EPTSo, back in January nobody knew who the hell I was, I was just your average eSports fan, been following games since 1.6 waaay back in the day (for about 7 years now), Moved onto Source, then W3 (and WoW during its downtime at MLGs) and I had always wanted to get more involved but had no clue how. I always knew North America had the Collegiate Starleague, even from before I was following SC2, and always wondered why the UK and/or Europe never had anything similar.
So one day, drunk at 4am, I was talking to a close friend of mine, who is Canadian. He was ranting on about some CSL games or something, I turned to him and said, you know what? I’m making a CSL-style league for the UK. So I did. This was the beginning of April. I still knew nothing about how eSports worked behind the scenes, I had no experience with tournament hosting or admining (minus the odd 5 person LANs in my dining room, though winner stays on isn’t really a good way to run a cup)
Signups for the UKUTL started slow, though I wasn’t really expecting a floor of signups from every college and university across the country, enough to fill a bracket would be nice. I didn’t even know of a website or anything where I could host this season. A guy called ‘bakor’ offered to help me, by offering hosting for the site as well as helping me admin the cups. I was so grateful that somebody wanted to help me, an eSports nobody, get started. So I had a website where I could post match-ups, a forum where players could post stuff, and all that jazz, things were looking up! Then, the happiest moment of my eSports career happened.
One day, I woke up and saw a PM on teamliquid, from none other that TotalBuscuit who asked to contribute to our prize pool… As soon as I saw that message, my face just light up with a big banana grin. I was overwhelmed by the fact one, TotalBiscuit even acknowledged my little tournament, but the fact he wanted to sponsor the event... I was speechless. This helped our signups grow, and made me feel like we were a more ‘pro’ league, rather than one ran out of a basement in the middle of nowhere. We ended up having to close signups at 32 teams.
Another thing I was doing while all this was going on was emailing Hazlynut over at CSL, asking if they could help us promote our league, as they were what I was trying to model myself after when making the UKUTL (minus the 2v2 huehueh.) What they came back to me with was so much better than I could have expected. They offered us use of their TOP SEKRIT CSL system. Holy balls. When I was told this, shock omg. CSL, in my eyes at least, always seemed like some super professionally run league, and they’re letting a scrub like me use their system?
We added each other on Skype and would just throw out the odd ‘hey hows your league’ etc etc every so often, until late may when we started working towards something called the BATP. We organized a showmatch between the top players in my league, and some of the top in the CSL. This is something I’d never thought I’d be doing. Running showmatches involving high level NA and EU players? Never. And when I saw Exo was on the NA lineup, I almost exploded with joy. He (at the time) played for my favourite team. Ever. 4Kings. Now, I mean no disrespect to the other players involved, but, to me at least. 4kings were the best of the best.
Now, this showmatch went off, pretty much pain free (I was broken hearted, by the result, 6-2 in favour of US v_v) we gave out some prizes to fans rooting for their home countries, all was good.
Now, during the summer, I was living with a friend, and was just watching a lot of starcraft, Then one day Hazleynut asked me if it was cool for me to have a meeting with her and Xeris, um of course rofl. They asked me if I would be willing to rebrand the UKUTL, and be head of CSL:Europe. 4srs, at this moment my head exploded. I was working as part of the CSL? For eSports? Omgggg. Srsly best moment of 2011.
Now, there’s a big gap in my summer schedule (i.e. Aug-Sept), where I just ran JeeSports cups (so much drama omg) and a cup for infused.Tt, so let’s start this story again in October.
October, I was asked to go to London to admin an offline event, sick I couldn’t wait. I was going to admin EGL4, now, those of you who know egl4, know the drama, those who don’t can look it up, but it was a stressful weekend, and I ended up spending 3x my train ticket to leave a day early, mainly because I had class the next day, but it was so stressful, because of the issues that I wont go into.
Ok, so EGL was a flop, there’s no beating around the bush, but nobody was to blame, so what do I do next? Well, I was invited to go to Telford and work at i44. Now, if you don’t know what i44 is, and you’re from the UK, shame on you. It is the biggest LAN event in the country, and what’s more, it had the IPL4 regional qualifiers? Holy balls. 16 top named players are coming from all over Europe to compete? Siiiick. And 2 koreans? Wow. And loads of people I’ve met from doing CSL are going? Awesomeee. It’s the same weekend as MLG, AGAIN?! Dammit. I44 was awesome, the getting fined £76 and almost arrested on the way home wasn’t, but whatever. eSports!
So, what’s next in 2012? CSL:EU has some hot stuff planned, I’ll hopefully be working more offline events, and, when I’m done with class in June.. I might even goto an MLG :O I'm so grateful to everybody who helped me get to where I am now, you all deserve a pint or something idk
tl;dr I had an amazing eSports year, and it's thanks to all the people listed below <3
People who deserve a thanks: MattEight, Bakor, TotalBuscuit, Xeris, Hazleynut, Yenta, Vequeth, LeonStarcraft, Adrenal and unitlost.com
People who are just awesome:
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DignitasRusski (ROSS KEEEEEMP)
DignitasDreAm (fucking retard)
DignitasBling (top uk4lyfe)
Creamsicle (Seagul)
Stolensheep (Almost passed out 1v1ing me)
Leonstarcraft (Geordie, nuff said)
Pughy (leek capped)
Infused.Tt Gomas (So many ravens omg)
Infused.Tt rANDY (in base double proxy hatch ez)
Infused.Tt Lau (innit)
Infused.Tt Nemesis (i <3 binarybeast IRL)
Serion(organizes the best showamtches)
DewbZiGA(cheats in showmatches)
Deranging (das german)
Slyce (tries to bribe admins)
CLN (needs a fan club)
Skyda (pimp in the crib)
SallyDesu (crybaby tbh)
Whirlgig (wins uk channel)
Guffy.
You!!
cry@me if u think i left u off <3
EDIT: This isn't a brag post (or not intended to be one), its what people can achieve in <1year if they put their minds to it, come up with a decent idea and persevere. Everybody in eSports I've met is super helpful and will help you wherever they can!
sad im so far away now.
