PoOk's call to the community
Posted by PoOks on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 20:17 in
Hayden "PoOks" Huntington, resident of Pantheon Call of Duty 4, has made his call to the community to support the upcoming LANGames eXtreme April event, which sees some major prizes, and an excellent venue to boast.
For the past two years myself and many other competitive players have been aching for more well run LAN's with an excellent venue, better competition and prizes that make the trip worth it. It seems that a LAN has finally come along that offers all of the above, but very few people seem to want to make the effort and support Extreme LAN and this not only confuses me, but it irritates me.
If us gamers want competitive gaming to grow and actually become something more than just a fun hobby, we need to make the effort and not expect everything to fall into our laps.
Think of it from the sponsors point of view, why should they sponsor an event where there is little knowledge of the exposure they are going to receive from the event. Should they just throw money at an event where 5 teams have registered and hope more teams will show up on the day? Not very sound business savvy.
It's quite simple if we want better prizes and better LAN's us players have to register for events so the event organizers can go to the sponsors and show them the amount of people expected for the event. Big sponsors seem keen to get involved in our local gaming scene but us players have to support events and it is going to require time, money and commitment from our side as well as theirs.
The last eXtreme LAN did have a very short notice period and I can understand why many teams couldn't make it. For this months Extreme LAN teams have been given a months notice and still we see only 5 teams registered so far for Call of Duty. I will concede to the point that there wasn't a solid schedule for the competitions, but we have now been given one. Are teams going to still sit around and not support this lan?
I can see some people arguing about not having money, I think that's a rather pathetic arguement. I work twice a week as a waitron and I can still afford to pay my 4mb dsl, a trip up to joburg and a few nights out inbetween.
Below are some details about the Call of Duty 4 Competition at extreme lan
There is still place for another 11 teams, so please make the effort to attend this LAN and maybe we can get a LAN going that has competition to rival rAge. It would be fantastic to attend a monthly event where there is intense competition and not having to wait till October every year for a LAN that gets you biting your finger nails in anticipation.
The prizes for Call Of Duty are down to 4th place and the total prize purse is valued at around R30 000, if that alone isn't worth the trip I don't know what is.
Below is a schedule for the CoD4 Competition.
Saturday
10:00 - Tournament starts, first bracket matches begin
16:00 - Last match for the day begins
Sunday
11:00 - Loser Bracket Final Starts
12:30 - Grand Final Starts
Click here for the exact times of the matches.
You can register for eXtreme LAN here.
You can pay your entrance fee online or at the event.
- There is also an open LAN which you can bring your friends and family too, this has 100 spots available in total.
- Hotel price is R395 per room per night and it has two beds. If teams want they can squeeze their five players into one hotel room.
- If you're flying, arrive at OR Tambo and not Lanseria. OR Tambo is really close to the event.
Lastly I would just like to say that eXtreme LAN truely has an amazing venue. Having the LAN hosted at a 4 star hotel certainly has its perks, the room where the lan is held is fully airconned and that coupled with internet really sets a higher standard for lans in this country.
Hopefully we see more teams coming through to this lan and growing the competitive lan scene.
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couldn't agree with you more Hayden. I'm really hoping that we can get at least a few more teams to participate.
The lack of interest is quite disappointing, with the amount of teams in and around joburg there should be far more support. Time for people to stop being so lazy.
good write, better read!
Many of the older players are very sceptical of events held by A77 due to the companies up and down history.
Its fair to say A77 started the trend of competitive lan events in SA by hosting some very big lans in the past, back in the days of CS1.6. But then all that praise was lost when they failed to give out the prizes they had advertised. They also messed up at the last CS:S rAge competition they held, by forcing the contestants to play on pc's that could not handle the game. After sponsors pulled out, A77 disappeared from the competitive gaming scene for a few years.
IMO when they held major events like carousel (sp?), the local gaming industry was just not big enough to support it. The sponsors were not getting the exposure they expected and thus pulled the plug. However, the local gaming industry has grown ten fold since then. When there was once no local gaming news sites, there are now multiple local gaming news sites. Enough to carry the message the sponsors want to send.
