EPTTo be honest, prior to this, I thought that E-sports as a whole would have it very, very difficult in Spain, mostly because of the Language barrier.Even though I knew there were some minor regional leagues I never thought I would be able to see the Spanish Flag in the BIG event calendar. So when Dreamhack announced that the Valencia would be held in Spain, I was pretty excited! I immediately called a couple of friend that I though that maybe could be interested, and bough 3 tickets right away as they were quite cheap
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We thought about getting a hotel in Valencia but as were were not very high on money after the summer we decided it would be better If we just drove to Valencia from Madrid in the morning, and go back to Madrid after the Invitational, there ir is a 400km drive that is done in 2:30 hours approx.
Dreamahck Valencia was not only home to the Starcraft 2 Invitational, it was also the place for the qualifiers for Dreamhack Winter for Spain and Portugal, so the third floor in this really cool building was entirely dedicated to this. On one side you had the Street Fighter, CS Source and Sc2 computers for the DH W qualifiers, this was free to entry for anyone to watch. The other half of the building was for the Invitational, and a ticket was required to go in there.
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We arrived at Valencia at 13:40, and started looking around the building for a way to get to the event. A bit more publicity around the event would have been nice I guess as there wasnt anything. After going up the ramp where the zergling runs in the video we got to some lift with a sign that said dreamhack valencia in the 3rd floor. I then saw 3 swedes, one of them wearing a TL t-shirt (you know who you are!) and asked me if I knew where dreamhack was, well, "dreamhack" (guess he was used to bigger things!) but the lifts didn't work, so In the end we went back to the first floor, and used the lifts there, and we finally arrived at the event.
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First thing you could see was the Street fighter 4 qualifiers, people were playing there all day, and halfway through the event there was a spanish commentator for Street fighter. Some games where quite exciting and you could see some people who had only went to watch the Street Fighter 4 tournament.
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Next to the Street fighter people was the line to get to the invitational, quite long as venue for the invitational had just opened. After about 15 minutes of waiting, when we where going to give our tickets so we could get our purple bracelets that would grant us access to the invitational whenever we wanted, I suddenly noticed and almost closed-door. I take a peek to see if there is something interesting, and I see this....
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I was so excited!! My first time to ever see a real progamer, just in front of me, like any other human beeing....then a member of the staff comes from the other way to go into the room, and I asked him If I could please take a pic of the room, he thought about it but in the end he said it was ok!
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I was so pumped! watching them all casually warm up playing some games and talking there sure made it feel real, and then, i went into the venue....
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and man, as some would say, SHIT JUST GOT REAL. Seeing everything there, the booths, the crowd, the huge projector, d'apollo and TB.... I then walked a bit further towards the booths, and saw the players getting ready:
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I remember reading about how dreamhack winter was really about the stream watchers, and not so much about the live viewers, but here I think it was quite the opposite, and the really cool thing was, just how small was the event. The casters where a feet away from the players, and the host would also use the same stage, and you could constantly see the pros going to the games and back from them to their practise room constantly, but I will get back to that later!
Anyway, we sit down and wait about 20 mins for the event to start, and then the two hosts come out. And Man, I can tell you one thing, 2GD is sure as hell a funny guy. As soon as he came up, he started cranking up jokes, hitting on Haley, and just offending / trolling everyone that he could. He would constantly mix up jokes about women or booze with community references like Nazgul or Alex Garfield which truly make him a unique experience within E-sports I think, because while everyone is focusing in making this as professional as possible, he just wants to troll the hell out of everyone!
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As for Haley she was really cute., A bit shorter than I thought she would be, but a really nice girl. I don't really think she knew much about the game, but in the interviews she always made the questions correctly and never seemed out of place....except for the part when you had a huge spanish crowd whistling and shouting Waaaaapa!!! (beautiful) at her, I don't think they get as much as that in Sweden :DD
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Then the commercials started, and after that, finally....
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Then, after a bit more chit-chat, they started introducing the players (huk and thorzain had been in the booth preparing their pcs I guess, and they had gone back to the practise room). And in came all the players. Before this event, I wasnt sure if spanish fans would really embrace foreign players, if they would scream when they saw them, and really get that can be called nerdchills. Boy. was I wrong.... the pics are not that good but you didn't know exactly when they were coming in, and they moved really fast...
In comes Huk, and the crowd goes wild, are we watching a boxing match? no man, this is e spoRTS!!! All the people in the crowd were cheering for him and trying to High five him and it looked really awesome!!!
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After that Thorzain came in, I don't really know why, but all through out the event you could see there was a general love for Thorzain, I guess that increased a lot when we all saw he was going to be the foreigner hope...
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Then Her0 came in, everyone was really excited as he was the first Korean to be introduced. Her0 seemed to be having a really good time. He got on the stage, and Huk greeted him in a really friendly way, you could tell these guys had lived together for a few monts..
