So, what’s so important about the skill tiers?
In my eyes the tiers motivate players to strive for more than they currently are which pushes our scene forward. You will always have the players who want to be more than than they currently are, who will do pretty much anything for advancement. The question that always lingers on my lips when I get messaged by someone wishing to join the team that I belong too is, “what are you sacrificing in order to play for us?” Now, this could simply be something artificial such as a server sponsorship and a website or it could be something bigger than that, a bond with your teammates, or a relationship with a friend that has spilled out into the real world. I know for a fact that if someone is willing to betray their current team in a heartbeat for a better offer, I don’t want them playing alongside me, whether they’re from SAS or H2K.
Another side to this story is the deep, murky waters of disallowed programs, I won’t name sources as I don’t wish to advertise for such companies, but I’m sure most of you will have heard of the main forces behind this scene’s corruption. The pressure to perform both online and offline can prove too much for players who aren’t seeing the results they wish to achieve, just like any sport. The main difference between esports and major sports is physical involvement. We can technically play all day and suffer only slightly for it, where as real athletes will hit a physical brick wall after an extended duration. To help increase their fitness levels then they take illegal drugs to boost their performance, just like in the real world we can do something pretty similar which is much harder to trace, but at the end of the day it all boils down to one thing, cheating.
Over the duration of COD4 the amount of players who have been caught who originate from the UK has risen dramatically, which has in my opinion spread a layer of distrust amongst the community. If a new player works his way up the ranks a bit too quickly and starts performing against top teams he will shunned by the community until he does something magical at lan and everybody drops the proverbial ban hammer. One example of this comes to mind, a player who came to live in the UK all the way from South Africa and was donned a cheater within his opening months of competing online, it wasn’t until i37 where tensions started to dissolve, and today he could be argued to be one of the UK’s best players.
The point I’m trying to make when I talk about this is mainly to the people out there who do not realize the true extent of the damage they are doing to this scene, not only are they robbing upcoming talent of a chance to shine in competitions, but they are slowly destroying everything that has been built, including the professionalism of COD4, which draws in money that stimulates the game we all so much enjoy.
Finally, the tiers themselves that prove so important to people as a sign of accomplishment seem to be behaving like that of a river with a high flood risk. The river stimulates all those that surround it, helping a community to be built up, that on the surface seems to be flourishing. But then a storm comes and overflows the bank destroying all the hard work that has been conducted. The overflowing river that I talk about are the attitudes and egos of the people who have built the biggest towers and have climbed to the biggest heights. They look down onto the tiers below them and mock all they see as inferior which slowly has a detrimental affect on the entire village, slowing down progress by destroying motivation and even causing some to give up entirely. The biggest incident in a public capacity that I have seen involving this is that of ex-dignitas player, Germaine. When the Vita Nova council decided that his newly formed team should only be permitted into cod.academy he abused everybody at said skill level accusing them of being “armless” amongst other things. This sort of behavior has to stop if the scene is to progress into the distant future or the scene will slowly thin out and die.
| Page 1: Introduction | Page 3: Interview with VN's myzz |
I totally agree with you, egocentric kids like him should be ousted by the community for atrocious actions!
At the end of the day, it's natural for people to move on to greener fields, and that's why we continue to strive for better teams/jobs/careers/whatever, as it's in our nature to do so. And denying people that right, or even holding a grudge over that, is one of the most egocentric things a person can do
Would you rather work in a team with 5 friends who have spent a year working towards goals or jump ship and play with 4 players you don't know all that well just to be more successful? I, personally, play CoD4 in my team because the camaraderie when we, as five friends achieve something as a unit it is a truly gratifying experience. I wouldn't have the same feeling if I jumped ship for success in a PC game.
This isn't my business career, its a game, why would I fuck friends over for greener pastures?
edited 2010-09-04 15:44:35
This actually happens more often than you'd think.
P.S. Whereas I can't speak for every team, almost every player whos been in waL has had offeres from much bigger teams, with proper support, and better reps only to reject them and continue being shit with us.
It might be an easy decision for you, but its not nearly as black and white as you like to think it is.
Looking forward to your coverage of VN Lan.
And all to true, its just a great shame that most of it will never be acted apon.
Cokeee ;)
In Cod4, took the hard route in taking not so known players but potentially good players and did well.
Then the move from TLR to MYM was needed as TLR could not afford to take us to lans like MYM could. Plus it was good exposure for the scene as a whole.
On topic however it was a decent read but I feel going into each point (perhaps splitting the article into 3/4 parts would work) with greater detail would have been a wiser choice.
Good to see someone willing to write *COD* articles on this website.
edited 2010-09-04 18:30:27
If I see you on xfire I'll have a small chat to see where I can improve next time, this goes for anyone by the way, feel free to message me or post here.
best of luck uk's guys
Its also getting anoying that only the ''top'' players of the scene get interviewed from their point of view, while giving a lesser known person like the team mentioned in this story SAS, gvin no oppertunity giving their opinion about this fact training up the people.
