This was my peak. Winning this cup meant so much to me back in the time but now I realize how big an upset I made. I don't think I've ever been a champion material but I'll keep annoying the fuck out of the best if I can. The people that helped me get to the best of my abilities and I'll thank til my last breath are : spart1e, strenx, memento_mori, unnamedtony, av3k, cypher, stermy, zoot, ddk, nvc, draven snelvolvve, trance, memento_mori...
And many more, I might edit this list but I'm going blank right now... Those are the first names that come to mind. And I could talk a lot about every one of them.
[fans, even if it feels weird to call em that...] You guys have kept me going and all you crazy followers on twitch. Keep following quakers playing quake. You're keeping the best game ever alive !
I could go on an endless story about how these (above) people helped my very average ass get to taste the very best of what Quake can offer. And maybe you will too someday.
Someday I decided that I wasn't just a little nobody, and I decided that I could beat anybody... And I tried. And I mostly failed ; I'm no cypher, rapha, cooller, or tox. But I've achieved the dream I had when I was a boy : I competed, fought, and made a name for myself just by trying and trying again until I could keep up with these legends.
Now I may never be remembered amongst the oldest crowds of ESR, in History. People only really remember the best of the best. But I challenged the best. And I'm proud of it.
I came all the way from nobody's land in baseq3 osp freezetag and somehow made my way. I even, unbeknownst to me, played with great players (2gd, toxjq, etc. but they'll deny it)
My point is.... Keep playing, don't give up. I cant believe it but I'm going on my thirties and I felt a long time ago I was already old for ESR. FML.
PS: since the trolls'll be flunding in. If anyone who feels they really got fucked over by a donation I was involved in, please contact me on IM.
Edited by dem0n at 18:44 CST, 22 November 2017 - 55430 Hits
Myztro Gamings team manager, David "Zaccubus" Treacy, had this to say:
"You have no idea how happy and proud I am to be able to announce our Quake Champions Roster. We have some of the very best Arena Shooter talent, multiple world champions and arguably the best known voice in Quake, Zoot... Myself and the rest of the guys at Myztro Gaming have talked about possibly setting up an org for a very long time and with the recent resurgence of the Arena Shooters in esports, it was an oppertunity we could not let slide."
Edited by Nukm at 12:27 CDT, 6 August 2017 - 30810 Hits
This info was given several days ago on the ESL Quake discord and was still not advertised.
Today at 18.00CEST there will be a livestream with Jake 'Mustard' Neal and Ryan 'Ketchup' Neal from the ESL Studio. They will be drawing the seeds and matchups to come for the Quake World Championships Regional Finals for both EU and NA
Quote :
A bracket draw for the EU and NA Regional Finals of the Quake World Championships will be streamed Tuesday, August 1st, at 18:00 CEST/9am PDT on twitch.tv/quakechampions.
The bracket draw will happen in from the ESL UK studio and will be done by Ryan "Ketchup" Neal and Jake "Mustard" Neal.
Seeding pools will be based on time of qualification - duel players and sacrifice teams who qualified through the earlier online qualifiers will get a higher seed while players and teams who made it through later on will get a lower seed.
As a sidenote, it was speculated yesterday evening that there could be a patch this Thursday that should 'fix' the RL hit registration and bring changes to Clutch. See here what we could gather on the new incoming patch :
Willits on bringing in new players :I think that if you've been playing army-realistic-style FPSes for a while, Quake will feel quite refreshing. For those, it will feel quite new, even if you're playing against a 40 yo player that's been into fast arena shooters for 20 years.
Zero4 :Right now the keyboard-mouse setup is very popular and has become second-nature but at the age of Q3 it was something new that we all had to learn. I think that the generation that learned to play with this setup will be able to share that experience with newer generations and I think that's great.
Implied by journalist : id software is heavily pushing into esports (third party) to promote its game like hell
ZeRo4 on spectator features :This is one of our main goals. One of the things that we've learned over the years is that to create an established esports game you need to make it very spectator-friendly. We are working HARD on the spectator features to be able to capture all the highlights that are happening in the game.
Reporter :Aren't you afraid knowing this is a fast FPS we're talking about ?
ZeRo4 :That's clearly one of our bigger challenges. We're hoping that our spectator features will be able to give out this speedy, brutal kind of game that we're releasing to the general audience.
Implied by journalist : 4v4 or 5v5 we will have to wait and see what's best (= idsoftware still doesnt know that but either 4 or 5)
Willits :For now, as modes go, we've been trying to see deathmatch, team deathmatch and we have tried different other popular modes
Posted by dem0n @ 22:44 CST, 29 January 2017 - iMsg
I just booked my flight from 22nd to 28th of august 2017. I might streame a bit, who's in ? I still don't know what's what yet but I'm pretty excited !
I'll start streaming more and more as we approach Quakecon 2017. Bear in mind that I'm working atm and don't have a good grasp on what's goin on on the quek scene but fuck me if I don't challenge evil from time to time until then.
I'm hereby proud to announce that I'll be participating in whatever tournament(s) Quakecon'll be holding in 2017. My flights' been dealt with and I can't wait for august alr.
It took as little as 5 days for The GD Studio's first game Diabotical to reach its premier goal of £110,000 on Kickstarter. However there's still a handful of weeks to go before the projects ends on Kickstarter, which means you can still contribute until the 1st of September 2016.
The GD Studio have included a few stretch goals already and have confirmed the possibility of adding a few more in the next days.
Thanks to your amazing support, we have reached the £110k/$145k goal after just a few days! The Diabotical team wishes to extend our gratitude to all of our backers.
What's next? Over the next few weeks we’ll keep trying to promote the campaign in order to hit the stretch goals. Expect some content updates regarding the core aspects of the game, features and stretch goals.
From the whole GD Studio team, thank you.
