gud interview imo

Decent round-up. But why would either player stop committing to their play? If one stops and doesn't get the pause/restart he screws himself by not committing?!

i like how he has the stomach to claim that if anyone, cooller got the disadvantage for being 16 armor down when it began, comedy stuff

Afaik, the spikes did not cause any frags though. If cooller is correct in saying that they werent around each other when they occured.

from what cooller said on the stream though, lag caused more than coollers frags. sounds like a void game if anything

cooller claimed on server chat that the lag helped strenx get frags, so he was contradicting himself there.

Strenx said the same about Cooller's frags.

Indeed.

What a joke where is the [-]

Dont shoot the messenger. Thanks for the coverage Thorin.

cba reading, it wasn't fair, let's face it.

It was a video interview, no need to read it.
And really, you should have viewed it before taking a stance on this.
The best thing would be the referees point of view though.

pathetic...

thx thorin for all these interviews during the event. very gj :>

Thanks, the first few were a bit shaky where I was covering three full tournaments so I didn't get to see enough of their games but as the tournaments thinned out I think they got stronger.

I actually liked this a lot. Thanks for the good questions and answers. [+]

From what I could read in other discussions and hear in this interview, Carmac handled this very well. The damage was done early in the game, and when he jumped in the situation was already a disaster to say the best. I like the fact he took care of it, trying to act as a third party for the players and admins (I've seen in Hannover how bad communication can be sometimes), and as interface for the community with the announcement first and this interview later. One can argue about many things, but this man really cares about quake live and these tournaments. So proper respect to him.

I especially liked the last question, and although this may not be the place, this is my opinion.

- If you allow players to call timeout without any restriction, people could abuse the rule, and call timeout to upset the opponent and create odd situations (strenx-avek on t9).
- If you do not allow the players to call timeout, you must have very responsive admins, but even with them it may be difficult for the players to communicate what is wrong and have them pause.

So in my opinion, a possible scenario could be that each player is given one timeout card. The player can at any time use the card to call the timeout. If the admin consider the timeout call valid (there is a valid technical issue) the card is restored, meaning that the player will be able to call an other timeout in the future, should something go wrong. If instead the admin thinks the timeout was abused, the card is not restored, and the player loses the ability to call timeouts for the rest of the match. This should keep the abuses low, while at the same time give the players the ease of calling timeouts as soon as a problem arises.

syncerror replied in one of the recent threads - 3 timeouts for each player per match are available

Every serious player SHOULD have some key bound to 'timeout'. Number of allowed timeouts is controlled by g_timeoutCount, which defaults at '3'. In Duel means 3 per player, in team games means 3 per team.

Also a fun note, the 'pause' key on your keyboard is already bound to 'pause' by default, so admins already have a bind available to quickly pause a match.

g_timeoutCount works for the implementation side of things, but you still need a rule, and I think that can be discussed and agreed with the players and the league admin.

imho quakelive already IS a huge rulebook:

timeouts, timelimit, cheats/punkbuster, cheat protected cvars, allowed cvars,...... it is built for competition

Sounds good. My point is that the timeout thing belongs to those rules that go beyond what the game offers technically, which are necessary for a league to run (like map picking, wildcards, etc).

I agree on both counts. Rules should be explicit but in general we try to build everything 'competition acceptable', meaning anything you can do with a cvar or cmd should be allowed during play. If something is troublesome or exploitable, then it should be removed from the game or have the cvar range limited to acceptable values.

I really don't care for rules that restrict players from what we already provide (I myself never cared for the rule that prevents certain or all values of drawItemPickup) and think it should be just a given that if it is in-game you can use it. But, perhaps leagues need to explicitly say what you can or cannot do, or at least have a catch all and say 'you can utilize any available in-game features with the exception of ____.

Concerning timeouts. We will add g_timeoutCount and g_timeoutLength to the Advanced Server options, so that leagues have control over these values, then there should be no question over the rule, if they are enabled then it's allowed.

Btw, I agree that there never is a great solution to fixing a partial match. I feel for the ESL staff that had to make the decision. When you're in a LAN competition you often have to make several judgment calls on the fly or have major restricting forces such as time available at the venue, promises to other game tournaments for stream time or seating in the venue, or on the last day of events, a scheduled time that third party workers are supposed to come in and tear down & clean up. The only real good solution to a partial match is to beat it like a dead horse and do a bo3 set consisting of just that map. But that would be impossible time wise in most situations and the players too would just become tired of it at that point.

An other solution for it would be to have a "replay from demo" feature, where one can go at any given point of the recorded game and get the game state to start the match from there.

I guess this would not work with the current single-pov network stream demos, and it would have the additional complexity of choosing which player is which, but if it were working properly, it would be a very powerful tool to deal with crashes/disconnects during LAN events (and it would be cool for training as well).

The positions/armor/weapons at a given time in a game are only one part though. Sadly you can't restore a mental state (not yet:P)

Man, you seem to be one of the few people who can see sense, rather than screaming "Carmac is a dick/aggressive/Cooller biased". Nice to see :)

Theoption of the match being replayed is negated by neither player calling for timeout, as carmac explains. I think replaying the map would have been more unfair; it's like saying "my config wasn't right during the match, but I played on anyway as I thought I could still win. I lost. Can we replay plz?"

I can understand the slasher hate, I can see the logic behind it; not the carmac hate though :(

Unreal!

"Least unfair as possible"

Why worry about a least unfair decision, when you could have made a fair decision to replay the match?

and take away a pretty much won match from one player. Yeah that sounds totally fair.

Oh wait, you are a known strenx fanboy. Carry on then.

Replay the map is far from fair decision. I hope u realize that.

you make a great putin, carmac
that's a compliment

no, it's not. :(

go back to gulag

x)

Love how carmac only gets involved when its concerning cooller/cypher/avek. Such a fanboy shouldnt be allowed anywhere near the tournament area.

well what drama were there that didnt involve any of those three?

dumbest admin decision ever.

period

No offense no Carmac, but I think he's kind of really stupid if he actually believes that his decision is the "least unfair." But honestly, I don't think he really believes it is. If he had made a fair decision, cooller would have probably had him murdered. It's just easier to give strenx the sh@t end of the stick. But props to strenx for being mature about how badly he got screwed over.

It was a good decision for a given situation.