Ofcourse people follow those ones who are more known to them and make an example then somebody who is unknown to the competitive scene.
I've always tried to help many teams and organisation to get in the competetive scene and I don't need any recognition but it would be nice to track down those people and hear their side of story, don't forget a story is always 2 sided.
Talking about Multiplay, its pretty normal a company wants to make profit, now we all say yeah they should be more honest and fair about the prize money but why don't u ask them for a interview.
People shouldn't moan about prizemoney, thats the whole fucking problem of the gaming scene, people should get a grip and be glad they are getting something. People often forget that gaming is a hobby and you can't really make a living out of it. Only a few people can make a living out of gaming.
People who play at the top level should be glad they can visit all sorts of different country's and places and get that paid from their organisations. And for the people who aren't in the top quit asking lan support if you haven't reached anything.
Xtreem signing off
/mind is blown
Vital springs to mind, think this article carries the main message you fail to see.
Pettiness and grudges aside, i've been in the cod scene for probs going on 5 years, and during those years i'd quite happily admit i've achieved very little. The main reasons behind this is the fact i refused to cut corners or leave my friends, if i ever get anywhere (different priorities these days), i'd much prefer to do it with friends rather than in the company of arrogant tossers (i realise i never will lol >.<).
That said, the higher up the tier ladder you go, the more acceptable these sort of things really get. For professional teams, this is business, you make money and represent an org, your obligated, the main problem area is however, is the wannabee fags who can't accept your not at that level and try to imitate the pro's by treating your friends like shit.
Attitudes make a community.
agreed.
People need to realise i-series is a profit making company. Even though they don't fund huge prize purses they still provide a LAN for upcoming UK teams to get the ball rolling on the LAN side of things for their teams.
Where would org's like Dignitas or Reason be without i-series?
Speaking from my own experience, i-series helped my previous teams a hell of a lot when it came to LAN's in CoD2. So stfu bad mouthing i-series
[constructive input]
also agree that iseries has probably done more good than bad for the UK community, and still is doing more good than bad in terms of getting LAN experience.
edited 2010-09-05 16:37:37
need to give air to the interview with pics or anything
I've got a nade for hardware.
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It's a very idealistic, far left way of looking at the scene and looking to see what we can do for "the motherland", but at the same time I very much disagree with some of the content. I prefer Newbury (I camp and have never had problems and I also live 3 hours away).
The "players jumping ship to a better team offer" thing is something anyone would do. That's the competitive nature of human beings, that's how it's always going to be... and really... rightly so.
Multiplay, despite it's massive failings, does a great deal of good for the UK. Valuable lan experience, breeding new teams, keeping those core elements of the bottom rung of the skill ladder together.
edited 2010-09-06 17:55:43
why interview him..
But ye as long we have idiots like myz in the scene its gona be messed.
edited 2010-09-09 12:06:06
Without being part of the company itself how do you know the costs/figures and more.
As always when things get bigger you have more problems and more issues, security, safety, insurance and more!
You say about ticket prices and this mean "this" is available, how would you know you've never run it all!
" At the same time Multiplay mock the community that they have already poked with a stick, with the option of a £5,000 prize fund, for a small and very reasonable demand of 96 teams, which is equal to 480 tickets. The amount of money they get from the tickets of these members is 5 point seventy six times more than the prize fund, and thats a very generous figure towards multiplay, this is excluding early arrival (which is plus £15 per head) and my original figure is including every discount available."
Don't talk figures unless you know them all! You don't know what other income they have from sponsors nor do you know what other costs they have. Renting the venue is costly enough on it's own let alone everything else.
Also did you include the "big ones" discount into your calculations? You don't know how many people pay EEB, EB or Full Price.
Anyone could start their own lan, but as soon as it gets bigger and more complicated you will always hit problems and at the end of the day it has to be worth doing it, otherwise what the point? Any LAN that may end up getting big over here will always end up looking towards money and revolving around it.
Is it more efficient from a business perspective to pay X amount to have a lan at location 1 when location 2 is half the price? Is it more efficient to have a LAN miles away from you HQ or is it more efficient to have a LAN 50 mins Max from your HQ?
I think you get my point.
You can't compare running a lan here to other countries.
Other countries are less slack on things.
Our whole country is fucked up and is based on people moaning, them stopping something/doing something and at the end of the day ruining the country.
You have to fill out a million forms to do anything these days and the councils don't even know what they are doing.
A while ago they had a meeting about a issue we had on our field and they don't even invite the people who own/want to do something!
I could make a lifestyle choice and never work in this country, have kids, get a house given to me to live in, I would get money pretty much given to me that I wouldn't even deserve! My kids will get grants all through their education and I wouldn't have to do fuck all. They would get more then people whose families work lol! What a joke.
My 2 Cents!
That was working on the basis of £60 a ticket, I don't think you can get cheaper than that, I could of course be wrong.
I'm working on a few project at the moment and I acknowledge my multiplay point was crude and unfinished and I intend to correct this in the future. Add my xfire and we'll talk if that's ok with you.
xfire: hotshot303