EuroCup, what happened?
"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." (c) Dr. Seuss
Clanbase, once a truly respectful company which acted as the beehive of the Young eSports scene, has fallen into decay in the last two to three years. More often than not, teams did not feel the need to participate, the drive to compete in this once glorified league.
Remember the days when LANs were a thing of extreme rarity, teams only rarely got the opportunity to for once and all prove who deserved the title of finest team in Europe. This all had to be done over the internet and eSports as an entity was nowhere near the same level we are today, it had just passed infancy and was growing and changing rapidly.
But along came Clanbase and offered a platform for people to deal with the competitive side of whichever game they preferred, they could form teams and join ladders to gather points on a yearly basis. As a whole, it was treated very seriously by all those who were aiming to improve, who were looking to become the best. It would start with your first win, then your first win streak, then you would break into the top 40 by making it to the first page, then you would aim for the top 20 and eventually you would try to beat the first placed team, glory awaited only a handful of all those who tried.
But to break the spell of monotony, Clanbase came up with the ingenious idea of creating several cups throughout the year, their so called OpenCup (sometimes Spring or Fall Cup) and EuroCup. Usually these would offer some prizes, but back in those days, you were not fighting for thousands and thousands of Euros.
Honour, a word of the past
I truly long towards a time when money did not govern the way we do eSports, like it was merely five years ago. Of course, with the insertion of money into our niche community, we have a couple of gamers who can live off it, the conditions overall have definitely improved and it has professionalized quite a bit, without a doubt. However, I have increasingly become aware that money is the beginning and end of everything. Teams will decline organizations if they are not given full LAN support, teams have difficulty coming up with the energy to participate in cups that do not offer cash prizes, let alone visit a LAN without real money for first place.
And I regret this move, I feel that the professionalization of eSports has, in turn, taken away so much of the fun we used to have. I remember days when I would just come home and go on Ventrilo to play with my team, there was no real immediate goal lying ahead of us, it was just the individual drive to become good at something within a team atmosphere. Nowadays, teams are assembled to have the best odds at winning first place, which often creates these star-studded top teams who are all individually amongst the best, but who lack heart and passion.
And this is what the EuroCup and to a lesser extent, the OpenCup, did. It gathered the very best teams in Europe and let them fight each other, all for the sake of determining which constellation was the best, simply the best. With no strings attached. If we look at it from a purely cost-effective standpoint, we wasted so many hours, so much time on something as abstract as virtual points in a virtual match. But it was worth it. All those who were gaming back then (and those who are right now can relate to some degree) will know how sweet and rewarding such a win could be. You would practice each day of the week for that match on Sunday against the team you know are slightly better than you, who have the upper hand, but you would practice so much and so intensely. Then match day came, you would go on mIRC, announce your line-up an hour beforehand and prepare for the match mentally. Approximately 50 to 60 minutes later, you would feel so great if you could beat the team you had always wanted to beat. Victory was so sweet. And it was a victory without rewards, nothing but the honour and the bragging rights of calling yourself the best at something. And it sufficed, it was all you needed back then.
TEK9 (MIT0X3,frijec,Davy,Momma,OZWALD and dfb) placing third at EC XIII
Clanbase with the dough
But that all changed as soon as Clanbase tried (and had to, if they wanted to remain the premier league in Europe) to follow the way of the eSports. This meant, they now had to offer cash prizes for their EuroCup. And that ruined everything. I am not going to dispute that the winning teams were undeserving of a couple of hundred Euros for their hard work, but Clanbase moved too quickly and was unable to control the way eSports on Clanbase was moving forward.
It all started with just cash prizes for their biggest games and when they noticed, this would drew in even more teams, I feel they became cocky and wanted to match the extravagance of the biggest LANs back then, the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), Cyber Professional League (CPL) and World Cyber Games (WCG). The shows were nice and we would see Call of Duty streamed live by Stuart "TosspoT" Saw and we would feel satisfied. But the misery came afterwards, when it became apparent that Clanbase was mismanaging their finances, not being able to pay out the lofty sums they promised in the beginning. And in our fragile environment, image is everything. The perception of wealth and extravagance is all good and well, but you need to be able to back it up and if you cannot pay out a couple of thousands of Euros, which is not all that much in comparison with the money they had to fork over for their LAN Final production costs, you will quickly see your eSports bubble burst.
Doomed forever?
As mentioned before, image is key in our world and when you have consistently had problems with paying out the prize money you offer your clients, then you are somewhat done for it. Teams such as TEK9, LowLandLions, H2k Gaming and SPEED-LINK participated in the last offline Finals of the Clanbase EuroCup and are still awaiting their prize money, a two and a half year delay. Even the biggest tournament organisers right now are doing better, with ESL being considered the worst at financial time management, taking between 6 to 12 months to pay their prize purses.