Restarting the map would be extremely stupid idea. Map is restarted only in first 2 mins of the match. And saying strenx got screwed over is bullshit, as cooller played with the same lag.

Blame teh admins for not following the game and not pausing on time, but restarting map is not an option in that case.

Well, the admins are to blame for the situation arising in the first place. They should be held accountable for that. But Carmac seems to be at blame for the AWFUL/extremely unfair decision of replaying the last 27 seconds of the match. So they're both to blame for two different things.

Also, it's a completely unfair to decision for strenx to have to replay only the last 27 seconds of the match. If you were to replay, you should replay where the lag BEGAN, because it's unfair for them to have to play in lag at all. That is not tournament conditions. They do not prepare to play in lag, so it doesn't matter that they both had the same lag. That's a different playing condition than they prepared for and it certainly doesn't show who's best. That's like if you blind folded them each at the 2 minute mark and cooller ends up taking the lead while blind-folded. Well, that's great, but why should that time count, as it's not what they've been practicing for, it's not normal conditions for quake duels, and it doesn't show who is best. The lag should not have happened at all, so if they were to recreate the situation IN FAIRNESS, they should have recreated from the point where the lag began, as neither player should have had to play in lag to begin with. None of us came to watch who is best in ESL laggy quake duel. So to say that it's fair because they had the same lag is just dumb. There were ~2 minutes of quake being played under laggy conditions, so imagine you were winning, and then the game starts lagging and you lose your lead because of the lag. Then they replay only the last 27 seconds of the match, forgetting that the game was lagging for the past 2 minutes. How is that fair to you that you lost your lead because of lag just because the other guy plays better lag quake? It's completely unfair, and he got screwed over. I'm sorry if you fail to understand that. Just because they both played with the same lag doesn't mean it's fair for them to have had to play with lag at all, and the admins had the choice to "undo" the lag situation by replaying the map from the point where the lag began, which is fair to both players because that's up to that point was the normal quake that they have both been practicing and preparing for. To spend months and months practicing quake without lag like that, and then to get there to compete for money, and HAVE TO play with lag (even though the admins had the chance to revere it and replay it without the lag) is completely unfair to both players, and one player got screwed over big time because he lost a 2-frag (i think) lead during the lagginess. Absolutely ridiculous. AWFUL admins, and even worse decision on Carmac/ESL's part.

like carmac said in the interview.. those guys played fully committed to the game, so replaying from where the lag started would be unfair towards the player who managed to make more frags during that time..

so here you are again with the least unfair decision.. which is replaying 27 seconds and not your replay-2-minutes solution

Fully committed? They asked for pause, both players stopping to express that they're lagging. It seems they either could not time-out, or didn't think they were allowed to. So what were they going to do, just stop playing? They kept playing because the game was still going. What were they going to do? Go afk? No one was just going to sit still and hope it gets paused soon and they fix the issue, so they kept playing. So as I said twice already, it's not fair that they were forced to play in lag. period. Since the lag happened, they should go back to before the lag happened, to as closely as possible recreate the lag-free, normal tournament conditions they were playing in. That's the only option that's fair to both players. Go back to where they were playing when everything was as they agreed to play (no lag). No one comes expecting to or prepared to play on lan with lag, so anything that happened as a result of the admin not doing his job should not count. I don't think they were "fully committed" to playing in lag, but who would be dumb enough to risk going afk? They both seemed to be under the impression that they couldn't/weren't allowed a timeout, hence they both said lags and asked for pause. Unfair for both players to have to play in lag, and it sucks for the guy who loses his lead in lag time, which shouldn't count in a "professional" tournament. Very poor decision by ESL/Carmac, VERY poor admining by this TAUB guy, not cooller's fault by any means. As I said, it's unfair to both players, and strenx got completely screwed by this decision. I'm sorry you fail to see that.

i'm sorry you fail to see that your solution is more unfair than replaying just 27 seconds..

you're talking like you don't see the other side of the problem, or that you cannot decide which solution is less unfair.. if the first is your case, then you're just blind.. if the second, i suggest you do couple of years adminning leagues/tournaments and then see how wrong you are now :)

anyway, no point arguing.. it's not like we are going to convince each other or something :)

How about instead of just saying "You don't get it," you could try explaining your side of the argument. Because honestly, it doesn't seem like you have a point. Let me give a hypothetical so maybe you can understand what I'm saying. Imagine for a second that they played two minutes of laggy quake like they did, but cooller didn't make a single frag and remained down by two kills when the admin finally paused the match with 27 seconds left. Is it fair to cooller for him to only get 27 seconds left to play, or should he be given the entire 2 minutes from when the lag started? Because it's unfair that they should have to play in laggy conditions. If it weren't lagging, maybe cooller would have made 2-3 frags and taken the lead. But since he was forced to play in lag, and the admins won't let him replay the 2 minutes of lag, then he loses out on his opportunity for his practice and abilities to win him the match (just because he's no good in lag doesn't mean he's the worse player and doesn't deserve to move on to the finals, and that's what the tournament is all about: who is the best player, not who can handle lag best). Do you see how them being forced to play in lag in the first place is unfair to the players? NOTHING that happens during the lag, regardless of who it favors, should count because it's lag and it doesn't show who the best player is. Someone who practiced more/is smarter/has better aim can easily get screwed over in lag, and it doesn't mean they are a worse player and don't deserve to move on to the finals, it means they got screwed over by lag (potentially out of a lot of money). And when the admins were making their decision, they had the choice of undoing the time played in lag. Maybe now you understand. But probably not. If it was cooller who got screwed over by the lag and lost the lead/the match, you guys would be raging at how unfair it is that he had to play in lag and he doesn't get 2 minutes of NORMAL play to make up his frag difference and give him an HONEST chance to win the match.

And I think it hard to imagine I'd be a worse admin than the guy who doesn't even bother to spectate the semi-finals match in a major professional tournament, and fails to pause the game after both players express lag concerns and ask for pause. I hope they fired that guy.

all you guys saying that replay would be more fair, just don't have any admining experience at all.. and if you do, i'm glad i didn't play in your league/tournament

what perpetualwar said +1

I think replaying the whole map was a better decision wision. What do you have to say about that ? :p

I'll tell you why on IRC don't worry ;)

you do know you are talking about the same strenx who played against spartazord?

