, instead of individual players. Let's see how I can formulate myself on this;
If there's 4 players around, 2x of these players are in a "team", there's going to be 2 different supporters. However, if the 2 remaining players has no actual team, they have less support due to them not simply just being in a team. I hope that somewhat explain what I mean.
Introduce Bulletins to the competetive-scene. I honestly feel like it's a big slap in the face to Relic by not having this implemented in the first place. Now, I'll explain abit on this;
By having bulletins, espicially introduced to the competetive scene, it gives the commentators abit of a discussion to bring up during the pre-game show, or loading scene, or specifically during mid-game analysis they might make. It might even sparkle some "iconic" playstyles that fit to specific players builds or general gameplay. It also gives viewers something to chatter about, be that negative or not- it does still sparkle some conversation. Let's just picture a scenario;
1. Player A chooses 3x bulletins that are heavily oriented towards infantry-oriented uses.
-> Commentators can discuss this, and pre-empatatively make some assumptions on he wants to go along with this. This also ends up being a somewhat "iconic" playstyle of said player, and might get recongition for it.
2. Player B chooses 3x Bulletisn that are different from what he usually gets, and favors for more timing-oriented builds. (or w/e)
-> Commentators are surprised/caught off-guard by this change, and sparkles some conversation about how he is going to go with this type of bulletin setup, and utilize it accordingly. This in the end, can develop some new playstyle/feature that is iconic to this player, making him abit of a "timing-guy" (or w/e, again).
I understand there's some "balance" concerns, but like Relic have said, and some people have stated, some bulletins might not be the greatest compared to one another, but it's definately an aspect of the game that I'd really like to see actually get into the competetive-scene, it was added for a reason afterall, and it's a moot point to even go practice actual high-competetive games, since bulletins are always active, unless you play customs (which are somewhat more demanding on having the contacts) to play the "no-bulletin" shaningans. It limits the player pool, and the competetive scene. I definately dislike the bulletin restriction thus so far. The Commanders are an understanding process, but I'd like to see it become possibly "uplifted" once they might become purchasable, or unlocked (depending on How relic does it) similiar to the lines of Dota2 (Bare with me), that certain Heroes are not accessible in the competetive scene, until a certain period of time.
Certain Commanders are only available at certain levels, so that ultimately also punishes people with not enough time to dedicate themselves to getting to a certain point when they can interact with the e-sport scene. It's just .... ugh, I don't like how this whole thing is being handled to be honest, there's room for improvement.
Possible implementation of a "Tournament Mode", would be good - but it's definately one grasping straw, and I honestly don't see it happening. It would be where every commander is available, and bulletins are unlocked. So everyone is playing on the same level. Obviously, you'd want to restrict this to some level, possibly on a different clients with some restrictions ontop of it. But yes, it's just more of a dream rather than a possible reality.
What was the question again?
Have you produced any content or organised any competitive events for any games? If not are you interested?
I more or less gave the clear signal for some tournaments in DoW2 in the modification I work on, and I also shipped in some prize money, but that was roughly about it. I don't see myself indulging myself in that again. I'd stretch myself as a commentator if anything, more than organizing stuff. :-)
Who do you believe is instrumental in building a strong competitive community?
I'll say what, rather than who. It's a combination of both the community and the publisher/developers (Publishers might be abit so-so, I'm not so sure on how much interaction they actually can have), but I know the developers care deeply, as evidently shown by Relic.
Harlequin tried doing something for DOW2, and I really appriciated all the hard work he put into it. I know he wanted to commit to making events more hyped-up and not as frequent, but more "unique", and less of a "oh look it's the weekly daily chore tournament". He'd want to hype up, and build up the event. I honestly think that was a great idea in general, because it actually worked. It gave both the viewers something to long for, and the players themselves to have plenty of time to practice. More people should have gone for the same approach I feel, and considering how the EMS worked that was also one of those "Once in a while" stuff, it sparkled great deals of viewers and practice time for players, and the players themselves got invested with the game.
Not one person is going to make a difference in the growth of the game. It'll require teams, several of them. |
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cblanco ★ 
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VonManteuffel 
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