Clanbase was, for a period of about 4 to 5 years, the biggest thing in Europe when it came to eSports, all the teams were active there and it seemed as if nothing else was needed. But their decision to become one of the big boys in eSports quickly turned disastrous and it made the way clear for ESL to begin their uprising, their take-over of Europe and its gaming fanatics. A real changing of the guard sort of speak, and ESL has managed to create more professional events in my view, but I am feeling quite nostalgic lately and some days I miss the unbridled competitiveness of gaming from the Clanbase years.
Does this mean that everything is lost forever within the Clanbase group? Well no. They are still quite active, albeit for a considerately bigger amateurish public and all of the huge eSports organisations have withdrawn (some even went as far as to boycott their tournaments, such as Fnatic and Team-Dignitas) in the past years. Recently (you can read the full news here), the mother company GGL has been bought and this might mean, that all outstanding debts might be paid out and if Clanbase were to slowly rebuild its professional divisions, they could still play a part in the tale of eSports, in my eyes.
Although I am quite convinced they have long past their glory days. They were once a truly inspiration to many out there on how to run successful cups and leagues, but can only blame themselves for their own demise.
R.I.P. Clanbase of old, I will miss those days.
And the loss of respect from the community is the reason of CB's impopularity
"They are still quite active, albeit for a considerately bigger amateurish public"
- Not paying out any prize money
- Now not offering any prize money
- Terrible admin decisions in last few eurocups.
- They don't listen to the community
- They don't interact with the community
- They don't respect the community
- They don't respect anything
- Admins reguarly abuse their power
- CB ladders full of cheaters
- No common sense in admin decisions
- Flawed Rules
- boredddddddddddddddd
abusive behaviour from teams
pointless conflicts
...
cough dignitas cough xD
nice read.
Good article btw Bcrbo.
You're kidding yourself if u think they do
In fact, whenever anything negative is posted about CB you are always the one to say CB is not at fault.
CB warriors only excist because your rules and admins are so incredibly dumb, you can conflict for almost everything these days and many idiots handling these conflict even rule in favour of those that do.
CB's admins are corrupted idiots, your rules are total bullshit in regards to the bind-rules, scripts (so many people lost conflicts because they had those demoplayer scripts.....COME ON), 24h rules, shared lineup(who the fuck cares about who ppl play with) etcetcetc.
If you feel things need to change, contact the Game Supervisor.
And rules are there for a reason. Admins follow them, they are called corrupt. Ok, logical. Get the facts straight from both sides of the coin before you release your comments out of your keyboard.
ye i´m raging over the shittyness of it
Mail em! I could put them up for discussion in the innermost holes of CB.
other problems are the admins, there are teams who know the admin and win all the conflicts and all that stuff
people today need to get some respect ,honor and maturity.
edited 2010-03-28 22:47:03
The admins dont even play the game and the people of the demo crew neither
All inside the democrew plays the game on top levels (top 40) so they can know the difference between a hacker and clean player.
has led to their downfall. Maybe there is time to fix CB, who knows. To bad any fresh blood needs to start at the bottom and has to plough upward through retards before you end at a decision making position
Vita-Nova bois Vita-Nova
im sorry spox if you can seriously say that any of us posting our concerns on the forums would make any bit of difference then you are deluded or just plain stupid
cb is run by people who are forced to follow rules no matter how much they want to use common sense (heard this from a lot of people)
its run by power hungry admins who dont play the game at a high level or just dont care what the high end of the community thinks
The demo crew is filled with people who have no clue about what cmds to even put on to see if a player is cheating and the rules are full of so much bs its stupid. If your own server isnt streaming and you lose the match, u can conflict over this and get the match cancelled. This wasnt always the rule it was ADDED recently. You cannot possibly tell me with rules like that the community is to blame. If you put forward pathetic rules made in order to lame then people will take them because they'd rather embarass themselves a little than lose some e-points.
The whole cb system is destined to fail because the whole structure is flawed. The rules need to be majorly updated, admins who arent part of the community at a high end need to be replaced with people that are, people who have permssion to use common sense from the people at the top. The people at the top need to realise they are killing cb, killing its reputation, and need to swallow some pride and apologise for messing up the league and have a massive overhaul. Who in their right mind would want to pay money for vip to a website that doesnt give 2 shits about them or paying their prize money back, who also design rules that encourage laming and unfair playing.
The reason why cb is shit and vita nova wll be 30 times better is because of the people who are running it, people who have a clue, people who care.