I absolutely agree that spartaz0rd got screwed over in that situation because of strenx, but what does that have to do with this? That doesn't make it fair for him to get screwed over and most likely get screwed out of the finals. That spartaz0rd thing was another COMPLETE FAILURE on ESL's decision-making part. I think they're just stupid tbh. It's like they think, what's the least fair thing we could do? Ok do that, and then call it the most fair option available. Quite the thinkers.

Yeah, well if I look at the reasoning of you and several others I can only think that you would most likely be even worse admins.

You are asking that the admins should break the very rules of their tournament and through that screw a player over, because one of them made a mistake.

Do you really believe breaking the rules, giving players and admin in future matches reason to say, "oh but the rules weren't followed in the strenx - cooller match" is the fairest and best way to proceed?

Cause I certainly don't.

Yes, strenx got the short end of the stick, because he didn't or couldn't handle the cicurmstances as well as cooller did. But as a 'solution' you are demanding to punish cooller for an admin's mistake, while breaking the rules.

Man, you still are failing to see the picture here. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you. It doesn't matter who got screwed over here, or who benefits from it. The time played in lag should never have occurred and thus anything that happened during it should not count. Imagine cooller had not made a single frag during the lag time, and the match finally gets paused with 27 seconds remaining. Do you think it's fair for him not to get those 2 minutes of lag time back in order to have an honest chance to win the match? Just because he can't play in lag doesn't mean he is a worse player and doesn't deserve to make it to the finals. In fact, maybe he's the better player but didn't get a complete match to make a comeback. The point of the tournament is for the best quake duel player to advance through and for the best player to win the tournament. Playing in lag doesn't show who's truly best, only who handles lag better. In that case, the tournament should be called quake lag 1v1. But who handles lag better doesn't show who is best, and it's unfair for both players to have to play in the lag at all, because that means they don't get the chance to play an entire match NORMALLY and they lose out on 2 minutes of game-time that they could have used to potentially win the match. It doesn't matter that cooller gained the advantage during the lag time, because it's unfair for both players to have even been forced to play it. Given an entire normal match, strenx very well may have won it and advanced, meaning he was the better player, and that's who SHOULD advance: the better player. What happens in the lag time doesn't matter. The lag time should not count and should be replayed to give BOTH PLAYERS (VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE: I SAID BOTH PLAYERS) the chance to play an ENTIRE match, without lag, to try and win and show who is best and who deserves to move on. This was not the case. They both basically lost 2 minutes of game time, and unfortunately for strenx, cooller benefits from it and he won the game because of it. If you STILL can't understand how that's the only fair decision, then I must be speaking with an infant.

Anyway, great finals match. Cooller definitely looked on form against av3k.

At first, you wrote this:

If he had made a fair decision, cooller would have probably had him murdered.

Which is what I replied to.

And now you write this:

Man, you still are failing to see the picture here. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you. It doesn't matter who got screwed over here, or who benefits from it.

Maybe you should have explained that to yourself, first...

How are the two related?

replied to the wrong post O.o

I know, I saw the post you took the quote from, but I still don't see how the two are related :p That cooller would probably have been angry to replay the map is unrelated to what the poster is arguing, which is that the decision to replay would not be based on who benefited from the lag :)

no my point is that he first, makes a point that it is "easier" to put strenx at a disadvantage, clearly showing he thought carmac was biased against strenx and for cooller.
I reply to that.
Then he does a 180, claiming it is irrelevant who is favored and, through his his condescending choice of words "I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.", insinuating it was me who started to talk about favoring one player over another.

When he says it's irrelevant who is favored, he means that the same reasoning would apply whatever happened in the minutes during which the playing conditions were altered. His reasoning would still apply had Cooller failed to catch up with strenx, or even if strenx had increased his lead. This is not related to what he claimed originally, which is that Carmac did not want to do something which would (in this case) clearly not benefit Cooller. I see no contradiction here :p

The problem is that he jumping all over the place with his reasoning, while using a condescending tone for "not getting it".

You really are dumb. I mean that in the least unfair way possible. Instead of refuting my points, you just say "he's jumping around all over the place!" which fails to address any of my points. The logic is sound. I'm sorry you haven't caught up. Even Naghokez explained to you my point, and you continued to just say "well, he's jumping around." It's clear you have run out of argument. You don't refute my logic. Come again when you have a point to make. Until then, I have no material of yours to refute, so I'm stuck with ad hominems.

P.S. Don't be a lawyer, they'll eat you alive. :)

Yeah, I've had a bunch of people telling me "you are dumb" over the internet. Seems like you will fit in really nicely.

First you make one statement, which I reply to.
And then all of a sudden you act as if you had never made that statement and instead attack and insult me for replying to it.

I discussed my reasoning in the actual matter with other people, the longest discussion was with naghokez for that matter.
I don't want to discuss it with you, because of your behaviour. You really don't seem worth the effort.


The point is you should have first commented on this statement, before demanding anything resembling a rational discussion:

But honestly, I don't think he really believes it is. If he had made a fair decision, cooller would have probably had him murdered. It's just easier to give strenx the sh@t end of the stick. But props to strenx for being mature about how badly he got screwed over.

P.S.: If I have to I can argue stongly enough and won't be phased by attacks, it's just that it's worthless to do so with you.

Man. Strenx didn't got screwed over. Period. He decided to play with that lag, therefore nobody screwed him. He could have taken timeout as he was supposed to, right ? Since he didn't, it's his own fault.

Like I already said , since they both decided to play in spite of lag, that means they COULD play and they thought they will be in advantage of other player by doing so.

Therefore strenx wasn't 'screwed over', he decided to play and try to get advantage of cooller in that situation.

He pulled the shortest straw. Nobody fucked him over. Deal with it.

Again, in the given situation (blame admins for not following the game and not pausing on time), and both players not taking timeout (as they could but decided not to), it was the best decision opposed to replaying the map which would be far worse thing to do then playing last 29 secs till the end.

strenx got fucked.

[+]

I think it was a decent decision.

Blame the admins who didn't pause in the first place.

The players should have paused. Carmac said that they would have been able to. No idea why neither Strenx nor Cooler took a timeout.

exactly because they thought they can take advantage of another player if they continue playing. Therefore nobody can say strenx was fucked over... cause he decided himself he don't need timeout regardless of lag in question.

