There will be another season of QUAKE LIVE in the Intel Extreme Masters. I thought I should point that out before going on to other things, since no one really bothered to post about it on ESReality for almost a week.

What does that mean? It means that the game you guys love to follow so much is back in one of the world's coolest PC gaming leagues. And that your favourite porn star or your girlfriend, for that matter, won't be the only reason you'll be spraying in the following months. Hopefully at more content than just the live matches themselves.

QUAKE LIVE has stayed in the Intel Extreme Masters because it delivers fun that's very universal in the hardcore esports world and beyond. The World Championship final between rapha and Cooller has really managed to captivate a capacity crowd at CeBIT (see this VOD to get an idea, of here on YouTube). It produced one of those feelings where you could say that you've experienced something special.

All along my plan in the Intel Extreme Masters was to make the show more enjoyable for you, for the fans of other games and for the people that just happened to stumble upon QUAKE LIVE in the depths of the Internet or at a trade show hall somewhere. The game is very easy to follow and it's not difficult to convince people that the depths of skill needed to master it make winning at it very manly.

In order to help explain the manliness of QL, I revisited the idea which today I call the ESL Classics (around 2006 actually). We sit down with a top gamer in the ESL TV studio, we show one of the great matches that he has played in the ESL and we find out from him what went on through his head during that match.

Seeing as rapha happened to be practicing in Cologne for the ESWC, we've managed to make him our first target - he was kind enough to oblige. We grabbed him and the demo of the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship grand final and boom! We've got a pilot:



Pardon the config and all the other imperfections, but this was really only a sput-of-the moment thing. Please test it on your friends, ask them what they didn't really understand and what they liked particularly. Drop a few hints on how to properly configure the game to display good information (scoreplums in player demos?) as well, and none of the ugly stuff (like "connection interrupted").

Off the top of my head, we need a short introduction of the rules, of the map layout and the basic map strategy on how to control it. This needs to be enjoyable for you, but for players of all other games as well.

What's good, what's great, where can we improve? In short: WE NEED YOUR CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM!

If you guys enjoyed this show, then make sure to support it by "liking it" on Facebook (Facebook.com/IEMtv). Oh, and one more thing. The "second pilot" of this show will feature Cooller explaining the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship DM13 game from the final against rapha.

Sweet?