I actually tried to get into the demo crew a while back and was rejected even though i had a good clan history, a well respected player in the community etc. Instead, they decided to take on speekstar, a guy with a brand new account who was banned a few months later for cheating.
That pretty much sums up clanbase, people with no clue making wrong decisions, over and over and over again which will only lead to the death of clanbase for any teams bar mix ones. I hope it does die and when it does all the people involved in it can take a look at themselves and I hope they feel utterly embarassed by the farce they have ran for the last few years.
rant over
long live vita nova
edited 2010-03-28 23:34:23
Don't say that CoD4 has immature community. eSports have an immature communities throughout the world. You think people don't cheat and lame in cs 1.6? You think people don't buy arena rating, gold and such in WoW? Get real.
I'm not saying you should ignore the rules, but as long as I've played, gaming has always been about having fun and or getting better in it. I believe this is the same for most of the other gamers. So, people should seriously consider whether they want to conflict because some guy farted in the wrong place of the map, and start considering whether they had fun or learned something.
The rules ain't perfect, but a big part of the problem lies in the people who take the game too seriously and start ignoring the fact that the main reason why they're gaming is because they want to have fun.
Do you have a fix for that? Idiot-proof rules might fix that, yes, but that would also increase the workload for admins because people suddenly start conflicting (whether justified or not) over things that aren't listed in the rules. That's not what we want to do to our volunteers or our users..
There are of course some rules that are there because we all hate cheaters ( streaming in CoD4 if I recall correctly, and some other rules ). Yes, that gives you some more work when wanting to play a match: the plus side is over a thousand cheaters caught every month. People that could've ruined your game. ( I won't go in to the demo crew, not my field of 'work' )
edited 2010-03-29 22:58:46
From my own experience respect comes from being fair and just as an admin. That means following rules, and not making too much exceptions (with respect to common sense). I'm shit in the game that I play, though I felt I was respected by my community for my willingness to spend my time in something I got nothing in return for. And for my perseverance in doing this. Of course, not all of my decisions were well-received, though in general people respected me, ( and I respected them, another important thing there ).
Maybe that has also changed a bit, people tend to complain more, because they take gaming more and more seriously these days. I'm not saying that the problem lies only there, but a part of it does. ClanBase lets most of their supervisors do their thing in cups, which is often the case if nobody starts complaining at a GS or CoC. At least I've managed to pull of quite some things: Entering a matchreport for a cupmatch that was played with 2 freelancers. They both agreed to play, nothing was at stake ( both clans didn't make it past the group phase ), so I had the honour of posting their funmatch on the website. Part of it was also a signal to my community: you don't always have to take every rule seriously to have fun in a cup.
simply things like this make me rage.
How can you actually be so incredibly stupid to make such a decision, how can a people with such a low common sense actually survive irl :S
edit:pointed towards cb
edited 2010-03-29 00:24:46
Main problem are the rules whick are extremely old so the "community" can abuse them. Another problem are the admins. All the good admins from CoD2/4 left and their replacements lack respect and authority. Only guy who really knows the things around is Spox. Admins like l3on, cheets, Yami, Wabbit (and me) left and were replaced by guys who either didn't really know what they were doing.
I remember applying for CoD4 supervisor when the game was lauched and I was turned down for not writing an application eventho I had really good history and was pretty know by the rest of the crew. Weeks late, Bo asked me if I wanted to join the admin team for CEVO.eu. And I'm not the only one turned down for shitty reasons.
edited 2010-03-29 00:42:23
EC lan was my best lan ever I think, and I do believe Davy will agree with me.
As for what happened to CB, is pretty straight forward. ESL took their main sponsor and forced them out, they haven't been able to recover since.
Good read however.
like myzz said LONG LIVE VITA NOVA !
It's late by now anyways...They get 14k+ matches per month that brings a lot for them.
Scenario 1: You play a match versus XkZ (fictional clanname), overall it was a nice match. You lose badly, 8-21, though something was definitely wrong. A player, call him Hubba for now, made quite a few dodgy shots, even to the extend that you know he cheats. You request his screenshots, in the hope of seeing something fishy. He sends you them: you receive 12 black screenshots. He tells you something is wrong with his PC, he doesn't have any screens. (1) - This rule has been removed from the rulebook because it can be 'lamed', and you're lucky enough he used the program afterall. You're left defenseless against someone you know to be a cheater. Though, you can't prove it, and there are no rules to check whether he did or did not cheat. ( Assuming the screens would've nailed him )
Scenario 2: You lose a match versus another dodgy clan. You find that one of them is most likely banned on GV, though the server was not streamed and you're left defenseless because there is no rule to cover it and you can't 100% prove that he/she is the same person as the banned player. (2)
Scenario 3: Clan DrT (fictional) keeps substituting players during the match for no apparent reason, leaving you waiting for god knows how long every side-change. It takes you two hours to finish a match which would normally take an hour orso. You play one match in the time you could've played two or even three. (3 - point 3)
Etcetera.