They both decided they can play with that lag and no restart of the map should be given.

Still admins should've paused the match when strenx announced lag for the first time.

Yep. When you keep on playing, you accept the conditions.

But pause the game when some player says 'lags' will lead to questionable results too.

I think it's funny how carmac blames the players for not pausing the game themselves, then he goes on saying that he doesn't know if it's illegal for players to pause the game and then when thorin asks if there are going to be new regulations he says that they would have to look into that because players might abuse timing out the game themselves

So he goes from legal, to maybe legal, to illegal in one interview... nice 1!

In this particular instance, it's very much the admins' fault. Strenx did the right thing by "documenting" the lag in chat as and when it occurred. The admins should've paused the game there and then. ESL might consider having more serious admins who actually enter the server and keep an eye on the game.

What's unfair though is people calling Carmac a fanboy. He was the bringer of bad news and so, people started blaming him, while he was just doing damage control.

Yup, but at the end of the day that is carmac's job. He is the guy in charge and therefore has to make the unpopular calls. It's not his job to act like a guru and set a feel-good atmosphere.

but but but he had nothing to do with the outcome of the decision at all.... honest

It's easy to blame and point fingers now. Imo the fault was that the admin did not pause in the first place. Then it's up to the players to use the timeout if they would have required it. No decision is fair after that, and if you ask me the decision that was taken was a decent one, far from perfect but the alternatives were not better anyway.

Shame that it happened, but with results in hand I'm not convinced there was a better way. Thanks for a awesome tournament admins/ESL.

how is replaying the last two minutes a worse decision exactly ?

because you would undo already played time in which cooller earned frags?

Doesn't matter what happened in those 2 minutes of lag. They shouldn't count because they should never have happened in the first place. That means that both players lost 2 minutes of REAL play time. Imagine you're strenx and you're up 2 frags, the game starts lagging, and you lose your lead, only to not get to make up the time the game was lagging. He lost 2 minutes of honest playing because of bad admins, and then didn't get a chance to regain those 2 minutes because of even worse ESL decision. To be winning, then lose your lead due to lag, and not get the time back? He got robbed. Like I said, it doesn't matter if nothing at all happened during those 2 minutes and strenx was still in the lead by 2 frags. They should have replayed the map when the lag started and let cooller have those 2 lag minutes BACK in order to have an honest chance at playing a full game. If cooller had still been down by 2 when they paused, and they only gave him 27 seconds, he would have gotten robbed of those 2 minutes as well. They shouldn't have had to play in the lag, period. And whatever happened during that time should not count, replay those 2 minutes should have been the decision. That's the only fair decision where NEITHER PLAYER loses lag-free, legitimate quake time they played or any kills they earned in doing so. Just because cooller can frag strenx in laggy quake doesn't mean that should honestly count.

They shouldn't have had to play in the lag, period.

no shit sherlock...
your post is full of short sighted bullshit

And yours is absolutely profound! Way to discard an entire argument, taking sentence in summary and making it sound meaningless. Very smart! GRATZ!

it was one of those absurd bits that caught my eye, thats why i quoted it. and it was obviously not meant to be an argument of any kind, i just dont wanna argue with you cause it already seems pointless. believe what you want.

precisely.

Cooller winning a tournament.. hmm whats wrong with this picture?

yea no shit something went wrong here.

Epic selfish fu... community, both players had the SAME conditions, cooller managed to get the best out of it, so u strenx fanbois - when do u start using ur brain????? He got fucked up???? By what? Cooller just beat him under the exact same condition, same LAN/spikes/lags etc. and even after the 28 sec where strenx rly made it happen to kill him (which is sicsicsic) his mindset continued to be strong and he managed to win it?? Why is it always about strenx and his - if i lose its ping and replay the map - shit? Best example in the past was vs spartaz0rd on dm13, no offense vs strenx but did even u french fanbois get tired of it?
But blablabla, go on flame cooller, he only won the tourney cause CARMACK gave it him -.- .... .

No one is flaming cooller, you moron. And half these people arguing for strenx aren't fans of his (I'm not. In the past, he's been a whiny, sore loser).

And again, it doesn't matter that they both played in the SAME LAG. There shouldn't have been lag in the first place. So when they go back and try to recreate the situation, why not eliminate the period of play that was conducted in the lag? Seems the only fair solution to the rational mind. I wasn't even pulling for strenx, but it sucks to see someone get so completely screwed over, potentially out of a lot of money, especially at a "professional" tournament. But what does it matter if they both had the same lag? Both players did not prepare for/expect/agree to play in lag, so it does not reflect who is the best quake player at the time, which is exactly what the tournament is about. That's like if you blind-folded both players for the last 2 minutes of the game. Both players are blind-folded, so they have an equal disadvantage, but if one player wins because of the blindfold, how is it fair to the other player who was winning the entire time in normal tournament conditions. It doesn't show who is best player/who practiced more or who is smarter/better aim, which is who should move on to the finals. So to say that it's fair because they had the same lag is stupid. But like I said, it's not cooller's fault. He was obviously quite happy with ESL's terrible decision.

I think there is no fair solution, even if u replay that time where the lag occurred there is a disadvantage for cooller cause he managed to handle the lag better... or dont u agree? Btw there is no reason to call me a moron ... . But we can argue about that for decades and will never coincidate, but I think strenx will get his chance to prove it over and over again... .

I absolutely agree that cooller played better in the lag. But my point is that going into a tournament, no one should have to play in lag in the first place, it's not what they prepared for and it DOES NOT show who is best duel player (which is who should advance to finals to play for big money), so it only makes sense to go back to the point where the lag began. Once the lag began, it was no longer fair to either of them, and it shouldn't count when you're unable to play in a tournament without lag. I don't get why so many people don't understand such a simple point. Including the laggy time like they did, the results of the match don't show who is the best quake duel player, only the best laggy duel player. If it hadn't lagged, it looks as though strenx likely would have won that match, but since cooller plays better lag quake, he gets to advance? Bad admining by TAUB fellow, and even worse decision by Carmac/ESL.