// Ok ok, we had to write something professional. But I just wanna let you know I’ve got the whole team spamming me on skype, facebook, discord and everywhere else in excitement of what just happened. So again thank you for the support, I don’t want to be too cheesy. But yeah, you’ve created a bit of a moment in our lives to say the least. Catch up soon when our updates are ready! /James
Posted by dem0n @ 11:48 CST, 26 January 2016 - iMsg
I have been conducting a research lately around esports and have therefore had the chance to interview some (familiar) faces of esports in search for a better understanding of the phenomenon. At the start of it all, I made clear to my interviewees that their responses were not at first hand meant for wide publishing. However, now that I'm done with using the data, with their agreement, I have the possibility to release it as a series of interviews that can be, in my opinion, an interesting read for many people. So, here it is.
You will notice that the core questions are the same for every interview minus some more personal or situational questions that I thought were relevant given the context or the very own experience of my interviewee. The interviews are raw, I haven't edited them so if there is any mispells or weird sentences, don't be freaked out.
Themes: esports definition, esports origins, women in esports, the sport debate, new technologies, esports audience, esports prospects, upcoming challenges...
Today, I will be releasing the #3 interview notes with Kevin "Strenx" Baeza. The interview did not need translating, as it was done in english by Strenx leself.
Tell me a bit about yourself, what is your personal approach and your own experience of esports ?
Good morning ! My own experience about esport was quite different from the other actually. In esports, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had to fight everyday in order to prove my innoncence. To summarise briefly, I was known as a cheater against my will. I couldn't prove it, so I had to wait 4 years on a tournament to show them wrong. You can see my history through this article : https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/15ox...ro_gaming/
My personal approach of esports would combined years of experience of hard work and never give up, such as sport in fact.
What is esports actually ? How do we define it ?
I have made a research thesis about it. As far as I remember, I had a research to make about the difference between sport and esports. What is sport ? It's an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.
From this sentence, one word stands in my mind. This word is "physical". From different books, I have come to understand several facts. For the counter strike players, their vision acuity were as fast as the worlds best ping-pong players. Moreover, after several hours of practice, they felt exhausted, mentally and physically. I've been to the Philippines once for MSI, and I saw an ex fnatic player (Sen) playing Starcraft 2. He played so hard that his fingers were bleeding. It was quite impressive to be honest. From a business standpoint, it has also the same caracteristics. Indeed, you have sponsors who put money into it, even when the sponsor has nothing to do with esport (Hello youporn).
I digress briefly, sometimes sponsors such as youporn could be a huge progress for impressive gamers that did nothing else good than playing a game. I've seen so many good players being so confident but acting like a "Silver I" in front of girls. Youporn is the future.
In conclusion, I would define esports as a renewal of what we've always known with 2 important words : passion and competition.
How does one actually make a living out of esport ? Not just the competition aspect but more generally around video games as a whole ?
From an objective perspective, it's very uncommon to make a living out of esports, unless you are famous or you compete at the top on the most famous games (League of Legends, Counter strike GO). Otherwise, it's a lot about streaming, you create a personnality, and people either like or hate you. You do not really need to be good as long as you are funny and you provide contents.
To be honest, it is good to see this kind of effort, but it seems that it is easier to win money from gaming (not esports) now. People tend to act cocky because they made a name and they think they made it by their own, it's not. They always forget that they are what they are thanks to everyone.
If I could make an aside again, I wish I could bring a lot of viewers in order to get a lot of donations. Why is that, you're gonna ask ? From my experience, I always wanted to do something. I stand sometimes as a volunteer on a techno party in order to give free food to people who do not have the chance to have it. You dance, you pay your ticket and you bring 3-4 foodstuff. I was so happy and amazed to see that everyone was part of it and you could have in one night more than 200 boxes worth of food. So here was my idea, each week, I would make a donation day in order to gather all the money possible to buy everything I can for them and make a video out of it (If the donators want it or not).
Esports is huge and you can win a LOT of money from it, so it's good to use your reputation from it. Don't be like the 3% multi billionar. Btw don't give to the romanians, they piss me off (I'm joking).
How have the constant evolution of new technologies and faster internet helped esport grow to such an extent ?
15 Years ago, it was impossible to play on good conditions unless you were on an offline event. Nowadays, internet has improved so much. You can actually fight against any countries without a huge disadvantage. Sponsors can see the potential of any players, and they can afford everything he wanted in order to compete.
How do you see esports in the future, say 5-10-20 years from now or even further ?
I am pretty sure that espots will be considered as a sport everywhere in 10 years. Back in the days, you couldn't think that France would be about to consider esports as a sport. But this dream is happening.
I'm just afraid that esports is about to be a money pump (if it were not already done). World is all about money, and I'm expecting huge taxes on the competition in the future. The funniest thing is that if you remain optimistic, it can be good. Why ? Because the country can have an improvement if it's about preparation of a recovery or restructuring plan thanks to esports. (Countries are so indebted). Nonetheless, world is shit so they would put all these taxes in order to give more comfort to the politicians, and we will still be the pawns, as always.
What about potential new technologies yet to come, such as virtual reality ? How do you think these would find their place into esport and video games in general ?
Everything in its own time. In my opinion, that would be sad to put sport on a virtual reality. Esports belongs to the computer at his own way. If you start to remove the authenticity of sport, it would be a disaster.
A lot of recent studies have shown that contrary to before, more and more women play video games, albeit arguably different type of games or usage of them. But what about esports ? How do they fit in ?
That's a question of "embarassment" and without sounding like a macho man girls have understood that. And what's sad is that there's a lot of bad faith from them. To summarize, they pretend to say that they're there because they're strong. But the truth is that those who will make it will always be the ones that are pretty or those who hang out with male stars of the moment. Welcome to this shitty world.