Some of these rules can indeed be 'lamed', they can also be used in scenarios where you feel you're completely in your right to use them. Does that mean the rules have to change because they can be lamed, or does it mean people have to get over themselves and admit they've lost a match for once?
(1): clanbase.ggl.com/rules.php?lid=7514#chap_4 and clanbase.ggl.com/rules.php?lid=7514#chap_279
(2): clanbase.ggl.com/rules.php?lid=7514#chap_5
(3): clanbase.ggl.com/rules.php?lid=7514#chap_6
Me and Kleineman actually tried to help them before we set up Enemydown but sNk decided to ban us from the channel and ended up getting flamed by the admin such as neo, whoever that is
Hi ERIK VD BIGGELAAR,
He have Dynamic IP so this proof is not enough for a ban!
#CASE CLOSED!
He have..
Most top teams have indeed withdrawn because some felt the need to play for cash games, resulting in more top teams leaving because the real challenge lies in winning from those top teams, who play for money. Those teams sadly all left ClanBase, not because of the crap with the payout of EC money, that was later, but because of sponsors/players finding it pointless to 'waste' their time in something they can't earn any money with.
Getting some of those top teams back will have to result in offering prize-money of a considerable sum again. Else they won't come back. You argue that because ClanBase wanted to compete with the 'big-boys' ( and therefore offer prizemoney ) ClanBase signed their own demise. As a solution would be getting the top teams back in ClanBase, though therefore we would have to offer prizemoney. Exactly that which you argue to be ClanBase's demise. That strikes me as rather weird..
Anyway if you wish to contact me SnatchYYY or anyone else for that fact with your suggested rule changes or rule removal jump on IRC #clanbase.cod4 and we can have a chat. We are willing to listen to the community and sort out the "flaws" as you state. As for prizes money that is owed etc.... thats not my department :)
When you can't beat a player/a team, you can ban them easily with your corrupted admins.
GG
Our demo crew has indeed been questioned some times, but the appeals are reviewed by admins as soon as possible and then it is normally found clean if the player is actually clean. I've seen many people who seemed clean and were known as clean getting kicked for aimbot and stuff. I'm not saying every single one I banned was guilty but most of them or even almost every1 was.
As for some people who don't get banned. Its simple we dont' want to ban innocent players, we rather let a cheater go then ban an innocent guy.
About the fact that there are many hackers on ClanBase, if you look at the fact how many people we ban on monthly basis, you gotta think? What more can we do?
If you got any suggestion shoot! and I'll make it happen.
Oh and thanks for the compliment I guess :)
edited 2010-03-31 20:56:45
You had perfect example of onizuka here, whose demo was obvious as fuck. But no, its corrupted admins and corrupted democrew.
I'm not saying that we are perfect, we are making our mistakes too. We are only a people right? We have rights to make mistakes like any of you.
When you dont agree with my verdict in conflict - you can always write to me, i will ask other admins, and if i was wrong i will reopen conflict.
If you dont like democrew verdict - simply write appeal - someone else will review your demo.
If you dont like fact that you are not in EC - think why. Maybe you violated rules in last eurocups so you cannot be accepted?
Maybe you have 3 banned players on the account?
Srsly people. We are admins not to ruin this game. But to LET YOU have fun playing in FAIR COMPETETITION.
If you dont like CB noone force you to play here. Play pcws and one day cups. Personally - I really couldnt care less - its your choice.
But srsly, enough of crying about corrupted CB. If you dont like CB decision(s) think why they looked so. If you really dont agree with decision of someone, just contact another admin, he will surely help you if one of our collegues was wrong. We really all want to make CoD2 and other ladders friendly and fun to play.
Why they are not then?
Don't blame just us. Blame hackers, people who accept hackers in their teams - they are the worst scum tbh, because if hackers wouldnt be tolerated they would never exist.
Thank you.
Anyway I forgive you, you proved us that u are a under race bye
Can be commented only with huge :D
Lack of proper arguments always lead weak people to insult. You are the best proof for that theory.
And here in lies one of the major issues with CB from the last 5 years and trust me I have plenty of experience inside and out of CB to know.
