• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 06:51
CEST 12:51
KST 19:51
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
BGE Stara Zagora 2025: Info & Preview27Code S RO12 Preview: GuMiho, Bunny, SHIN, ByuN3The Memories We Share - Facing the Final(?) GSL47Code S RO12 Preview: Cure, Zoun, Solar, Creator4[ASL19] Finals Preview: Daunting Task30
Community News
Weekly Cups (June 2-8): herO doubles down1[BSL20] ProLeague: Bracket Stage & Dates9GSL Ro4 and Finals moved to Sunday June 15th13Weekly Cups (May 27-June 1): ByuN goes back-to-back0EWC 2025 Regional Qualifier Results26
StarCraft 2
General
The SCII GOAT: A statistical Evaluation StarCraft 1 & 2 Added to Xbox Game Pass Jim claims he and Firefly were involved in match-fixing CN community: Firefly accused of suspicious activities How does the number of casters affect your enjoyment of esports?
Tourneys
Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond) Bellum Gens Elite: Stara Zagora 2025 $3,500 WardiTV European League 2025 Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament SOOPer7s Showmatches 2025
Strategy
[G] Darkgrid Layout Simple Questions Simple Answers [G] PvT Cheese: 13 Gate Proxy Robo
Custom Maps
[UMS] Zillion Zerglings
External Content
Mutation # 477 Slow and Steady Mutation # 476 Charnel House Mutation # 475 Hard Target Mutation # 474 Futile Resistance
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion FlaSh Witnesses SCV Pull Off the Impossible vs Shu StarCraft & BroodWar Campaign Speedrun Quest BGH auto balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Will foreigners ever be able to challenge Koreans?
Tourneys
[ASL19] Grand Finals NA Team League 6/8/2025 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL20] ProLeague Bracket Stage - Day 2
Strategy
I am doing this better than progamers do. [G] How to get started on ladder as a new Z player
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread What do you want from future RTS games? Armies of Exigo - YesYes? Nintendo Switch Thread Path of Exile
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
LiquidLegends to reintegrate into TL.net
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Vape Nation Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
Maru Fan Club Serral Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Korean Music Discussion [Manga] One Piece
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion NHL Playoffs 2024
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
A Better Routine For Progame…
TrAiDoS
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Heero Yuy & the Tax…
KrillinFromwales
I was completely wrong ab…
jameswatts
Need Your Help/Advice
Glider
Trip to the Zoo
micronesia
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 34128 users

Pandemics, Esports, and Tech Issues

Blogs > ploguidice
Post a Reply
ploguidice
Profile Blog Joined June 2013
United States230 Posts
June 14 2020 20:24 GMT
#1
This is a repost of a blog I wrote on Medium
the formatting is prettier there if you'd prefer to read the original. For those that don't know who I am, my name's Joe LoGuidice, I organize and run Cheeseadelphia. I also have nearly a decade of experience in user facing IT support across: Security, Networking, Desktop and Application support. I drew heavily on these experiences in writing this article.


This is an open letter to every major tournament organizer in the world of StarCraft esports. The world today is wildly different from the world we lived in January 1st 2020, to thrive in the reality of COVID19 your approach must change. In this letter I will argue that to preserve the prestige and legitimacy of tier one esports leagues organizers must adopt a completely different approach to technology.

At a typical LAN event the tournament organizer owns between 50–90% of the tech environment. At minimum an organizer typically owns:the workstations, the network equipment beyond the venue’s wiring, the majority of production gear,backed up by carrier grade internet service coupled with an enterprise service agreement from the ISP. At studio events an organizer can own the whole environment: all networking equipment past the demarc, all workstations, the servers the games are played on, all production equipment, backed up by carrier grade internet with a long term enterprise service agreement from ISPs (ISPs REALLY like selling long term enterprise agreements and will bend over backwards for clients with that level of service).

COVID19 has completely upended the model I described above. Tournament organizers have pivoted to online events delivering solid production values and exciting events, but a threat to these events looms overhead, technical problems.