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Afterwards, it was time for IdrA, and he came out after a loud RELEASE THE GRACKEN from 2GD which was pretty cool. The crowd went craze for him, and he shooked Huk's hand as his team mate.
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Then Rain came in, and well, his recievement was the most cold by far, no one tried to high-five him or anything and I felt a bit bad for him, I could guess that he was just considered as the other korean....
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Then they called out for Naniwa and the crowd went absolutely went wild for him, it was a shame he went out in the first round as he was clearly one of the fan favourites...
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DRG came out we all cheered for him, I think we all secretly knew he was going to win the event...And all the international players were lined up
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And only 1 player was missing...
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Honestly I wasnt that pumped for lucifron initially, but well I guess the national pride kicked in, and when Lucifron entered the room everyone went just fucking crazy and started chanting luci over and over, much higher than anyone else.
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Then, all the players went away through the back, and the tournament started, finally...
The games started finally and everyone was super excited. In a country with a big language barrier, I didn't know if people would really be excited about the games. And most of the people did understand everything that went on, cheering when it was time to cheer, beeing afraid....Of course it was a young and "noob" crowd. I remember one game when 6 marines managed to kill about 4 mutas of a big pack and I started clapping like a mad man yet I was on my own, then seconds later a few marines and a tank destroy the rocks at the third without any enemy units nearby and everyone starts cheering....
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The crowd went nuts when the games started...Im not gonna really comment on the games as I am sure everyone around here saw them...
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All in all I think Dreamhack Valencia was a unique experience, as the venue was extremely small....Between games players would always walk between the crowd, and you could very easily go up to them for a pic or a quick word, I however didn't take many pics of the players as I didn't want to bother them.
A really lol moment was after Idra games I got outside to have a cigar, and suddenly I look to the side, and I see DRG, Lucifron, Rain and Naniwa siting at a table for their fan meeting, but they were absolutely alone (it had just started) and it seemed very weird!
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I went up to them and got them to sign a cheerful for me. Naniwa was an extremely shy guy, I asked him are you having a good time? He looked at me and said well.......it will be better once the games start! And then I saw it veeeery clearly, Naniwa doesn't really care about the fans, the event, or anything at all, he just wants to compete with the best and proove himself, a true competitor if you ask me...I then went to DRG, and asked him if I could take a picture with him, he was kind of surprised at first, but then said ok! got up and we took a really good picture. I didn't bother anyone else for a pic with me, but for a uknown reason to me I always knew I wanted a pic at least with DRG (again, we all secretly knew he was going to win!) I don't really feel that proud about what I did afterwards....DRG was standing right next to lucifron, and i told to DRG "dont crush him to hard ok??" he grinned at me and said okok! Lucifron totally heard this and I felt quite bad about it, but it just came out that way...
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That wasnt the last time I spoke with him though...right before the finals, when I was going to get my seat, DRG walked past me towards the stage, I grabbed his shoulder, and told him, YOU ARE GONNA WIN MAN, I KNOW IT!!! he looked back at me and said, yes! I might have been the last person to speak with before getting in the booth for the finals and I thought that was pretty cool....
A lot of really cool stories just came from watching the players around the venue....For example i remember going to get a hot dog and you could see Naniwa and Huk going to get some food for themselves....Huk was leaning all the time on Naniwa and you could see they were quite friendly, I was really shocked when I saw Huk paying the Hot dogs with his own money, but oh well maybe the gave them pocket-money or something, but this felt wrong... a lot of people where asking them for pics while Naniwa had freaking frys in his mouth, I did take ONE pic of them while they were getting the food, not to be a freak or anything, but to give an impression of how casual was everything at the venue...
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Another cool moment was seeing Huk and Idra talking with a disabled kid in a wheel chair and that was a really good moment by them, EG fighting! some retards actually went in and started talking with IdrA when they were still talking to the disabled kid....low move guys, I couldn't believe what you were doing...
I couldn't take pics but I saw some around the forums, there were actually this two 6-year-old girls in the door of the practice room for the longest time waiting to get their cheerfuls signed, I don't know if they really knew what was going on, but man, was that adorable...
On my way out, I also got to talk a bit with TB, told him I'm an old school fan of blue plz! ( his wow podcast ) and that I was really looking forward to his next podcast. He really appreciated and was really well-mannered and was open to talk with anyone really.
You could always get a good story walking by the practise room... One cool moment was Huk gently massaging Hero after his games, not homo at all lol! you could clearly see they knew each other very well..
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2GD talked about the after party and this was probably my biggest regret, as I had to go back to Madrid that very night I couldn't go, but I think that would have been really fun, I will totally go next year.
All in all the event was amazing, my "faith" on E-sports is ten times bigger now, because man, it is one thing to see it on tv / internet, but it is VERY different to see 300 people shouting as loud as they can when an expo is about to be killed or w/e..
