On November 07 2008 00:32 Dvz(Dark) wrote:
I know what you mean NeverTheEndlessWiz, but at least on previous years we had the chance to compete. Anyway once the 32 gamers were selected we all played against each others like normal tournaments (gruop stage, duoble elimination, single elimination). This year nobody liked, understood or even could play for qualifying!
We were waiting for one year for nothing.
I guess what really need is more information, here in Guatemala was the same thing, BUT I was in contact with the organizers asking how will it be played this year and they told me they were thinking about making it online, I say that will be a good idea if they allow the players to play with out an original CDkey, which they of course say a big NO, they told me that if they do it online it will be on GameOn server. I hear about this months before the tournament so I was able to tell eveyone Iknow about this telling them to get an original cdkey if they wanted to play, that is why there were more Guatemalan players on the channel in ogame. Maybe you should try to be that person in Panama, the contact with the organizers cause they just dont take the time to inform the players in advance. (what is really weird is that the Samsung person in charge of WCG of Panama and Guatemala lives in Panama City!!!)
I said I was going to tell about the WCG in Guatemala and that is what I am going to do now, from my experience as player only back in 2003-2004-2006 and then as player / collaborator on 2007-2008.
WCG Guatemala 2003
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This is when everything started in my country, there were some Internet cafes where people hang around playing CS mostly, and in a less number SC and WC, FIFA was totally underground (and still is!!!) Then this rumours about a big e-sports tournament start to be heared and finally one day it was confirmed with announcements on the newspapers.
From that day on everyone was excited about this new thing called World Cyber Games, the internet cafe choosed to be used by Samsung was "Zona Extrema" which was the first one that start the all business of a place to meet to play videogames. The place was growing and has already around 20-30 computers. In order to play you have to sign on the WCG Guatemalan site and then it will be published a calendar with the date when you have to show up to play. Since it was the first time this happen there were about 300 players between all the games (maybe I recall bad the number, maybe there was 400 this was 5 years ago). The games played were CS, SC, FIFA and WC III.
The qualification consist of playing against the other players, the organizers created groups and was giving points accordingly if you win or lose everything runs smoothly though there start some problems cause you have like 20 minutes to finish your match, some arbiters give you 5 extra minutes sometimes if it gets longer but if it is too long they call it off and pick the winner with the "game points". There were however not too many complaints about it. That way they picked 32 players who will play the "FINAL ROUNDS" in a hotel. It was amazing to see all this, I manage to qualify for the round of 32 with only 1 lose against who eventually win the tournament (a korean guy ^.^).
There I got my first upset, cause the first (and only game, everything was bo1) I played against a zerg, which I contained early on the game, but as the noob I was (I still am a noob but I was even worst lol) I couldnt finish, he tech up attemp to break with guardians, long story short, I defended but the time was over so the judges check the points and I lose it cause I didnt tech as far up as he did.. I really though that wasa lot of BS but... fine.. next year I will do better
Conclusion: Great Tournament, though bo1 is so hard in SC and picking the winner by points!!! I hope they change that.
WCG Guatemala 2004
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Next year it was BIG, last year champions were called to make publicity on radio, TV, newspapers and magazines, over 1000 players sign for the tournament. The same 4 games of 2003 will be used and the qualification rounds were like in 2003 except that cause of the massive amount of players it took 2 weekends, cant remember, the quelification was the same way, you have to be day X at time Y to play 1 match against some other player, you play twice a day, during the weekends, then the best 32 players of each game qualify to round of 32, by this time the e-sports communty have grow a lot, there are plenty of internet cafes all over the capital city, Zona Extrema grew as well and have 4 places around the city, by far the biggest tournament, though not the best.
Why? Well there were several weak points. The judes weren´t players which mean they have no idea about what was the rules, what was allow and what was forbidden, to the point of calling hacker a player that want to use his WC hotkeys setup, which is allowed accordingly to WCG rules (eventually thay player won the WC qualification!!!) Also they keep the rule about wining by points after 20 minutes, and they played all the tournament bo1 again.
Conclusion: Was a good tournament but the only difference with the one on the past year is that was bigger, which not mean better at all.
WCG Guatemala 2005
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Sadly, there was no WCG on 2005, there were roumors about some players making strong critizise to the organization in a not mannered way so the sponsor get mad cause to be hones Guatemalan players aren´t in same level as other countries in the world.
When I found out about this I start asking why everywhere, I wrote to WCG, and to Samsung entities with no response. Just silence. But...