Hi Rapha.
100% agree.

haha very good way to put it. You know, one thing is to be a fanboy and another is to be a bad loser fanboy. Strenx has lots of them, an insane amount!

i've not checked the video so I'll risk looking like an idiot here but given how this fallacy of "esports" hasn't barely progressed in over a decade I feel safe in making massive assumptions

shit like this should be worked out and decided upon before the event even takes place.

governing bodies, associations, and event holders go to extremes for contingency plans for the most stupid of shit so things like this are easy to wrap up, handle and move on as quickly and smoothly as possible.

there should be clauses such as "in the event of unforeseen network trouble mid-game the match will be restarted" / "if the game in question had an obvious winner then both parties can agree to move to the next map instead of restarting" and a million others

players should be signing crap like this before the event begins and they should be agreeing to a lot of terms and conditions.

this also applies to admins and it should be made public so sponsors, managers, reporters, spectators and just about everyone else who isn't a player or event admin know what the fuck is what

admins should very rarely be put in a place where they needed to make a decision there and then because a ruling isn't already set it place.

even more so when it's something as common as network / power trouble.

seriously

there should be clauses such as "in the event of unforeseen network trouble mid-game the match will be restarted" / "if the game in question had an obvious winner then both parties can agree to move to the next map instead of restarting" and a million others

there are rules for disconnects, which were followed.

There are no specific rules for lag, which is a shame, but I doubt they would say anything else but "players/admins should pause and continue playing when the lag is gone".

There are also no rules for admin's making mistakes, but let's face it, there are way too many possibilities for mistakes to cover them all.


So yeah, from my eyes the rules were set and were followed, people jsut have problems accepting it.

/edit:

the rules: http://www.esl-world.net/masters/rule_book/

Ah, thanks for that link.

I still think it's incredibly stupid how these issues exist 10 years on - not so much the unforeseen trouble as that's inevitable but the fact there seemed to be a problem with its handling.

"It should be remembered that it is always the administration of the tournament that has the last word, and that decisions that are not specifically supported, or detailed in this rulebook, or even goes against this rulebook may be taken in extreme cases, to preserve fair play and sportsmanship."

That right there is a major no. I understand extreme things will happen and on the spot decision making will be needed but that statement is far too generic and open for abuse.

The disconnection rules are erroneous. I assume erroneous because the same restart rule applies to both but they're listed under seperate headings (first 3 minutes and minutes 3 through 7.) It would appear that admins decide the outcome if the disconnect happens after the 7 minute mark.

I feel that's wrong and open for abuse. I am sure Carmac acted with the best of intentions but someone with his history and connection to various players over the years shouldn't be responsible for such a call.

It would appear the rules were followed in this case (a disruption) and as you said, it's entirely fair, that I agree with.

Still I think those rules are so vague, cover little ground. It should be made clear where the game restarts from. In this case should the game be restarted with scores from the pre-lag or post lag?

Anyway, I cannot understand why a QL map cannot just be restarted. These guys are meant to be professionals and should be prepared to handle shitty circumstances out of their control. It makes much more sense to restart a match on a clean slate for both players given the length of a map. Starting with predefined scores and a different time limit changes the dynamic of the game and so on.

Are you retarded or just trolling?

Lag is not some totally unforeseeable event, we're talking about gaming, lag is to be expected time to time and there's nothing you can really do about it. Same as wind/rain/whatever natural phenomenon in traditional sports.

Do you see soccer matches being restarted because 60 minutes into the game, it starts raining heavily and it's not "perfect playing conditions" anymore?

The admins fucked up by not timing out at the appropriate moment, the decision after that was damage control and executed as well as possible.

Neither, but you're doing what a lot of these blind idiots do and that's comparing an electronic game to a real life well established sport which is nearly always meaningless.

Lag is unforeseeable and shouldn't really be an issue where LAN is concerned. That's the point the whole point of LAN competition and the reason why such events are very rare. Network trouble prevents players from playing and effects the outcome of a game in a bad way, that's the key difference. You can't play through lag and packet loss and still perform. It's not possible and the game is ruined.

Your weather example is poor. The game can be played in bad weather conditions, players can adjust and compensate. Weather does not prevent the players from playing nor does it destroy the outcome of a match. The dynamics and nature of the sport allow you to take a break, reset and go from there. Resetting being starting from the center of the pitch or the relevant goal decided by possession at the time or whatever.

Take tennis, it cannot be played in the wet so the game is halted. However that's not a problem because it can easily be picked up mid-game after such disruptions and then be played out.

You cannot just pickup and play from where you left off in Quake unless it's after a timeout. The scores become completely meaningless and irrelevant to that game and should have no bearing after the reset.

Re-matches across various sports are often enforced or called upon when uncontrollable things or controversial decisions take place and for good reason, it's in the interest of the competitors to do so.

An admin would have been on that server and watching with huge intent and paused the game the second network troubles occurred and then resumed once they had passed.

It's sad the game state cannot be dumped and picked up from, that would be the perfect solution to this kind of thing.

Lag is foreseeable and a part of eSports today. Are you forgetting that to reach the European Championship, the players had to play their previous matches online and online matches are most certainly plagued by lag issues quite frequently, including but not limited to lagouts, ping inequalities, etc?

I'm just annoyed by people saying there's an inherent fault within eSports or the accompanying rule system. The rules are fine, it's the errors made by referees that is the problem in this case, but that is a problem in any sport and is certainly not limited to eSports. Do you remember the controversy over the refereeing of the World Cup finals? Or the non-goal in ENG-GER?

Either way, if it is so obvious lag will/can occur, then there should most definitely be a rule in the book which handles the situation smoothly and in a fashion that is predefined.

The existing rules (and common sense) for such events work well, the problem with this match was not the rules, but rather the fuckup of the admin(s).

You can't write rules for every billion things that might happen, hence even civil law accepting that everything that isn't explicitly illegal is considered legal and the details to a lot of things are left to the discretion and interpretation of the judges.

I guess after that incoherent wall of text all I wanted to say is:

rules are lacking, not detailed enough, could be improved upon and are open for admin bias

despite that, what you said is true. The rules were followed

linked from cooller's facebook page.

The last 27 seconds + Overtime of the controversial 5th map Vertical Vengeance at IEM European Championship 2010/2011.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1276786535728

someone bring in AGP, it's obvious no organisation can manage without their rules and sanctioning!

edit: and their seal of approval if i might add.