I'll keep an eye on this event, and if one day in the future they host a competition for a game I play, I will most definitely consider going.
Things like this come and go. My advice to all COD4 teams would be to take advantage of it, because you never know what the future might bring... or take away.
I totally agree with pooks and infy. Rob why not get soviet to attend riseup at the event? I know you guys focus on source but surely it will help if you guys participate.
If I was in joburg I would go to the open lan even though it doesnt play my game, just to support the event.
Sorry double post...wheres the damn delete button?
We have no interest in 1.6, unfortunately. Also, I wont support an event by going to their openlan simply for the sake of supporting the event.
When it comes to open lans, MPLD is the best in the business and I'll throw all my support behind them any day. They might not have an amazing venue and big corporate connections, however they do try their best to make the lan as fun as possible by using what they have.
If the event host decides to support COD4's community by hosting tournaments for that game, then its the COD4 community's responsibility to show support for the event, and not mine.
Wish I could attend this event, was so amped
I agree.
People continuously moan about not enough lan events or prizes etc but they not willing to support a LAN like this one. How are sponsors supposed to justify bigger prizes when they have hardly any teams.
I would have loved to come down but work commitments stopped me and im not even in JHB. Come okes support it so they will hold more bigger ones during the year.
Great article. I cannot agree more and I've been feeling the same way for a couple of years now.
I have been around the eSports (gaming) scene now since it's beginning in SA, literally. And the one common thing that has always been apparent is that gamers can do only one thing successfully, and that is complain. They complain about each and every tournament that is held, and then when the organizers change the tournament to what they requested, they simply just do not support it and come up with hoards of different excuses.
Infy, although I understand where your perception of Arena 77 comes from, it's not completely accurate.
The Carousel events were always a great success, and coupled with ESWC it was the first tournament in SA that sent players overseas to compete in an international tournament. The Carousel event ran successfully for 5 years, before Arena 77 chose to stop hosting them. Their attendance were always great and everyone always had a great time at the events.
Only once did a sponsor pull out of an Arena 77 event and that was the ESWC event at Emperors palace. The only prize which was not delivered on because of the sponsor pulling out, was the overseas trip. All other prizes were allocated as promised.
In fact, Arena 77's track record with events, is better than any other organization in the country. They were the first to run successful tournaments for
World Cyber Games Road trip x 2
ESWC x 4
rAge CS Tournaments
Online Leagues
Kode 5
Dreamhack
The reason why Arena 77 took a step back from eSports in the country was largely due to the problem we still see in the community. No-one supports events that need supporting.
Our community is nowhere near large enough for gamers to take the attitude of "If It's not my game, it that games' community's job to support them". Our community has gamers that compete in way more than just one game at a time and its ridiculous to take that type of stance.
Arena 77 has ALWAYS given big prizes and amazing events. I mean, just last year Arena 77 sent shase to Dreamhack. Tell me what other organizers have constantly been sending players overseas for the last 8 years?
I used to be a part of Arena 77 and I moved out of Arena 7 to spearhead LANGames to make it truly independent and to try and get the community to come together and support all the initiatives from all around.
There are some great opportunities just lying there for the gaming community. Honestly, there's so much on the table that we need to make happen, but the gamers aren't supporting anyone anymore. Proper events cost a crap load of money, time and effort. And if the gamers simply don't support it, why bother?
I am a gamer. I've been a gamer for longer than most of the gamers that's in the community now, and I know that it's so much easier to complain than to do for gamers. Gamers are great at playing games, but even better at making up excuses and complaining. It's incredible.
I always had the greatest respect for the teams that were successful and really good at their respective disciplines. Teams and players like Pantheon and Pooks. They remind me so much of DC and Hellhound (Jannie), DD and Type-O-Negative... They are the guys that support every event, irrespective of discipline place whatever. Even if they were just in the crowd cheering guys on!
Its amazing how the really good players, the ones you would think had the right to complain about anything, were always the guys that didn't complain.