WCG Guatemala 2006
+ Show Spoiler +I was so happy to hear that the WCG were back to my country, but now the rumours were that there will be played only 1 game, will it be CS, SC, WC or FIFA???? Well since it was obvious that Samsung was trying to save money CS was the one with lower chance to be, so I cross my fingers but this time I got dissapointed cause FIFA was the game selected. I dont play that game.. but what the hell.. I want to support the event, maybe if there are enough players Samsung will sponsor another game. So I signed for it and went to the place where the qualifiers will be played, what a big deception, after seeing the 2 past events what I founded was like finding water when you want a beer!!! A small space in a mall with 2 computers and 2 screens. That was pretty much it. Oh well, better than nothing I guess. The qualification was played as the guy from Panama explained already, you have to play vr the PC 2 games, and you get points for wining and the goals you made/received. The best 32 qualify for the next round =_=. From over 1000 players on 2004 we have on 2006 like 100 FIFA players signed for the tournament, only 34 or so show up for the qualification, really good community they picked. My goal on this year was to meet the organizers and learn how they worked. See if it was posible to help somehow and to make suggestions from the gamers. I manage to get this on and there was when I started to "talk" with the organizers. Conclusion: SMALL!!! just plain sad to see what WCG become in my country.Where did that Qualification method come from:+ Show Spoiler +
I am not 100% sure, but I think this started when LG organized a Tournament in Guatemala (The best tournament I have played so far, though not perfect it was really good) They organize to make them being knowed in the country, so they pick that way to play cause they didnt made a online sign method as WCG, they made the tournament in the best, bigger and more popular mall in the country, they signed every person who will to play, even if that was the first time they see the game, so how can you filter that? Well lets make them play against the computer, then by points lets pick the "best" 32 players. Cheap checked, easy to do it checked.
Samsung notice this for sure, and start using it this year.
WCG Guatemala 2007
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By now I have a better comunication with the organizer, she explained to me that her company was contracted by another company in Panama which was contracted by Samsung to take care of WCG in Guatemala and Panama. Too many hands dont you think? Anyway, things started to roll once again, this time I was with SC on my mouth 24/7 talking to her ear, I probe her that SC was a better organized community in my country and I ask her for a chance to prove it, and somehow SC gods smile too me I guess cause she always reply she didnt pick the game, Samsung does, whatever it was the cause we had SC WCG this year. I was so excited I try to help her in anyway I could. I knew Samsung will not expend money on publicity so I offer to make ass mucho publicity as I can, she offer me some banners so I can go to diffenrent internet cafes to announce the tournament, I am still waiting for them though =(. I made them myself and use my time to do it, I contact every player I know, post in every Guatemalan forum about games. make tournaments with the goal of practicing for the WCG and so on. During the event I took pictures and make news about it in thw different latin games sites.
Well that is a lot of work but is not what matters in this subject, what was not good on this tournament:
1. Judges: they didnt knew a peanut about SC, bugs hacks or anything. Good thing we see every player´s games so no chance for hacking but is simple sad to have judges that know nothing about the game they are judging.
2. Bracket System: Judges didnt knew how it was going to be played. Since I was making a news about this I get into the Panama WCG site (they started a couple of weeks before so I was able to see the brackets) I made a bracket for my use, so I knew that winning of group A will play vr second place of group C and so on, and once the brackets started I could tell who the player that advanced must play in the next round, they have NO IDEA, in fact at the end they give up and start asking me who where the next gamers to play.
3. Small again: there was 4 computers, since there is a limit of time we we forced to play bo1 every bracket, even the final, though I talk with her and hurry everyone to make at least the final a bo3 (the winner bracket champion started with a lead of 1-0 though)
4. The event started late cause they bring computers with out the game installed, they changed and the new computers were patch-less. Good thing a player bring his USB with the game patched, though he arrive 30 minutes after all this.
5. There was 0 publicity, I am pretty sure that at least 85% of the players that arrive to the qualifications did it cause I contact them by mail or phone.
List is long but I think you have the idea, at the end "everything is all right"...
Conclusion: Definitely better than last year, but there is a lot to work on
WCG Guatemala 2008
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Now that I have talk with the local organizer and see that most of my suggestion werent heared (or maybe she just dont have the power requiered to make decitions) I went to the next level, I send a mail through the WCG official site, I didnt expect a reply since the last times I were ignored but once again SC gods smile at me =) Some one of WCG took a rest and open my mail by mistake probably, but nevertheless he replied saying that I should contact the regional manager, but not only this, he send me his mail. So I contact him and started talking about 2008 event.