Those who really deserve the attention and the "esports celebrity" status are rarely the ones who get their deserved praise. I saw that fact on a documentary on TV some time ago where the reporters were following the girls from Millenium. They were supposed to follow the Millenium girls but when they were interviewing girls in the pool they were interviewing the swedish girls instead. I'll let you guess why. They claim for equal rights but they do not respect it in the first place
How far do you think esports can go in terms of viewership and mainstream recognition ? Could esports be one day as popular and common as, say, a tennis grand Slam or a football/soccer world cup ?
You just need to watch League of legends final to see that esport can be as popular and common as basket or other games. During the S3, more than 32 millions people were watching the finals. It's 3 times more than France-Ukraine during the Euro qualification. The problem is that the old generation do not become habitual of esports. It's all about standpoints and perspectives.
It will never be as famous as football in my opinion, but there is no doubt that esports will play an important part on this matter.
What are the main obstacles and barriers that could prevent esports from growing even more ? What are the challenges still lying up ahead ?
Some countries such as France have a hard time to consider video games as a good thing or as a world progress. There is improvement, but still not enough. I guess some countries need to improve slowly but surely, step by step
Have you had any bad experience(s) while beeing a professional player ?
I've been a professional player for 1 year and half only. I define a professional player as someone who makes a living out of it. I just can't understand someone saying that he's professional gamer when he lives with his parents and earns 400e max/month.
Anyways, even if I had very strange stories in my gaming career, it always ends positively. I've learnt many things in life thanks to esports. (Promises, trust, business). In my opinion, all these mistakes that I could make is a good experience that I can share to the youngers. At least, they won't do the same shit !
Have you got any plans for the future in esports for yourself ?
I'm planning to try overwatch and practice a lot. But I'm getting old and I studied a lot so I could have an important job. At the moment, I was accepted into a big company in order to be a wealth management advisor (I've never worked into a mayonnese factory, but I commend its people who made this rumour).
Anyways, I'm going to practice and do my best in order to do something good in this game.
Name the three things that you love the most about/in esports, and the three things you hate/dislike the most.
From at least 5 years of experience in esports (maybe more), there is two things I love in esports : Competition and meeting new people that can be your friends in the future (Hi alex, hi maciej, hi sebastian). I do not really need to explain why it was such an intense experience in my life because you can understand that you don't have words to describe it.
But I can describe what I dislike the most in esports, because I was like this myself (Maybe not that much but I was sometimes doing it on purpose and I had fun doing it).
What I dislike the most is the "arrogance ignorance" (I created this term my self). I've started to see it from Shootmania and especially Overwatch. Nowadays, being very good in a game (new games) is very easier than it was. You do not really need to have a specific huge talent to be the best. If you practice h24 every day, you can reach the top. In itself, it's good because it gives motivation and there is more competition.
Because of it, people tend to be cocky, uberconfident, and they look at you like you were a piece of shit because they feel stronger than you. They will never question themselves because they think they are over anyone. They forgot that they never reached the top in their own game. Now they can, so they want to act this way in order to have all the recognition they never had in the past. It it what I blame because I realised it too late that it's sad to act like this. It's useless and you won't gain anything from it. If you could use this uberconfidence somewhere else, it would be so great. I'm sure I bring at least 4 uberconfident guys into a party, they won't even say one single word to a girl because they won't have anything else than "I have a very good mouse and pad". You pieces of milk (Ok I troll a bit, but you know me now :)).
But what I like in esports, and what I like in sports is something that you can't reach, even if you tried hard. (If you can reach it, it's good and you were lucky to born this way). Let me give you an example, Tennis. You could tryhard and practice since you were 3 years old without drinking, without smoking. In the end, you did good, you are one of the best players in your country, you are a professionnal player and you managed to qualify to the Roland Garros cup. Now you have to play against Nadal (the guy you followed all your life). You pracced so much to beat him and you did everything to be in your best conditions. In the end you lose 6-1 6-2 6-0. Frustrating isn't it? You try again, it's the same. I don't say to give up, never give up.
But you know, there are players you can't reach, no matter how hard you try, these guys have something we don't and that's why they are loved. Having the dream of being one day like him is beautiful. In games (except for some), this dream is too easy to reach, you only have one way. It's same for Quake, I've never seen one guy playing quake live for so long and managed to be at the very top. You can do everything you want, you won't reach Cypher or Rapha level. Same for Usain bolt. It's realistic and you can disagree with me.
Could you explain to us how do you think France regarding esports as a sport is a good thing ? If there are any pros and cons about this decision, what are they ?
In the beginning, I was not really fan of it for several reason. It is a fact, but esports is a temporary thing. Moreover, you could invest 24h/24 in a game to win maximum 1000 dollars per month without any studies or a prospect of future. All these things could be a problem. Now, you have stream, you can have contacts and you can actually have a job after playing a game. France is not that stupid (contrary to the cliché), they know that esports is an increasing market, so they would have a greater interest in operating on this.
What would you say to a teenager who wants to become an esports world superstar today ?
To listen to the older, we know this thing, we were like you, you are not different. Do your dream, but do not forget your life goals. Gaming is a lot of sacrifices, it is also a passion, but do not sacrify everything for it (That's why I don't agree with fatal1ty). If you really want it and you know that this game can make you go further, stop your studies for 1 year. But one thing, never forget your life career and ask yourself the right questions. Don't be stubborn, listen to the others, and be less arrogant than any other, because we are all arrogant. Some are more than others (I know what I'm talking about).
Don't be a dick with people who want to learn, you didn't make yourself by your own. Try to reach your goal, believe in yourself and accept that you can lose, as long as you understand your mistakes and be better than him in the future. Acting this way is always something that will grant you in the future
I've seen so many person sacrifying all their life in order to be good in a game. For what? Not being the best and win max 600e/month ?. What are your goals in the future? CS:GO starts to be good, but does training h24 to win 1100k/month is worth it? That's why I said, ask yourself the good questions. You always need a plan B, always.