On June 13th during the championship bracket of Stay At Home Story Cup Zest began experiencing massive unplayable lag in his series versus INnoVation. The organizers wisely chose to play an alternate series (Clem vs Stats) with the hope the issue would self resolve during the time it took to play. Alas Zest’s issues continued, and the organizers were forced to advance INnoVation with a score of 1–0 (it’s worth noting the official score does not accurately reflect the situation, Zest’s sole loss was clearly due to technical issues). INnoVation went on to achieve top four after receiving a walk over in the round of six.
In my view it’s self evident that events described above are a poor outcome. There is an alternative, and it requires some hiring and some changes. First tournament administrators must be able to provide expert remote support for both desktop and networking issues, or organizers must have a team of tech support experts on standby that can assist tournament participants. Having players wait on hold for forty minutes to be told to turn their router off and turn it back on again is a nightmare situation. Players should be able to instantly reach someone that can remotely log into their computer, perform desktop troubleshooting, analyze network issues, and either resolve the issue or provide a workaround. Adopting this model will allow tournament organizers to regain some control of everything beyond the demarc. Even in a situation where the issue isn’t resolvable a competent tech could provide a variety of workarounds, let us examine Zest’s issues from SAHSC, and look at a list of potential root causes and solutions

Zest’s PC has a non-resolvable hardware or software issue


If the failing component can be diagnosed a tech could provide guidance on a replacement part (reimbursed by the organizer)

If the failing component or software was not resolvable in a reasonable amount of time a tech could provide guidance on renting or purchasing a computer through local retail channels like Rent-A-Center, BestBuy, or even used product sites like Craiglist\OfferUp\LetGo (again reimbursed)

Zest is experiencing a networking issue past the point of demarcation


If a tech determines it’s a routing issue tournament organizers can provide or reimburse for a VPN service that bypasses the bad server

If a tech determines the issue is a poor internet signal they can walk the player through 4GLTE tethering (4GLTE can deliver sub 70ms internet and games use extremely small amounts of data)

If a tech determines the internet signal is poor and the player lacks access to 4GLTE they may be able to assist the player in securing an alternate internet signal. DSL is typically delivered alongside plain old telephone lines, and provides plenty of bandwidth alongside low latency (again reimbursed by the event organizer).

These are all outlier situations, but some of them are bound to happen happen, and a technical walkover in the grand finals could tank the reputation of an otherwise prestigious event. No player wants to have an asterisk next to their championship title. No organizer wants to be responsible for an event like the 2012 GSTL where the results may hinged on a power outage, especially if the situation was preventable.

So I implore organizers with the resources: contract technical folks, make them available to players, and use their expertise to build contingency plans. Own the environment. The question is not if things will go wrong, but rather when things go wrong what will you do?

*****
I'm Joe
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland24814 Posts
June 15 2020 00:22 GMT
#2
Seems eminently sensible to me, hope this kind of best practice can be adopted as the industry matures yet further.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Harris1st
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Germany6860 Posts
June 15 2020 12:42 GMT
#3
This may be a stupid question but how does one get a replacement component/ replacement pc on a saturday in 1-2 hours?

I mean, yes sure in theory I could go to my local tech store, buy a new GPU, install it (hardware/ software) play my tournament, uninstall/ remove the new GPU and bring it back to the tech story. But is that really a feasible solution? And a GPU would be one of the easiest parts to replace

Your networking issue solutions seem practical on the other hand
Go Serral! GG EZ for Ence. Flashbang dance FTW
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
June 16 2020 00:35 GMT
#4
On June 15 2020 21:42 Harris1st wrote:
This may be a stupid question but how does one get a replacement component/ replacement pc on a saturday in 1-2 hours?

I mean, yes sure in theory I could go to my local tech store, buy a new GPU, install it (hardware/ software) play my tournament, uninstall/ remove the new GPU and bring it back to the tech story. But is that really a feasible solution? And a GPU would be one of the easiest parts to replace

Your networking issue solutions seem practical on the other hand


It's Korea so you could theoretically go to a PC bang even at 1 am on a Sunday, but actually fixing a hardware issue on short notice (as opposed to just getting a new PC) sounds difficult even with tech support.
ploguidice
Profile Blog Joined June 2013
United States230 Posts
June 16 2020 14:01 GMT
#5
On June 15 2020 21:42 Harris1st wrote:
This may be a stupid question but how does one get a replacement component/ replacement pc on a saturday in 1-2 hours?