You think just because you cant play the game at a high level or indeed that you want to, that wanting to take it seriously is somehow wrong. Its that kind of blind arrogance and trying to tell the players, clans and communities which has killed CB.
Players can play a game for whatever reason they want, serious, fun, professionally, it shouldnt matter to you and you shouldnt be dictating to them how they should treat the game.
Who exactly decided that it was a crime to take gaming seriously? Who said it should only be played to have fun?
It is this kind of contempt for players and the community as a whole that always annoyed me about CB admins, I see things havent changed much.
And its never CB's fault is it? Until you guys seriously take a long hard look at yourself, not just in COD but across the board, CB is never going to improve or get back to where it once was.
As has been mentioned here many times, give the power of common sense to people and remove some of the petty rules. I know for a fact how it has worked at CB in the past. They dont like grey, it has to be black and white all the time, so if someone makes a new offence that means someone has to make a decision on it, it gets added to the rules for next time, even if that next time is not the same. Treat each case on its own merits for christ sake. So you punish many just because 1 out of 20,000 players did something wrong. Totally wrong.
Learn that decision making is unfortunately going to be grey when it comes to conflicts and potential cheaters but also use common sense to decide when someone is trying to gain an advantage and when they have made an honest mistake which didnt give them an advantage. There is a huge difference between someone using a demoplay command and someone loading an aimbot, yet the result is the same in CB, ban and game loss.
Far be it from me to tell you how to run CB, it isnt my point here, but the way you guys are going right now is plainly wrong because you arent listening to your customers, the community, the very people who keep you alive and help pay your bandwidth bills and allow you gain money from advertisers.
edited 2010-04-01 09:29:37
You think just because you cant play the game at a high level or indeed that you want to, that wanting to take it seriously is somehow wrong. Its that kind of blind arrogance and trying to tell the players, clans and communities which has killed CB.
Players can play a game for whatever reason they want, serious, fun, professionally, it shouldnt matter to you and you shouldnt be dictating to them how they should treat the game."
If that is your experience, then okay. I've never said that taking a game seriously or trying to do something professionally was wrong. I just said that people, in my eyes, tend too take gaming 'too' seriously. Because, in the end it still is gaming. To game, essentially still means to play. Which is often referred to as fun to do. Else you wouldn't be doing it?
I see this in you, and the shoutcast work you did and do. You enjoy doing it, and do it on a professional basis. I've never said the two can't be combined. I only said that some users want to be professional for the sake of being professional. To that I would say: don't fool yourself. If you're the chaotic player who shows up 3 minutes before the match not knowing who you're going to play, then be that player. Don't try to force yourself in to ways you don't really enjoy. And I hope you'll agree on me with this ReDeYe, in the end, it's still all about the fun ( or the happiness it brings you. )
I'd dare to say that you wouldn't be the shoutcaster you are today if you didn't truly enjoy doing it.
"ReDeYe wrote: And its never CB's fault is it? Until you guys seriously take a long hard look at yourself, not just in COD but across the board, CB is never going to improve or get back to where it once was. "
I don't believe we ever said it wasn't ClanBase's fault. All I said is that I believe part of the problem also lies with the attitude of some players. Or even some communities.
To link back to your post ReDeYe, and back to the article: This shows how "young" gaming/eSports still is. You (ReDeYe) say that is always has to be either black or white in ClanBase, never gray. If you look at some of FIFA's rulings it always has to be black or white too. ( Or just think back to the french handgoal. Referee didn't spot anything at the time, so score stands. One of the most ridiculous decisions ever made, but done exactly by the book. )
If ClanBase, then tries to set up a clear rulebook, with exactly in it what is and what is not allowed, then somehow it is wrong. You plead for an organisation which is flexible yet strict. One that has clear rules, yet uses common sense ( to bend those clear rules ). Is it possible to have both? Rationality would say no, luckily we humans aren't that rational. Though, that leaves us with the problem here: When is a decision biased, and when is it justified?
For the winning clan/player it'll be biased, for the losing clan/player it'll be fair and just. Everyone has their own opinion and their own views on that. ClanBase has decided to get the rules as strict as possible ( very much like the FIFA has, f.e. ) to try to get rid of the biased/fair ( depending on your POV) decisions. It has tried to become a professional organisation by offering clarity.
Now, it seems the users have an urge to go back to the more amateuristic eSports scene. Where precedents can be ignored, and every case is treated on its own accord. I wouldn't mind that, but if we start thinking about the bigger picture ( i.e. the eSports scene ) would it matter?
I believe it might make it much harder to ever become a true recognized sport, with actual associations if we follow the path some users seem to want.
If something doesn't make sense to you, msg me about it. I'll try to explain a bit clearer..