What would you say to a younger Strenx. Would you do it all the same over again or would you have done things differently now that you are older and more mature ?
In kiev against cooller, I would look at this strenx and tell him to check the screen before starting, like cooller did. So at this moment, I would know the timings and win this moment smile emoticon.
More seriously, I would tell him to not care about everything. Trying to stay calm and to stop to prove that you can be someone +50-0, it is useless and you don't win anything from it. If there is a kid who wanna act like a dick, ignore him. It's hard to win an argument against a smart guy, but impossible to win against a stupid one.
I would tell him to have not stop quake for 1 year and play zotac over and over, so nobody would see evil win this much. Moreover, I would tell him to act less arrogant in the past and to stop focusing so much on the others. I really needed a coach I think, my biggest enemy was myself.
Posted by dem0n @ 22:12 CST, 12 January 2016 - iMsg
I have been conducting a research lately around esports and have therefore had the chance to interview some (familiar) faces of esports in search for a better understanding of the phenomenon. At the start of it all, I made clear to my interviewees that their responses were not at first hand meant for wide publishing. However, now that I'm done with using the data, with their agreement, I have the possibility to release it as a series of interviews that can be, in my opinion, an interesting read for many people. So, here it is.
You will notice that the core questions are the same for every interview minus some more personal or situational questions that I thought were relevant given the context or the very own experience of my interviewee. The interviews are raw, I haven't edited them so if there is any mispells or weird sentences, don't be freaked out.
Themes: esports definition, esports origins, women in esports, the sport debate, new technologies, esports audience, esports prospects, upcoming challenges...
Today, I will be releasing the #2 interview notes with Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel.
Tell me a bit about yourself, what is your personal approach and your own experience of esports ?
I've always been a competitor and someone who shoots for the stars. With the birth of online gaming, I found a new passion to compete in this unknown virtual world. I quickly found my skillsets were a match for this emerging sport, landing me as the first full time professional eSports player in the world.
How I approached eSports was just like I would train or practice for a traditional sport. Work on strengths and weaknesses and practice a lot. I trained against tons of competitors on a daily basis to work on my technique and hone my skills to take out my opponents faster than anyone else.
My experience of eSports starts from the very beginning when I was 13 years old before it was even called eSports. I competed over dial up, IPX networks, and then eventually just basic TCP/IP Connections over broadband. As eSports grew, I was there every step of the way. Being a fanatic of competing with players from all over the world, I felt the playing field was level for everyone. It didn't matter where you lived, what the weather was, as long as you had a powerful PC and an internet connection, you were in the game! My endless pursuit of winning led me to participate in tournaments around the world, winning 12 eSports World Championships throughout my career. "Fatal1ty" became a household name in the gamer world and my life was never the same.
What is esports actually ? How do we define it ?
eSports is commonly known as competitive video gaming for the best of the best. I definitely believe that, but I also believe eSports includes playing games casually in the same manner as you play traditional sports with your friends. It is an activity requiring skill in a competitive nature.
How does one actually make a living out of esport ? Not just the competition aspect but more generally around video games as a whole ?
There is several different ways to make a living out of eSports now. Obviously winning Tournaments is the big one, but there is also possibilities making money in eSports with Events, Broadcasting, Twitch and/or businesses built to support eSports.
I personally competed in tournaments and built the Fatal1ty brand to make products for gamers in eSports.
How have the constant evolution of new technologies and faster internet helped esport grow to such an extent ?
Faster internet really helps for training and playability of the games. Makes it more enjoyable and also helped bring a lot of new people to the sport. As for technology advancments, it's night and day from the birth of online gaming. Powerful gaming PC's and Consoles are readily available to hop online and play some of the most advanced games. Even mobile devices are getting somewhat powerful.
How do you see esports in the future, say 5-10-20 years from now or even further ?
eSports popularity will continue to grow every year. There are new opportunities everyday in eSports, and with mainstream attention as of late, it shows us there will be a bright future ahead of us.
What about potential new technologies yet to come, such as virtual reality ? How do you think these would find their place into esport and video games in general ?
Virtual Reality has a chance of being a great entertainment piece or tool to use for a lot of different applications or games. As for it being used in eSports, I feel its obviously possible, but I feel a lot of people will stick to the more mainstream way of playing games just on a regulard LCD or Monitor. I'm personally excited to dive more into Virtual Reality, but its more about the experience.
Is esports a sport ? What is your personal view on that matter ?
eSports and sports are so similar, minus the physical exertion of losing your breath in some sports. There are a lot of sports out there that dont have physical exertion characteristics, but still use all the same skillsets as eSports. So to me eSports is a sport and I am a sportsman.
A lot of recent studies have shown that contrary to before, more and more women play video games, albeit arguably different type of games or usage of them. But what about esports ? How do they fit in ?
Girls have been in eSports forever. Some of them beating the developers in their own game, creating their own gaming teams, organizations, and playing in professional tournaments.
It's great to see the number of girls in eSports growing.
How far do you think esports can go in terms of viewership and mainstream recognition ? Could esports be one day as popular and common as, say, a tennis grand Slam or a football/soccer world cup ?
I think in a lot of ways its already getting there, but remember everyday eSports is around, we are building our fanbase for the future. The 18 year olds today will become 50 someday, and they will always remember their past time as a kid growing up and understand eSports more and more every year.
What are the main obstacles and barriers that could prevent esports from growing even more ? What are the challenges still lying up ahead ?
Violence in games sometimes slows down the potential of some fun games getting on mainstream TV as the adult rating is to high. Games like LoL and Dota don't have as much violence and can be more easily played on TV for a massive audience.
You don't compete so much anymore but have become an esport icon. What is essentialy different from the esports world you knew when you were younger and the esports of today ?