Well, there we go. Every year or so, I get frustrated and I rant somewhere in the community about it. And its always about the same thing. If you don't believe me, go search the SGS forums archive a bit
Back in the day, that was the only forum worth mentioning 
Hehe. Pooks, thanks for a great article, and can't wait to see you guys next week.
Mandus.
Hey Mandus
Thanks for clearing that up, and I apologise if I got some of the facts wrong. However I still maintain that some of the more recent events held by A77 were a bit of a flop. Mainly, the rAge 2007 event. I ran the online qualifiers for that event, and everything went smooth on my end. Once I handed it over to the LAN side for rAge (that lady, forgot her name), everything went south (MSSA style) and I was disgusted by it. So as you can imagine, my view of A77 (or at-least the people who were in charge at that event) is fairly negative.
I have always given A77 credit for their achievements in the past, and I still respect A77 for those achievements.
I agree to an extent. There is no single gaming community, there are many community's. At-least one per game. Its the events job to earn the support from the community, and it takes time to do that. Support is not going to given simply because its needed. There are simply way too many lans that need support for that to work. Expecting people to support an event simply because it needs supporting is like expecting some one to buy a product simply because the product needs to be bought - even if the person buying the product does not want the product.
There are over 60 teams in the Do Gaming COD4 league. If these teams dont register, its either because there is a serious mental problem with the players in those teams, or the event simply is not being advertised and marketed well enough.
Mandus, what games will you be hosting competitions for in the future, besides COD4?
Infy I agree that gamers should just support any random lan, but the last eXtreme lan was well run, it had a great venue, fantastic prizes. It wasn't any other lan. It has all the elements of a great lan. This time around we see the same venue, same admins and good prizes. So why not support it? If a product is good it's worth supporting ?
If gaming is to grow gamers need to starting taking some of the opportunities offered to them because if they don't those opportunities are going to dry up rather quickly and they are going to have to sit around for the next two years waiting inbetween rants on why there are no good lans with good prizes.
This event has been spammed on Sgs forums Prophecy, BvD site now P site. Would be great if Dogaming would do an article on it or maybe even come to this months one and do a write up about it.
Ampt for another trip to Joburg Mandus
Hey Infy.
Thanks for the reply, It's great to hear from you guys and to find out what you are hearing.
I must admit, the event you are referring to was a bit of a disaster. That however, was the year I was not involved with Arena because I was finishing studies etc. I did attend the event though, and I myself was also very upset about the event. Especially after all the awesome potential it had. The setup, stage etc was great, it could have been so awesome!
Well Infy to answer your question. What games will I be supporting for 2010?
I was going to wait a little longer before I announce it officially, but whats better than announcing it on a community website.
We will be supporting the following disciplines this year. Starting as soon as 2 weeks from now. Arena 77 with LANGames will be starting online leagues for.
HON
Counter Strike 1.6
Counter Strike Source
Call of Duty 4
Starcraft 2 (Once Public Beta Starts, Or maybe even before... More Info coming soon)
Quake Live
There are 3 other games that we are still finalizing and I cannot announce now.
From the list given above, Counter-Strike 1.6, Call of Duty 4 and Quake Live will follow through into finals which will be held offline.
If you guys feel that we should support any other games, please feel free to request them.
In your LAN finals, you might want to consider CS:S. CS:S has around twice as many clans as 1.6 does. For example, at MPLD March, 13 teams showed up at the LAN. Now I'm not saying take away the 1.6 event
Host for both.
the numbers for the cod4 tourney have doubled since last month =D
I don't think the lack of attendance is as one-dimensional as : "most of the gamers in the community are lazy. "
Although the LAN was advertised more in advance than the last one,, there still wasn't enough time given. I mean the event times only went up a week ago (afaik) and the prizes still aren't confirmed.
My advice would be to get everything 100% confirmed, right down to the smallest detail and including prizes, months before the event. I've spoken to quite a few tieams and most tell me that once again there just wasn't enough notice and secondly, they can't spend ~R2000 on a plane ticket without confirmed prizes.
As you've said there are things outside your control, in which case you can continue as is but I would think it will take you quite a bit longer to build up support. Gamers are pretty shrewd customers.