Everything that cooller wins automatically becomes AGP-sanctioned.

accelerated graphics port has nothing to do with this!

yeah, especially the old one, listen to pci express

Nice.
So u manage to even it up after loosing the 1st two maps, where especially the 2nd was psychowar of 20mins, and still going to win the final map, just to get fucked up by technical problems and sleeping admins...

This 27 seconds replay was awesome so shut up everybody!

"he managed the lag better".

-> And next time, both players get to be tickled by an admin each and we can see who handles the tickles better, right ??

Wake up ?

The game got pretty much screwed in terms of score/concentration by players when strenx started calling for lags and pause.

It would've been by far a much better admin decision to come back to when the lag occured.

Now to balance out the situation, I would have suggested that cooller keeps his 1-0 lead...

First of all. Players are able and allowed to call timeouts during a game. Neither strenx, nor cooller didn't, they kept playing.
Second, the moment when player says something in the chat is not necessarily the moment when actual problem occurs. Let's say, lag occurs in game between players A and B, and player A makes use of it to make a frag or to escape from dangerous situation. Will he say something in chat about lags? Probably no, because it helped him. Then some time later, lag occurs again and this time works against player A. Will he write in chat now? Most probably, yes. So, basically, if you say "replay from when strenx complained about lag", you're putting the crucial desicion of the point where to restart from, in hands of one of the players, which is as biased and unobjective as it can be. And obviously, there is no logging or telemetry system in QL to monitor lags, so there cannot be any objective data on when the lags actually started, so there cannot be any objective decision on the restart point, and that combined with the fact that players continued to play during the lags, makes it nonsensical to replay only the lagged part of the game. What if I just spam "lags" any time the situation goes wrong for me, and then after game ends ask admins to replay from that time? Obviously, no one would grant me a replay.
So the only two options that make any sense are:
1) Replay the whole map as it was played in conditions different from typical QL duel.
2) Continue the game from the point where it was stopped.
It can be argued, which of them is "least unfair", but certainly the option to "replay the map from an arbitrary moment when someone said something in chat but still kept playing as if nothing happened" is not among them.

Your logic has more holes than swiss cheese. First of all, we could see on the stream when the lag started. It was visible.

Secondly, they both gave the impression that they weren't able/thought they weren't allowed to timeout during the game otherwise they would have instead of saying "lags" and "pause" etc.

Thirdly, you left out a 3rd option, which is actually the only option that is fair to both players, which is to replay the match from the point where the LAG began. This way, neither player loses ANY time/frags they earned during legitimate, lag-free quake that they played. Anything earned during the lag should NOT count as it should have never happened in the first place and it not a part of the quake duel settings (otherwise both players would have spent months and months practicing lag spike quake to prepare and see who is best at ESL lag duels). If you replay the entire map, both players lose 7-8 minutes of honest, lag-free, completely normal quake that they rightly earned, and to take that away from either of them is unfair to both of them, so that option is out. Now you could also replay the map from the last 27 seconds, but that option includes 2 minutes of laggy play, which isn't fair to either player (although cooller im sure had no problem with that as he benefited from this greatly, handling lag much better), this options isn't fair to either player because it robs them of 2 minutes of lag-free quake that they DID NOT get to play. So whatever they may have been able to do in those 2 minutes of play, it doesn't matter because they don't get to play them. So they just lose 2 minutes of legitimate duel time if you go with that option, which is, again, unfair to both players, but under the circumstances, extremely unfair to strenx as he lost a 2-frag lead due to lag (who knows, maybe cooller could have taken lead without lag, but we won't know because they got robbed of 2 minutes of REAL play time).

That only leaves one option, which is to replay the match from when the lag began, meaning both players will lose NO time that they played in legitimate, lag-free quake, or any frags they earned in that time, and it will be as if the lag never happened at all, which is exactly how it SHOULD have been. This option would result in EXACTLY 10 minutes of lag-free quake, no player losing any time/frags earned in non-lag. This is the only fair option. Anything that happened in the lag shouldn't count because it shouldn't have happened in the first place. It doesn't matter if NOTHING happened in those 2 minutes. Those 2 minutes of lag should have been replayed regardless so that both players had a full 10 minutes of honest, lag-free quake to show who is best and who deserves to move on.

we could see on the stream when the lag started. It was visible.

It's not possible to discern streamer's lag from player's lag. It could have been just lag from streamer's connection, also you see only one POV, so you can't say for sure that lags haven't begun earlier for the other player.

Secondly, they both gave the impression that they weren't able/thought they weren't allowed to timeout during the game

They knew perfectly well that players can timeout. Cooller called timeouts in some of his previous games at IEM; as for strenx, I don't remember if he called any timeouts himself, but there was one his game vs av3k where av3k called timeout, so strenx should know well that players can timeout during the game.
Also, surely they would have said so to the referees if they weren't able to timeout, about which we would know from Carmac's interview, for example.

you left out a 3rd option, which is actually the only option that is fair to both players, which is to replay the match from the point where the LAG began.

As it is impossible to know where the lag began, it's not an option. If we're talking about impossible options, then the best one is to discover the reason why power spikes occurred, time-travel back and prevent it from happening.

Anything earned during the lag should NOT count as it should have never happened in the first place and it not a part of the quake duel settings

Lag is not permanent, it comes in short spikes, and if, for example, it appears for a short time during an unimportant moment while all the deciding events of the match were played under normal duel conditions, it can be reasoned that such short spike in an unimportant moment is not enough to invalidate players' achievements during that time.

It will be visible in the demos. It was also visible to everyone at the event who witnessed it live, either on screen or speccing in-game, so you would be able to find out when the lag began.

It's not an impossible option to "undo" the lag time that was played. If the admins had decided to replay from when the lag began, they would have done exactly that. No time travel necessary.

Did you really just say "It can be reasoned that such short lag spikes are unimportant in the game"? Wow. I'm flabbergasted. You don't really mean that do you? Those spikes were pretty significant. I could even tell that on the terrible ESL-quality stream. If those spikes caused you to get screwed over in just one fight, then you've lost control/lost frags. It doesn't take 5000 mistakes to lose a game. It takes just one. So to say those lag spikes can be "reasoned" as unimportant is just plain dumb.

You'll never be able to PERFECTLY recreate the experience they were in to begin with, yes. Just as they weren't able to perfectly recreate those last 27 (28--see, already an imperfection) seconds of game time. It's a matter of getting it as close as they can (just as they did), so that argument holds no weight either.