I've been apart of competitive online gaming since Day 1, so obviously things have changed every year, and myself and a lot of others were responsible for shaping how eSports is today. In 2005 when I played at the CPL World Tour Finals in New York City, it was one of the biggest events ever in eSports. We livestreamed on MTV's network, and over 90 countries tuned in to watch the 2 hour finale.
Now today, you have Twitch who livestreams the events over the course of multiple days and obviously the prize money has went to another level with crowd funding and game developers investing in their own league in a more professional manner.
You have created your own brand. What drove you to this decision and how difficult was it to establish ?
I saw a void in product development for gamers, and also a lack of knowledge from corporate companies on knowing what gamers wanted and needed.
As being a player in the battlefield and living that life everyday, I knew what I needed to win. So that brought me to developing products and hardware for gamers through the Fatal1ty brand. I had this big vision that eSports would become a thing in the future, and I road the professional and business wave from the very beginning.
I worked really hard to partner with the best manufacturers to build stellar product for gamers. I'm always looking to make mid to high level equipment for gamers, so they can play to their full potential and own the game.
What do you like most about working in esports ?
I love the competition and the players who have that relentless pursuit of winning attitude like me. It's very inspiring to watch gamers go for it and never give up.
Several schools, notably in Sweden, have emerged recently and are aimed toward esports. What do you think those schools should teach youngsters
Being very well rounded is always important. To have a balance with excercise, mental strength and stamina are building blocks to being the best you can be. After that, it comes down to desire, will and talent.
What would you tell to a teenager who wants to become an esports world star ?
While your young and living with your family, you have an enormous ammount of time to develop any skills you want to have. Take full advantage of this time, because when you become an adult, those advantages will start to fade away. Go to tournaments and find out where you stand. Go for it, and see what happens! The worst feeling would be looking back and saying I didn't try my hardest. I wish you the best in your endeavors and always own the game!
Posted by dem0n @ 08:30 CST, 6 January 2016 - iMsg
I have been conducting a research lately around esports and have therefore had the chance to interview some (familiar) faces of esports in search for a better understanding of the phenomenon. At the start of it all, I made clear to my interviewees that their responses were not at first hand meant for wide publishing. However, now that I'm done with using the data, with their agreement, I have the possibility to release it as a series of interviews that can be, in my opinion, an interesting read for many people. So, here it is.
You will notice that the core questions are the same for every interview minus some more personal or situational questions that I thought were relevant given the context or the very own experience of my interviewee. The interviews are raw, I haven't edited them so if there is any mispells or weird sentences, don't be freaked out.
Themes: esports definition, esports origins, women in esports, the sport debate, new technologies, esports audience, esports prospects, upcoming challenges...
Today, I will be releasing the #1 interview notes with Marcel "K1llsen" Paul.
Tell me a bit about yourself, what is your personal approach and your own experience of esports ?
I’m Marcel alias k1llsen, 29 years young and I had good and bad times in e-Sport, but you also need to have the experience of losing and be disappointed about yourself to keep improving sometimes and so it was in the past with some event Organizations where you had to wait very long for the prize like 1-2 years or not even getting the money. But all those things will shape you starting as a raw diamant at some point you just start doing the right things.
What is esports actually ? How do we define it ?
E-Sport starts where Competition is going on - Playing on a Console/Computer on the highest Level possible. Practice for something to get to that point that you are able to challenge the Top of the World and hopefully call yourself the best (even there is always someone better) but maybe it’s you earning the World title, participating in Tournaments where only the best people all over the World getting invited to. E-Sport starts where ambition/passion starts to grow while competing on a Console/Computer against others around the world.
How does one actually make a living out of esport ? Not just the competition aspect but more generally around video games as a whole ?
There are a few ways to go with and behind e-Sport. In the past it has been very popular to earn money with e-Sport while studying, today it’s more like you have the guys there who just like to play some games as hobby. To get until a certain point in skill, but lacking of the interest in being awesome, they rather focus on their Study’s which is also a good way overall. But things changing already from the time I started, there are many guys out already who just focus on e-Sport and Streaming to make a living out of it.
How have the constant evolution of new technologies and faster internet helped esport grow to such an extent ?
The Connection we have today allows almost everyone to stream what he’s doing, it’s getting easier and easier to produce something on the PC. It’s still just a small part being called like real-eSport, but it keeps increasing getting way more popular since there are so many youngsters cheering for their idol and trying themselves and that continues until we hit a certain point where it will be just on a constant flow, like soccer has their players/talents. Get started early to increase your chance of being a Top Player. And it’s this way because all the games who belong into e-Sport does not need the really big resources anymore like it was 5-6-7 years ago, for example when Quake 4 came out, it was like 5000 people interested in the game, but just 2000 were able to play since you needed a real high end pc to be able to compete, and all the titles that are in e-Sport are not that resource heavy anymore this even opens the door way more for newcomers.
What about potential new technologies yet to come, such as virtual reality ? How do you think these would find their place into esport and video games in general ?
It’s something really big to experience and surely almost every casual being a bit interested in technologies want’s to experience some real feeling in the virtual reality, this already has worked with old technlogoies -> 2nd Life where you could go to some work for money, selling CD’s on just a playing platform/world and now it comes in a way way more realistic feeling. This just opens a new dimension to Console/PC technology overall, but it will take a while until going to be a part of the competitive e-Sport.
Is esports a sport ? What is your personal view on that matter ?
This is just like as if you would ask if chess is a Sport and actually Chess counts as a Sport. Lets change this question to - what do you need to get a Sport? You need real Competition – you need at least two or more people battling it out until someone can says he counts as the proven best because he won the title. You need disciple and have to think about the way you practice to be able to compete, just like tactics in Chess or Soccer. And of course a Sport itself needs the possibility to create Idols, so the Fans cheering for their Sports start to think I would really like to play for example like Marco Reus (BVB). The Generation we have right now it’s like 50% (older Generation) barely using a PC/Smartphone/Console and the other 50% now growing up with all the technics, give e-Sport like 10-15 more years and it might be as big as Soccer is in the World since everyone growing up right now gets directly confronted with gaming and we have more and more media coming writing articles and posting news about eSport.
