ESL's Extreme Masters Quake Live World Tour is Quake Lives largest and most prestigious event world-wide. With professional players coming out of the woodwork from all over the globe, competition is fierce. Sebastian 'Spart1e' Siira, Pierre-Emeric 'l1nkje' Portier and Kevin 'strenx' Baeza are a few of these world-class athletes. Hailing from France and Sweden, these three Quake Live stars are in the heart of Quake Live territory, Europe.

Europe is exactly where these three set of on their travels to Germany, with the Extreme Masters (EM) European Championship. This online qualifier brought out the best of the best in Europe's Quake Live talent, just to see who would advance to the 16 man EM EU Championship Finals, to see who will attend the Global Finals in Hannover Germany.


Excerpt
What were your training preparations like before the event?
I just played with different average/good players. By this I learned how to play vs different playing styles and learned the best from all the players I played.

Do you have any specific practice partners you like to train with?
The last days before the event I played with noctis which was really good for me. Except for him I just play with any good player that is around. Strenx has always been one of my favorite practice partners, but I learned lately that I can´t just concentrate my practice with only one player, but needs different players.

How does your personal life affect your E-Sports career? Is it harder to manage things equally when leading up to a tournament?
Of course I have to do sacrifices when I also have a "2nd work" playing games. A lot of times I have to say no to my friends the days before an tournament, or have to say no to them because I am going away for an event. My boss at work is really nice and always gives me vacation when I need it. But I always take as little vacation as possible. Sometimes I even work the same day as an tournament. Which is really bad. I am always really tired going into a tournament. It is like i have to choose between sleep or playing to get into form, and I always picks playing. But it will change in the future. If I didn't have to work like I do, I would be more consistent and do better at tournaments, but E-Sport is still just a hobby -Sebastian 'Spart1e' Siira Interview excerpt



Interviews and a writeup can be found HERE.

The latest addition to the FnaticMSI Quake Live team, Kevin "strenx" Beaza, has been in a great shape lately, winning many online tournaments. The Frenchman won the Excello Cup two times, the first edition of the Zotac QL Cup and was king of ESL's King of the Hill competition. The Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge in Dubai is drawing near and it's time for Kevin to prove himself on a LAN event with a lot of big names attending.

In an interview by Cameron "fams" Carson and Danijel "StreeT" Remus, you can read about Kevin's real life, his personality, gaming career, the upcoming tournament at Dubai, the Quake Live scene and his plans for future.

To read the entire Interview click here.

Alessandro "Stermy" Avallone has launched his latest venture over at stermy.com. He now proposes both a duel pack and team pack.


Stermy: "The time is yours, feel free to ask or discuss anything Quake Live related. Strategies, movement, positioning, how to get better, aiming, equipment, settings, etc..Anything really..Please have any questions ready prior the start of the lesson!"

You can book your first lesson on stermy.com.

In the third and final edition of the ‘Art of War’ series, we will be focusing on relating the book to Quake. In this edition we will be focusing quite a bit on how to think differently, and the reasoning and thought process behind using unorthodox strategies and movements.

Quake is a game of constant strategy and adaptation. Simply relying on aiming and item timings will not win you games against skilled players.

As the Sun Tzu series comes to a close with Quake, there seems to be a reoccurring theme in what Sun Tzu focuses on, and that is how you think, adapt and prepare for each situation, so keep that in mind.

You can find it on fnatic.com.

Cameron "fams" Carson’s latest feature to follow up the very popular E-Motions piece. A sequel of sorts; Motivation will focus on how to stay motivated in E-Sports, what effects it can have on your game-play and personal life, and more!

Contains interviews with the following:

Alessandro "Stermy" Avallone (FPS Player)
Sun Yi "F91" Feng (Best SC player in China)
Min-sik "reis" Ko (SK Wc3 Manager)
Patrik "cArn" Sattermon (fnatic CS captain)
Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham
Daeduck "Kei" Yoon (Pro Wc3 player)
Alex "Jax" Conroy (Former owner of JMC and current co-owner of coL)

Read the full article and interviews at Fnatic.com.