Whatever happened during the lag time should not count. That's 2 minutes of legitimate quake duel they lost out on, so they didn't even get an entire map (entire 10 minutes of true play) to have a chance to win. It does not reflect who is the best player, or who deserves to move on. Strenx got completely screwed over in this scenario.

If those spikes caused you to get screwed over in just one fight

What if they did not?
Also, exactly how many lagged fights you've ever seen (or know about) replayed, in all history of e-sports?

lag is esports' version of 'force majeure'. It's not at all comparable to your tickling example.

its fairly comparable.

They assumed the lag happend to both players so they were equally getting screwed over by it, which is about as flawed logic as the logic that would assume if both players get tickled during those last two minutes, both players will be equally screwed over.

you are right that the two are somewhat comparable concerning the effect on the players .Hwoever, and this is the important part, if an admin tickled them he would disturb them deliberately and would obviously know when it happens.
That is the exact opposite of what happened here, noone made it happen deliberately and noone could predict if or when it would occur.

So, I think a better comparison is one I made earlier: Rain in an outdoor game that is so heavy that it leads to irregular conditions.
- Noone can say for sure if or when it will happen
- It effects both sides equally, but some people deal better with rain than others, so they effectively have an adavantage
- referees often wait for a bit because they call the conditions irregular and 'pause' the event to possibly resume it later
- One side may get a countable advantage of the conditions

My bottom line is:
A professional gamer should be able to handle some lag, in the same way a professional athlete should be able to handle weather changes. And if one is much better at that than his opponent and gets an advantage before a break due to "irregular conditions" then he deserves it more, than the other player deserves the chance of a complete rematch.

jeez, who cares about the admins ? Let's say it was 2 funny unknown mofos from the crowd.


The important part is the effects which, as you have admitted, were comparable.

no, the effects are not the only important thing, also the likelihood of something happening must be considered.

Lag in a game, as you know full well, can happen from time to time, it is just impossible to predict when.
Therefore someone who wants to win money should be able to deal with lag at least to some degree. (comparable to weather in other sports). Like you would also expect the players to handle shitty monitors.

Tickling on the other hand is very unlikely to happen and therefore a player should not be expected to know how to deal with it.

right.

youre right im wrong, etc.

cya

His tickling example is not meant to be compared to the overall lag situation. He is mentioning it to show how the "it was happening to both players" argument is fundamentally flawed. Just because something is happening to both players doesn't make it an acceptable situation.
You, however, use your rain example as a direct comparison to the overall lag situation, and it can be criticized for its inaccuracy on those terms :)

His tickling example is not meant to be compared to the overall lag situation. He is mentioning it to show how the "it was happening to both players" argument is fundamentally flawed.

To be more exact, it is your opinion that that is what he meant.

Just because something is happening to both players doesn't make it an acceptable situation.

Yes, I agree with that statement.
However, what dem0n and apparantly you both are missing is, the very thing I wrote two times:
Lag is a known and common situation in esports. Tickling is not.

And that is what makes his direct comparison wrong.

Also, I never said that it is an "acceptable situation", as lag is something that should be avoided. It is a situation that can be anticipated to occur from time to time.

You, however, use your rain example as a direct comparison to the overall lag situation, and it can be criticized for its inaccuracy on those terms :)

I believe your point is that some rain is acceptable in most if not all sport. Correct?
In that case, if you read my previous statements again, you will find this: "Rain in an outdoor game that is so heavy that it leads to irregular conditions."

And it happens often enough that the irregular conditions are called with some delay where the referees "wait".

To be more exact, it is your opinion that that is what he meant.

That is my interpretation of what he meant, yes, and it's based both on the fact that he began his post by quoting the sentence "he managed the lag better" and on the fact that in his reply to you he said "they assumed the lag happend to both players so they were equally getting screwed over by it, which is about as flawed logic as the logic that would assume if both players get tickled during those last two minutes". So I'm pretty sure my interpretation his correct :p We'd have to ask him though, to be sure ^^ The second part of your post is you trying to dispute his comparison by arguing that it is not an accurate overall comparison, when it's not supposed to be in the first place.

Its bs - strenx was dicking on him untill he got spikes, threw his game off totally..

also why did the admin only pause after cooller took the lead? - either pause right away or dont pause at all.

AFAIK, admin wasn't on the server and didn't realize that the match needs to be paused. During the match, Ukrainian commentator went out of his booth to tell the admins, and before that they probably weren't even aware of the situation.

I'd rather blame the organization for not having an UPS in the first place tbh :/

Yea, they should definitely have UPS for each PC, a few hundred of UPS-es is not a big deal...

Weak up man.

Not for each PC, but one/several industrial UPS for the whole venue, like in data centers.

Probably has to do with the ESL coming from Germany. UPS are quite rare over here.

Conincidentally, I just saw a statistic yesterday: Last year, the average German had to endure a power failure for 14 minutes.

Sounds strange, I mean not having an UPS can cause PC hardware to suffer so badly it's definitely a good investment.

Here in France I see a lot of UPS even in tiny companies and the likes.
That's probably because we have a shitload of power failures each year and are always buying energy abroad though lol

Noone in my branch office (~50 pcs and notebook) has a ups, even though I'm sure our server does.
And I have never needed one either. Except maybe one time, at home, 5 years ago.

On the other hand, every pc in our Romanian branch has a ups.
So yeah, it really depends on the quality of the power grid whether it is a good investment or not.

what's a ups :?

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterbrechungsfreie_Stromversorgung

just got electricity back after 2-3hours, karma. :(/

If you want a solution for that problem and have a bit of change lying around, I have good contacts ;)

i'd totally buy that to make my quake game doesn't end mid-way

you're in luck, cat is an American company, so there a good chance you get a genset cheaper :]

it's even funnier because i work for it

good to know.


I hope the ESL will be contacting you soon :)

I've been living in two different cities in Poland and there is no more power outages than once per 2 years. I've never even thought about buying UPS.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say with your statement, backing me up or not?

I confirm what you are saying. It's similar here in Poland, UPS-es are useless if you don't have a server farm.

kk :)

wish the u.s. had solid power like that =\

Yeah that what's I meant of course. And an UPS that can protect at least the servers is a minimum imo.

christ at the idiots raging strenx should of won, so clueless :>

clearly the admins failed BIGTIME but cooller won fair and square!