A lot of recent studies have shown that contrary to before, more and more women play video games, albeit arguably different type of games or usage of them. But what about esports ? How do they fit in ?
It’s always hard to compare female and male gaming if it’s in eSport or any other Sports, the main focus is most likely about men’s Sport and so is my opinion. If I’m watching female sports there is just something missing like speed, power and even knowledge, but they keep trying, that’s good no doubt but they just have their own competition. It’s just not as interesting. Over all the years I’m in e-Sport I remember only a single female cs-Team that was able to compete with a top male teams in CS and that’s already quite a while ago I think it was some ESWC and it was a female team of SK. Overall I think it will always be a men Sport, just as example if you have a look about female streaming these days, most of them don’t even know what they do but as soon as they are a little bit beautiful they start being successful in it, because men’s like to have girls in their business and some really know how to use that the right way. I know just a single Hand full of female Streamers that have some quality.
Several schools, notably in Sweden, have emerged recently and are aimed toward esports. What do you think those schools should teach youngsters ?
I think that’s something good to do, to show them like what’s the best way to use the pc when you are interested in eSports, there are still many guys out there losing the sight of the social aspect in real life, so this might just works in the opposite way. You always need to have a healthy balance between everything that’s one of the most important things.
You are currently working on creating your own brand and expand. Can you explain to us a bit about it, as in, what made you want to do it ? How hard is it ? What are the goals you're trying to achieve and why ?
I try to realize my dream, make your hobby and something you have a passion to, to your job. Quite a while has passed since my champion title, not everyone has forgotten about k1llsen and there are others where it’s like they just have to be remembered. It’s the passion inside me to eSport and the experience of being a big part of it, the experience having thousands of people in front cheering for you, that is what made me think to try it a last time creating something BIG for eSport with k1llsen there are still so many ideas and right now we just getting started.
I mean when it comes down to Streaming there is some competition going on so you always need to have good ideas and of course you want to have your community as big as possible so you have to attract new people. When I got started with like REAL streaming 3 months ago, it was like 8-12h of work a day for 1.5 months making everything work and get into all the stuff you need and I still have so many ideas about optics and the technics behind.
You've been a professional player. If you could go back in time, would you have done anything differently ?
I wouldn’t do anything different. All the different people/cultures I met, the city’s/country’s I’ve seen, the friends I made, the experience I got in so many ways. I don’t want to miss that!
Let's pretend you are now a 16 year old kid who has yet to achieve anything but who has the knowledge that you have now. What would you do ?
To know the right way of practice already helps much. I will always remember the first 2 losses against d1ablo and pRo-Dragon in Quake 3 on t4, it was something about -2:45. I always looked up to d1ablo - he became my idol - and somehow he still is in a way – Kept saying to myself I really want to beat him to call myself the best German Duel player and that’s the way I got started into competitive eSport. After some time he became my mentor. I still remember some words of him when being in a tournament. I don’t really would like to skip that, but if I’m 16 with the knowledge I have, I could skip the first years of practice and getting directly started into competition what sharpens your thinking even more every single time.
Posted by dem0n @ 08:59 CST, 13 November 2015 - iMsg
Hello folks,
I'm currently in the process of writing an essay in which I'm looking to widen my horizons by conducting a few interviews. I have started making a list of potential interviews I could make with various people around the world of e-sport : players, streamers, platform managers, etc.
I'm currently looking for Let's Players to interview so that I can have a relevant sample of people who gravitate around the sphere of e-sport. If you are yourself a Let's Player or know someone who would agree to spend 30ish minutes with me answering to some questions to help me with my essay (that'd happen before december is upon us preferably), I'd really appreciate. I would obviously prefer finding a Let's Player who earns a relatively decent amount of money by doing those Let's Plays but even amateurs propositions are welcome as every profile is different and potentially interesting.
Lemme know :).
Edited by dem0n at 08:59 CST, 13 November 2015 - 5763 Hits
The long awaited official Aftermovie for the 2014 QuakeCon trip of the team The Expendables. The editing isn't what I had hoped for because I had to do it myself, using the very basic but simple Windows Movie Maker. I figured it would be better than nothing. I hope you guys still enjoy this 11 minutes and 30 seconds footage. <3.
Huge thanks again to all who donated and supported us going through this tournament. I'd like to adress a special thank you to Memento_Mori aswell, you da boss !
Posted by dem0n @ 08:27 CST, 4 December 2014 - iMsg
But I need some setup advice from veteran streamers who use OBS.
Some of you may have seen me try to stream a little not so long ago but unfortunately I had to give up because I was either warping for my opponent or for myself. I think this is mainly a OBS setup issue because I should have the specs on my hardware and the bandwitdh necessary to stream Quakelive without any problem.
So I'm gonna throw here my specs and hope for a kind soul to explain to me what settings I have to make in my OBS to make it as smooth and relevant as possible.
Specs:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
AMD Athlon X4 760K Quad Core Processor 3,80GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti
8GB RAM
In order to get there, expendables welcomes any help ! You can help us with that by donating just a little bit. Our goal right now to make this trip more affordable for us is to reach 500€.
That is not all! To the people that decide to help us out we promise couple of things:
- we're going to produce a movie documenting the trip and the event itself from our team's perspective and we will include nods towards the contributors (with their permission);
- random bonus included in the aftermovie (personal message from Spart1e or something along the lines, we'll get creative).
Huge thanks to you all!