Excerpt--

"“We don't force them to practice; they have their own practice methods. However, I will supervise their practices, if they don't have enough practices or don’t put enough effort in on them, I will point that out and let them fix it by themselves.” – Pei ‘King’ Le

Teaching your players responsibility will instill in them a professional attitude towards their career, and their teammates. It is one thing to be a team slave, and baby your players day in and day out; teaching your players on the other hand, ensures growth. You can be bogged down with the same work every day, or you can teach your players, and they themselves can take charge of their lives and careers, allowing you as the manager to help grow them as players, and the team/players brands as well."


To view the full piece, click here.

My latest article. Here is an excerpt

"Without a union to delegate problems such as these for teams, teams will come and go, sponsors will come and go, and so will E-Sports. There is nothing stopping any organization from torpedoing another organization. An E-Sports union that openly address’ the concerns of teams, fans, players and sponsors and helps direct things in a positive manner would go a long way to smooth things over. This would allow for problems to be solved in a way that everyone involved benefits.

On top of everything, there is no governing body to say ‘this is right, this is wrong’. Different from a union in the sense that the union is more of a comity of the teams/sponsors/players/fans and presents their cases to this ‘governing body’; the governing body would delegate trades, sanction events, determine pro status’, delegate payment of prize money/salary and other things that are, as of now, left up to each individual to try and work out for themselves. E-Sports is an industry with no rules or regulations, anyone can do anything they please; a model which has not worked out that well thus far."

You can view the full piece here.

Emotions play an integral part in E-Sports, from how people make decisions in game, to how people decide what team they want to play for or what organization they want to work with. Little do people realize that E-Sports is very much a business, and that to make the most logical decisions you need to think analytically not emotionally. However that doesn’t generally happen in E-Sports, at least not yet.

We spoke to various experts around the E-Sports industry and asked them what they thought about emotions and their effects on game-play, personal lives, decision making, coping strategies and more.

Interviews contained--

djWHEAT
Sky
hotlips
Vertigo
Jason Bass
Stephano

fnatic.com

For the full feature click above.

With the recent open beta of Quake Live, teams are investing some time looking into players. A51 is no exception; A51 has picked up Gillz and boots, two up and coming duelers in the North American scene. Here is what Gillz had to say.


Excerpt-

Q: Does your family support you in trying to become a pro gamer?

A: I'd probably have to say no on that one. My mother has some crazy conspiracy beliefs on e-sports, thinking it's some massive scam luring kids in (Thanks Angel). I've never met my father before, and my other relatives don't support it either, they believe it's a waste of time and money. I have a few very good friends who support me in it. I'm really just doing it for myself. I want to accomplish something that makes me happy, not something that makes everyone else happy. My mother lets me go to these events fine, but doesn't necessarily support me in it. I was forced by everyone to go to college, which I understand. So, here I am.

Q: Are you worried about LAN events not being able to cope with the fact that QL is online only at this point?

A: Well, the closest LAN event we have is Quakecon, which is in August. At this point, I would imagine dedicated LAN servers would be out by then. I'm sure both AGP and ESL are pushing them to release it, because who wants to play at a LAN with 20 ping? It's not the end of the world, but I think all of the community would be extremely happy if we saw dedicated LAN server programs released before Quakecon.

Before the announcement of the ex-MYM Wc3 squad being signed by EG; LGN E-Sports was in the process of interviewing Manuel Grubby Schenkuizen. We touched base on many topics of interest including SCII, the state of E-Sports and the longevity of Wc3.

Q:After MYM dropped their Wc3 squad, and SC squad, what was your initial reaction?

A:I was shocked that MYM could make such a big mistake to drop the WC3 team without further negotiations, and after investing so heavily into it for years. Or in my case - for a year. Generally I don't think a team should pick me up and keep me for only a year, just when we're trying to build up something together. But things don't always turn out as planned.

I felt that ESNation dropping Starcraft showed that they have no interest in the future of eSports and continuing in it. Having a Starcraft team right now probably implies that you are prepping a team for Starcraft II. Outside of Korea Starcraft isn't that big anymore, so it's usually for that reason I guess. I felt bad for the MYM SC guys that I met, though, because I like them a lot.

You can check out the rest of the 40 question interview here-

http://mylgn.com/content.php?postid=65

Just a guide a friend sent to me, I figured it would be nice to share it since its on an RTS only website at the moment so I said I would post it on a few websites for him.

Here you go.

http://www.gosugamers.net/warcraft/features/2408