Nice Carmac interview. Now its clear. Btw..this even its close to perfect (nice matchs, good spirit). Thx ESL and congrats cooller, nice game in final.

Hey strenx fanboys why dont you try to organize a proper event by yourself? One that would run flawesly. Im sure you would do a great one! Everything would run just perfectly, because you know, to people so smart as strenx fanboys its so easy to avoid lag, pauses and whatsnot. Its just that Carmac and the rest of the ESL staff are amateur compared to you, right? Youre perfect right? hahaha bunch of bad losers i mean what can be worst than being a loser. I know i know! Being:

BAD LOSERS
BAD LOSERS
BAD LOSERS
BAD LOSERS
BAD LOSERS

shut the fuck up cunt

BAD LOSER

.

OK

I MADE A NEW YEARS EVE RESOLUTION: NOT PLAYIN ESL LADDERS ANYMORE UNLESS THEY GET AGP SANCTIONED.

Lol @ the pic looks like hes on crack or something

Speculating about corruption? Yeah, it was all totally organized. They planned out to go to 5 games and then set up a disconnect during the 5th game. Then Carmac twirled his mustache and cackled maniacally as he turned off the power and burned a French flag. (I know he doesn't have a mustache.)

You people are fucking retarded.

Admins derped, shit happened, strenx is still going to IEM Global and won 1,150 EUR (that he may or may not see; either way I don't give a fuck about ESL's payout history).

I just read the whole thread and couldn't find the part where someone accused anyone of corruption.

Must have taken a while. I saw the word bias come up several times. Bias = mild corruption.

In terms of it being ESL's fault in regards to admins and the rules: shit happens?

I can read quickly, it was just that your post was the last and I couldn't remember reading that :>

My opinion on the matter is the should have replayed the 2 minutes of spikes and lags, IF the players were not permitted to call a timeout. If they were it's their own fault, but I can't imagine that, neither strenx nor cooller are stupid.

Bias != corruption.

Strenx won cooller on quake live
cooller won strenx on quake lag

They should have undone the spikes. This is the only fair way.

Not really, in that case they'd take away almost a definite victory from cooller, that would've screwed him a big time. I remember one game that had to be replayed coz of lags after it was fully played, killsen vs noctis if I'm not mistaken. First time killsen won, but after replaying he lost, who knows if it wasn't coz of mentally being cheated out of victory.

But I also agree that replaying last seconds wasn't fair, strenx got definitely screwed, although props to him for managing to put that behind him and make that crucial frag. They should've replayed the whole match so that neither of the players felt that they were cheated out of something. Sure they'd still feel that way if they had to start from the very beginning, especially cooller in that case, but it would be better than messing up one player's state of mind much more than another one's, imho.

Anyway, hard decision, I'm glad that I'm not the admin and hope that the guy responsible will be fired. :D He proved that he isn't fit for being an admin, where the heck he was when the match was being played, why wasn't he doing his job!

it would be better than messing up one player's state of mind much more than another one's

How exactly continuing the match from the point where it stopped, messed up player's minds in different amounts?

If the game is restarted from where lags began strenx gets an advantage of 3 (?) frags and cooller is cheated out of getting into the lead, and if it is restarted from last 30 secs then strenx is left feeling bad and thinking that he could avoid being in that bad situation in the first place if not for lags. I like both players, so I'd prefer the situation to be completely erased so that neither has bad feelings. Although as I said it could prolly feel worse for cooller, he was winning that match, so he could be given +1, but I'm not sure about that.

i didn't really expect 2 rage-page reply to my 5 words wit, but ok.

Actually, Slasher was talking about 2 admins leaving the ESL on the LLL stream. Not sure if they were fired or is that a totally unrelated case.

I kinda doubt it, cause he apparantly works for Turtle Entertainment.

As for firing an employee for one mistake (dunno if there have been other mistakes in the past, which might make it a reasonable call)
Is there anyone who worked at a job for more than a year that hasn't made a dumb mistake?

shut up you idiots. this was the best solution and it turned out great

How do people don't get that the lags and the power-failure induced crash are two separate events?

Honestly, just imagine for a second that the game wouldn't have crashed after the timeout. No one would have suggested to restart the match or, even more ridiculous, restart at a point where the player that has lost the lead is still ahead. You would have waited out the lag and then continued, everything else would have been laughed at, and rightfully so.

and some of those that who do get it, act as if lag has never influenced the outcome of a game before :(

"How do people don't get that the lags and the power-failure induced crash are two separate events?

Honestly, just imagine for a second that the game wouldn't have crashed after the timeout. No one would have suggested to restart the match or, even more ridiculous, restart at a point where the player that has lost the lead is still ahead. You would have waited out the lag and then continued, everything else would have been laughed at, and rightfully so."



What the hell are you talking about? We don't give a dam about the power outage, we are indeed talking about the lag that fucked the game up for both players. They didn't even know they could pause the game, and reading carmac's first initial response, neither did he

So either you restart from the point of the severe lag that was not stopped by admin, or you just restart the whole match which would have been a tough break for strenx..

But one thing is for certain, they will now know that they can pause the game at anytime, even when one player is on a roll and you want to stop their momentum. Which if you ask me, that should be a reason why a player cannot pause a game!

Let me out of this btch!

How do people don't get that the lags and the power-failure induced crash are two separate events?

Actually they weren't. The eventual power outage was from the same source which had been causing the lag before. It was a LAN server so it wasn't actual lag like over the internet. It was lag from power spiking/surging.

The only thing which could have been done differently would be to have paused immediately or not have paused the game at all. In the former case the power outage would still have occured.

event 1: lag, strenx complained about it first, also led to him getting fragged at the upper ya side door by cooller when strenx was still up by multiple frags, he had the option of calling a timeout, he never called it. Cooller acknowledged of lag shortly after, when strenx was still up, he still did not call timeout, 90s is enough time to call admin and pause match.

They kept on playing since lag was unpredictable and was not there all the time anyway. Cooller gets some crazy shit done by surviving with 2 hp.

event 2: admin comes late and pauses the game for no fucking reason with 27 sec remaining. crash happens.

replaying with recreating the last situation was by far the most sensible decision..giving both players a fair chance.

missed everything and don't know what this is about, but where the fuck is weltschmerz in this?