Update:
Thanks to your amazing support, we have already more than met our initial goal of 500€ with a total of 1007€ worth of donations within 24 hours ! We hope to live up the to the task you guys have given us. We still welcome any future donations if you guys want to ease out our team's expenses and/or wish to benefit from our little aftermovie surprises.
Posted by dem0n @ 07:21 CST, 29 January 2014 - iMsg
Ever since the standalone came on I've had issues with my FPS. First of all, I have absolutely NO IDEA what I should set my com_maxfps to now. Also what the hell is com_idlesleep 0/1 and what does it do ?
What kind of FPS should I try to get ? Right now I've set com_idlesleep 0 and com_maxfps 125. But running around on toxicity the FPS still drop when I'm looking at certain areas of the map or if I'm spinning my mouse around.
Can anyone really help me understand anything in this mess and guide me toward values that are best for me ? I could not really find something definitive in all the hints I've got from various people so I've made this thread.
PS: never had a problem before standalone. What the hell happened... ?
Posted by dem0n @ 14:20 CST, 9 January 2014 - iMsg
Today, the french government won (or did they shoot themselves in the foot ?) a big battle against french humorist Dieudonné. For the first time ever in the country of human rights, a humoristic show for which 5,600 people have bought their tickets has been cancelled together with a force of 20 anti-riot vehicles.
This is a thread about freedom of speech and censorship.
Some articles that will surely help those who have no idea what the whole Dieudonné fuss is about:
Posted by dem0n @ 05:09 CDT, 27 October 2013 - iMsg
Hello folks !
I'll be going to dreamhack next month but I'm currently trying to find a cheap option to stay there between Thursday 27th November (check in) and Sunday 1st December (check out).
If anyone's got one more bed or has booked some cottage like Björkhagen Villa and wants to reduce their overall cost by letting me in, feel free to contact me !
Contact me through esr !
Cu there ;),
Ze dem0n
Edited by dem0n at 05:16 CDT, 27 October 2013 - 10119 Hits
Following the new trend initiated by FraZe and because it's kind of a challenge for someone like me studying communication, I decided to put up my own fan page aswell on facebook:
Seeing as I don't have a website either and I wish to centralize most of the stuff around my 'carreer' if you like, such as newest config, interviews, videos, pictures... to one single place, I thought this was a good opportunity to do so.
Audience boost initiative:
I have been thinking about it since I've started my page yesterday and I thought I would give it a go. I plan to hand out a free FaceIt shirt customized for the winner's desires if I'm to reach 300 likes. I will pick up a winner randomly from the 300 likers as soon as the number is reached !
I will keep updating my page with video snippets, interviews, config updates and what not !
Posted by dem0n @ 05:12 CDT, 26 September 2012 - iMsg
Hello.
Well everything's in the topic. I have been hesitating recently: I need a new television but I also need a PC monitor (kinda tired of my crt, taking way too much space).
I don't know if I can find a screen that can do both while letting me enjoy quake the way it deserves.
If that doesn't exist though I think I'll buy separately. (And then I still hesitate between those DH BenQ, that LG w2363d, that asus vg236h and that samsung 2233rz, debate's open again :P)
I was just enjoying some duels on my laptop when this guy came on, I was beating him quite easily 8-1 near the middle of the game when he suddenly stopped moving, I came right next to him showing my impatience as i was ducking around, when he noticed it, he said 'killed winamp', a few minutes later i was defeated 8-13, with his accuracy largely improving.
I have been talking to a good friend on comms and he finally confessed to me what was going on. I'm thankful he decided to confess it and I want to thank him for the trust he has gave me. This letter has been given to me a few minutes ago as he wanted me to post it as soon as possible on ESR. I will let you guys have your own opinion on a guy who, whatever happens, I will regret because he is still very good in ctf wether using cheats or not.
heres what he has to say:
Okay here it goes, as all of you is starting to noticing. Alot of talk about me cheating has came up, and I just want to say to you
that its true, I did use wallhack for some months. I played quakelive since 2009, and i was still a good player from q3, i started playing ctf in ql
and I played div 1 ever since i started and played like that for over a year and a half without cheating once, then in late march i discovered this cheat and
to be honest i was just curious at first. And at this time CTF was dead, and ive never cared about anything in QL but CTF so i was really not so motivated about this game
When I started to use it I actually thought it was interesting cause I had never used a cheat in my life in quake before, and i have played for a really long time.
I was already bored with this game, and for me to be using something that made me better was just fun cause I didnt care, and this kept going on for a quite a while.
Untill eventually now in early july, I realised how I was even more bored with the cheat, And I also realised what a dick i have been really using this cheat.
So I decided to drop the cheat completely and I realised it was two maybe three times more fun to play without, and I realised I was still very good without cheat
I really regreted what I had done and from there on out I never wanted to cheat again and never look back.... I just wanted to forget about everything I had done
and just play without cheat from that moment on cause I did wanna attend Dreamhack Winter 2011 and I still want to. Cause I knew I would do good on LAN anyway
cause I realised i was still very good. But since this wouldnt be forgotten this was my opportunity to just confess myself.
I am truly sorry for what I did and I regret it. I want to go to LAN and prove that I am a good player, I will never ever do something like this again since
I know now how retarded it is, not only did it ruin the fun for me (which I didnt realized at first) it also ruins for others.
And I really had few friends in the community, cause I enjoyed trolling alot, and I still do.
My friends know who they are, wether they wanna be my friends after this or not is up to them, I understand.
Im just really regreting everything thats why im also confessing this as you can probibly figure out
I will probably never be forgiven, thats alright. But atleast im admitting what I have done to the community.
kiss/zhu
Edited by xou at 20:24 CDT, 1 August 2011 - 24285 Hits
Posted by dem0n @ 08:14 CST, 16 December 2010 - iMsg
Now that we have this fancy 'best item control' award, I had an idea earlier that might sound stupid and to be honest I did not think it through very much but...