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2GD already announced that Dreamhack Spain will be back for 2012, even before the finals were played and man, how can it get better than that? The first big spanish bet on e-sports has been extremely succesful, and I have absolutely no doubt that I will be there the next year...
And one other thing, as they said, there is ALWAYS something going wrong in a live event, and well... what exactly went wrong here? The games were almost on schedule ( people had to rest i guess, weakling!!) I didn't see any lag at all on any game, streams worked fine I guess, and everything just seemed to work. They did start playing music from the commercials once or twice during a game though, that was like their major fuck up (lol).
E-sports is growing, and I think Dreamhack Valencia was a huge proove of it, and event with no starcraft history, no tournaments this big, and it was a huge success. Never think your country / city is not suitable for mainstream e-sports, I used to think that, and boy was I wrong.
I couldn't take as many pics as I wanted as the reflex camera I took ran out of battery so I had to use my phone, but next year I plan to do an insane coverage.
Thx for going through this wall of text, and feel free to ask any questions!
Some more random pics:
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See ya!!!
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P.D: Here is the post I wrote later, as I think it adds some cool info into this
+ Show Spoiler +
Wow I´m glad you people are liking it
We knew the party wouldnt be that cool, but as you say TB, just watching the koreans have a drink would have been awesome :D the drive back was already tiresome enough though...
I have re-read it and there are sooo many mistakes! I´m sorry for that, but I really tried to get this really fast up so it was still relevant, I will strat fixing them when I have time.
Some cool stories I forgot....
Seeing Hero sleeping on his keyboad after loosing his game in the practise room...I didnt take a pic out of respect, but I think i will always remember that image...
A really funny moment, I was watching the spanish stream on Tv yesterday and there was an interview with IdrA, and he was like yeah I dont like this match-up or that player and well, beeing IdrA, and I swear, the subs only said, "I have trained really hard and I only hope to show good games" It almost felt as they were trolling the most hardcore audience...
2GD was really funny trying to get DRG to do english interviews, but I guess you saw that on the stream..
I will write another blog on this, but I also saw a video of a extremely cool thing, a professional video game league in Spain, (www.lvp.es) that actually has an iccup ladder system, 6 month season, with ladder, cups, tournaments with 1.5 K euros prize pools in which have a buy in of 10 euros, and it looks amazing...
moose162 you should see the spanish stream, I see myself constantly lol! for next year a TL meetup could be cool...I really recommend to anyone in Europe to come next year, you can come to Valencia for cheap, I dont think there is an event quite as this one anywhere....
On another note, there was a personal story for me that was amazing....During the second game of Huk vs Thorzain, after Huk held the rush, I suddenly recieve a call from my cousin who is back home, and knows nothing about Sc2, saying, MAN HUK IS FUCKED, and he later called me when the game ended because he couldnt believe thorzain lost that game, "he kept moving the base at the expansion!!!!" has been all he says to me since then... and he now wants to come to Valencia next year....I think that sums up pretty well that Canal + did an amazing job....
Esports fighting!
We knew the party wouldnt be that cool, but as you say TB, just watching the koreans have a drink would have been awesome :D the drive back was already tiresome enough though...
I have re-read it and there are sooo many mistakes! I´m sorry for that, but I really tried to get this really fast up so it was still relevant, I will strat fixing them when I have time.
Some cool stories I forgot....
Seeing Hero sleeping on his keyboad after loosing his game in the practise room...I didnt take a pic out of respect, but I think i will always remember that image...
A really funny moment, I was watching the spanish stream on Tv yesterday and there was an interview with IdrA, and he was like yeah I dont like this match-up or that player and well, beeing IdrA, and I swear, the subs only said, "I have trained really hard and I only hope to show good games" It almost felt as they were trolling the most hardcore audience...
2GD was really funny trying to get DRG to do english interviews, but I guess you saw that on the stream..
I will write another blog on this, but I also saw a video of a extremely cool thing, a professional video game league in Spain, (www.lvp.es) that actually has an iccup ladder system, 6 month season, with ladder, cups, tournaments with 1.5 K euros prize pools in which have a buy in of 10 euros, and it looks amazing...
moose162 you should see the spanish stream, I see myself constantly lol! for next year a TL meetup could be cool...I really recommend to anyone in Europe to come next year, you can come to Valencia for cheap, I dont think there is an event quite as this one anywhere....
On another note, there was a personal story for me that was amazing....During the second game of Huk vs Thorzain, after Huk held the rush, I suddenly recieve a call from my cousin who is back home, and knows nothing about Sc2, saying, MAN HUK IS FUCKED, and he later called me when the game ended because he couldnt believe thorzain lost that game, "he kept moving the base at the expansion!!!!" has been all he says to me since then... and he now wants to come to Valencia next year....I think that sums up pretty well that Canal + did an amazing job....
Esports fighting!
...
5/5 hehe