That still isn't an excuse. As they very well know what we always give big prizes.
Putting together an event of that scale together in a month with everything that goes with it, not even the sponsors can know exactly what prizes will be given up to a week or so before. They just sign off on a certain amount in value of prizes, and they need to provide that.
Thats why we always say we are giving away Rxxxx amount of prizes for the event... And we do.
Gamers are lazy, greedy morons who want everything handed to them on a silver platter. There should be a drive to lan, a drive to compete but there is none. Instead it's how little one can do and still get some form of reward. It's disgusting. Where is the pride. The passion.
It's not about prizes. It never was. It's about wanting to compete. Wanting to win and enjoying that hard fought victory. That is what gaming IS. The ONLY place you can truly compete is at a lan. Unfortunatly the more gaming grows the more it dies. Soon there will be nothing left but online leagues. Disgusting
Lan is going to die if you like it or not. Cant host a lan comp for a game if it dosnt support lan :/
SC2 and BC2 as examples.
That just means lans need to have internet connection. Simple
Wouldn't honestly be lan if you are forced to play on an online server would it?
I think you should lan more. A lan is about the people not about the medium of gaming. Seems you live up to your name
tl;dr:
My point is in regards to SC2 and BC2 not having lan mode. Only factor remaining from LAN is pressure. Most lans dont have super fast internet (for 250 gamers) that can support competitions for modern games. Only reason left to attend would be to socialise and get prizes.
main:
Mate, I've been lanning for years. I've been to more lan competitions than most, and I've definitely held more lans than most. Although you are right about LAN competitions not only being about playing on a 1gb network, you cant dismiss my opinion simply because you think I lack experience.
There is a fairly well known saying: "Do it on LAN". That saying takes two things into account, although one is primary. The primary one is simply due to online lag, people believe that on LAN, there are no line speed/ping excuses. The second being how well you can handle pressure/stress.
I'm not quite sure what you mean in the last part of your post though.
Because I dont play competitively any more, when I go to lans, I do it to socialise with my friends from online. Half the time I dont even take my pc, and if I do, its to leech. However when I did play competitively, I didn't go to socialise, I went to win. Maybe im just old fashioned, but when I was competing, I didnt get drunk, or sit at the braai. I was way too busy to do that. The only time anyone would do that, is if they had been knocked out.
Now when a game stops supporting LAN, a whole aspect of LAN is removed from the picture. You can no longer "Do it on lan", you can only do it online. The lag would infact most likely be worse playing online, from the lan because around 250 (BC2: 8 players X 32 teams) people will be using the same internet connection as you. If the lans internet connection can handle it, then great. However, how many lans do you know of that have internet connections like that? 1?
Bottom line is that unless there is a miracle and our internet speeds increase tenfold within the next 6 months, we are in a bit of a pickle. Mainly because of this "No lan support" trend that the game producers seem to be following.
---
Numb, your article was well written and I enjoyed it (wouldn't be posting here If I didn't). However there is always more than one side to any story. You said we all need to support Lan Games, and I disagreed because I believe support should be earned. I then said Lan is dying due to modern games no longer supporting it, which in my opinion is true. I guess the point im trying to make with this paragraph is that I am allowed an opinion, and you (or anyone) shouldn't hold a grudge against me because of it.
xD
Pooks wrote the article, not Numb
yea mine would have been better
When I say lan I'm not only talking about a full 300 man lan or rage size lans or even comp lans. People just don't want to lan anymore. They don't want to be outside of their comfort zones and this is effecting attitudes online aswell.
I completely agree that currently we cannot expect ourselves to be able to create a lan free lan but this doesn't mean we must just abandon lans. I just feel there's a new age of completely lazy and greedy gamers that are ruining competitive gaming as a whole. Added to the whole two faced nature people seem to enjoy online, I just don't think it's time to give up on something that should be the center of our focus.
ps: I was just cracking a joke as the last part of earlier post
I don't believe you can't have an opinion
Duno why I thought you wrote the article XD Guess my mind was else ware :>