I mean, yes sure in theory I could go to my local tech store, buy a new GPU, install it (hardware/ software) play my tournament, uninstall/ remove the new GPU and bring it back to the tech story. But is that really a feasible solution? And a GPU would be one of the easiest parts to replace

Your networking issue solutions seem practical on the other hand


GPU and RAM would be the only two things that would likely be feasible in short time frames. GPU is helped a lot by the fact if you by the same brand you likely don't NEED to mess around with driver shenanigans. RAM may not even need to be replaced popping out a bad stick can be a stop gate solution. I'll fully admit I wrote this whole thing in about 20 minutes and some solutions are regionally dependent (I live five minutes from a Best Buy if you're in a rural area a lot of this will require more creative action), I primarily wrote this to challenge organizer to start seriously addressing what can you about tech issues out of your environment, and start building contingency plans around it. This could be taken in a completely different direction by adding a line to the rulebook that says "In the event of insurmountable tech issues players matches will be delayed until the next match day during which time they're expected to resolve these issues".

I just don't want to see tech forfeits.
I'm Joe
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Replay Cast
10:00
StarCraft Evolution League #13
CranKy Ducklings110
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
OGKoka 262
Lowko198
ProTech63
Rex 33
EnDerr 18
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 34700
Sea 6696
Jaedong 2675
Bisu 1341
Pusan 583
actioN 413
BeSt 310
EffOrt 271
Stork 259
Mini 218
[ Show more ]
Larva 172
ZerO 116
Light 99
Dewaltoss 94
Hyun 94
Mong 93
ToSsGirL 50
GoRush 48
Mind 43
Sharp 29
Movie 28
Backho 25
sSak 24
Sacsri 14
Dota 2
XcaliburYe581
BananaSlamJamma435
League of Legends
JimRising 471
Counter-Strike
shoxiejesuss954
x6flipin445
allub268
Other Games
singsing1243
crisheroes299
Mew2King237
XaKoH 217
Pyrionflax200
DeMusliM171
ZerO(Twitch)21
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Secondary Stream4044
Other Games
gamesdonequick607
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 9
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 16 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• intothetv
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• Rasowy 11
• Airneanach5
• iopq 2
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota293
League of Legends
• Stunt539
Other Games
• WagamamaTV145
Upcoming Events
WardiTV Invitational
9m
Rex33
WardiTV30
PiGosaur Monday
13h 9m
GSL Code S
22h 39m
Rogue vs GuMiho
Maru vs Solar
Online Event
1d 13h
Replay Cast
1d 15h
GSL Code S
1d 22h
herO vs Zoun
Classic vs Bunny
The PondCast
1d 23h
Replay Cast
2 days
WardiTV Invitational
3 days
OSC
3 days
[ Show More ]
Korean StarCraft League
3 days
CranKy Ducklings
3 days
WardiTV Invitational
4 days
Cheesadelphia
4 days
CSO Cup
4 days
GSL Code S
4 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
Wardi Open
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
RSL Revival
6 days
Cure vs Percival
ByuN vs Spirit
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Season 17: Qualifier 2
BGE Stara Zagora 2025
Heroes 10 EU

Ongoing

JPL Season 2
BSL 2v2 Season 3
BSL Season 20
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 2
NPSL S3
Rose Open S1
CSL 17: 2025 SUMMER
2025 GSL S2
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025
Asian Champions League '25
BLAST Rivals Spring 2025
MESA Nomadic Masters
CCT Season 2 Global Finals
IEM Melbourne 2025
YaLLa Compass Qatar 2025
PGL Bucharest 2025
BLAST Open Spring 2025

Upcoming

Copa Latinoamericana 4
CSLPRO Last Chance 2025
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
K-Championship
SEL Season 2 Championship
Esports World Cup 2025
HSC XXVII
Championship of Russia 2025
Murky Cup #2
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.