What about some fun duel tournament where the goal is to be granted 'best item control' instead of winning ?
The goal is just to have that award, and you pass on the next round, wether you lost or won the match doesn't matter.
After watching it, it looks like I did play bad and made some wrong decisions, much like killsen said... But a few weird shots in the beginning of that demo probably put my mind in a 'cheating suspicion' mindset. (thinking about the 00:25 railshot and then 00:40 and 01:16 for example)
I really don't know nor really care anymore for now. Just still curious who that guy really was and I was probably a bit pissed that the guy didn't "gg" and quit the game like a robber :D
Edited by dem0n at 11:21 CST, 15 November 2010 - 14054 Hits
The ESL just recently announced their slot distribution for the World Championships of the Intel Extreme Masters season 5, taking place in March 2011 at CEBiT.
Posted by dem0n @ 12:11 CDT, 4 September 2010 - iMsg
Here's some thoughts about what my opinion is about these two topics and how they are connected with eachother in Capture The Flag !
A few weeks ago I ran into a conversation with deji and linkin about Capture The Flag. I have given most of what my thoughts are on the topic and I wanted to share it and give it a permanent writing.
Now I am a bit of a lazy person and each time I copy text from IRC I have to get rid of a lot of all the color parameters and whatnot, and that explains why I just rougly pasted it like that with not much formatting.
It is still a decent read though and I include some of linkin's quotes in my developping process.
Here's the thing:
standing on the flag is a strategy
DEM0N: if you do this that probably mean you were ahead in score thus were better than the other team at attacking or taking advantage first anyway
removing that part of the game made it a complete random course of events that eventually lead to high scores (and for some strange unexplainable reason praised by almost everyone) like 6-3 that means little to how a close a game was or wasnt
or 5-3 or whatever example of scores we have now
People also blame those low scores games due to random spawns that occur much more often in 5v5 because there are +2 players playing. But it also happens in 4v4 and eventhough it happened less, it did contribute to luck much more than 5v5 did
in 5v5 you were atleast practically sure there would be spawns in your way, making team escorts an important part of the game
LINKIN: i think 5v5 would be cool IF:
LINKIN: -bigger maps
LINKIN: -kill bind
DEM0N: yeah kill was always something I wanted but ID won't make it I guess
for some odd reason they believe kill was a flaw and had to be removed.
LINKIN: 'kill' was like 40% of teamplay
DEM0N: I have also already explained before in various posts on various forums why in my opinion, kill gave the game much more depth and reduced the luck factor (funny enough, most people think it made the game completely random, but theyre completely wrong, if they would just think about the whole 'risk' part there is in losing time killing yourself)
also if you dont have kill, you're completely at the mercy of luck
during a cross cap, if you get the unlucky spawn and the opponent gets the lucky one, you are already down 0-1, whilst with kill, you could either choose to run by your feet to where you believe you are needed to be (mid e.g.) and thus not taking any risk of spawning 4 times in a row in base (considering spawning takes 2 seconds, you can lose up to 10 seconds, which is usually more than enough on most maps to make a cap)
OR you can take the risk and kill yourself reducing the luck factor by getting the lucky spawn aswell
Conclusion: less randomness, more depth in the game.
kill might also make you spawn ahead of the map, let's take the example of Japanese Castles. You're bored of spawning in base, and running into incoming enemies ? Making sometimes useless fights that you dont want to commit in ? You're enemy is also probably pissed that you spawn in their way. The solution? Kill. You get the chance to teleport yoruself ahead of the incoming offenders of the other team. Consequence ? Game is faster, pressure on the defenders is bigger, less defense heavy games ? You decide.
another good balance that Kill gives is when you want to kill yourself to give the powerup. It was another underestimated balance.You get the powerup, or even the flag, and you want to give it to a partner. Killing yourself was the only option you had, this advantage you gain by giving powerups to a 'item-holder' or 'pu runner' or whatever was beeing balanced by the fact that you actually died and respawned naked with nothing in hand
LINKIN: true
LINKIN: now you can just drop the flag and still cover :/
DEM0N: it even happened that I killed myself to give a decent weapon to a partner. Now I understand that this might not be a spectator friendly feature to kill yourself, but removing it did reduce the depth CTF teamplay had and thus for most CTF lovers/fans it's another downgrade
thats all that comes to my mind now and if it didnt convince you kill atleast wasnt that BAD, then nothing will (talking to deji).
now CTF is still fun to play and I can live without kill... (and basically, my thought is that 5v5 evens out a bit more the random midspawn luck factor by making games more crowded and thus less random midclear caps.)
The concept is quite simple: if you're looking for a clan or for players, here's just the place for all of you !
We had the idea to create a system here at #teams.ql in which anyone can easily find a clan that fits his shoe or find future teammates to complete their lineup!
We support all the teammodes (TDM/CTF/CA) and use a variety of filters to make your search criterias as sharp as possible.
If you have any kind of question, suggestion, etc. just get on #teams.ql on QuakeNet.
I want to particularly thank Lashknife who has done an amazing work coding the whole package !
Recruitment Center: IRC:#teams.ql @ QuakeNet Admins: Lashknife, Malice, dem0n Holysh1t.net -> Quake Live Resources -> Recruitment Center
See you in the arena !
Edited by Dem0n- at 11:25 CDT, 27 May 2009 - 2153 Hits
The q3w7 map isn't all that but I thought the second map, q3wcp1 to be a very nice and agressive one so I've just decided to put it on ESR, the other reason being that I feel there aren't enough CTF demos on ESR so here goes my contribution...
oMg 3-1 DP
omega
bforce
forever
impulse
link1n
tua
VeRTeX
drugs&porn
apex
dem0n
genet1cz
Makie
ynm
Edited by Dem0n- at 18:29 CST, 28 February 2009 - 4389 Hits