He told me about the idea of getting online qualifiers, which is a good idea for several reasons but I think it wont work this year cause Guatemalan players dont have the original game, most of them dont have an internet connection, or at least not a good one. I dont know how about Panama but I was guessing they was in the same position, time show me that they were even worst since only 6 players show up for the qualification....
Before the actual tournament started this person open an account in Facebook.. yes you hear well in FACEBOOK and there he made a Discussion where players of Guatemala and Panama should say which game they wanted to play, the options were SC, WC. AoE, FIFA, NFS. I count the votes and the winner was SC followed by WC. But the games picked where SC and FIFA. Why did they use Facebook for this? I am clueless. PLayers dont use it, at least most of the players I know and I know pretty much all the SC community in Guatemala!!!...
Oh well the games were set now, lets talk the online qualification ahhh the qualifications... there were going to last 5 days on the calendar from a wednesday to a sunday, it will be a ladder type between guatemalan and panameñan players, best 9 of each country advance to next round, where they will join the Panamerican representative (aka SC last year champion, and for FIFA there was an online tournament with like 10 players some months before the WCG).
The schedule for the Ladder was from 15:00 to 21:00 most of the players work/study, does that study on the morning have no problems with this, however all those players thar work, me included along with most of the players, just cant make it at 15:00 at best they can log in at 19:00 which is 4 hours less of playing...
I manage to ask permission at my job to leave early enough to log on at 15:00, but of course not for free, I negotiate it and get one hour ealier for 20 days so I already "work" those hours... but I was a especial case, the rest just wasnt able to log on earlier. So First day, I came at home at 15:00, eat something and then log in.. wait.. how is this suppose to work??? lets read the instruction about the GameOn server.. the WCG site say one thing, the GameOn Site say anohter.. at the end both were wrong!!!... Oh wel I will ask an admin... mmmm where are the admins??? I wrote to the organizer and he say that the admins should log in at 18:00 ZOMG we were with no idea about how to log into the server correctly, which maps we must use (cause one site say ABCD and the other AXYZ) we were there by ourselves for 3 hours.. oh well.. finally admins should show up anytime now... 19:00.. 20:00.... WTF!!! where are they???
Imagine that for 2.5 ladder days... oh but dont worry the organizer apologize for this and say that the ladder will last 2 more days, monday and tuesday... good.. just that I cant be online those days like I did before... so sad.
Another point I make the organizer knew about in advance before everything was that Latin players have problems creating games cause the internet companies block the ports. I told him months in advance and he didnt hear me, and as I said most of the few players that manage to log into the server werent able to create.
Shor history long, the online qualification was a failure, there were like 18 guatemalan players and 6 from Panama, since it was a ladder people refuse to play the best ranked players cause they didnt want to ruin his rank, which they of course got by bashing noobs, sure you can only play 5 times a person per day... lets play him every day then... sad thing. But obviously the way the qualification works push players to behave like this, totally understandable and PREDICTABLE!!!
The final round has less thing to critisize.. sorry, I mean less NEW things to critisaze... same problems that in previous years, only bo1 were played, I didnt pay too much attention to the FIFA side of the event, however I notice that 1 of the FIFA qualified players were there cause he wants to see the SC games, since in the calendar online it say it was that date BUT he got a mail.. I mean a letter in REAL PAPER saying the FIFA-s games will be next weekend, WOW.. he almost lose his chance of playing cause someone from Samsung send him a letter with the wrong dates!!!! He finish in second place if I recall it correctly.
As always the judges didnt know what is allowed or not on FIFA. Also they should now how to apply the rules, there was an incident, there was 4 computers 2 for FIFA and 2 for SC, one of the FIFA players show up with a X-Box controller but with out the drivers, the judges told him that he cant play with it cause he was supposed to bring his drivers, he say that they must fix it and that he wont play with another controller... the judges obey him.. WTF!!! they get the drivers but when they install them they fucked up the computer.... so we lose like 1 hour of SC gaming cause the organizer decided to use a SC computer for FIFA and fix the other for SC... obviously we play everything bo1 cause there was "no time" for bo3...
Conclusion: I just dont know what to say.. different way but with a lot of problems to solve again. I hope they get closer to the community and hear what we have to say about it, we know is not an easy work, we know it requieres a lot of effort to make it happen but I wish they hear our suggestion. When everything was going wrong I got asked about what to do, I even got calls from Panama several times to ask me how was everything going, I wish they contact before the problems to avoid them intead of solving them
Sorry for the long post, a lot of bitching I know, it is just really frustrating to talk with them, suggest things and see that at the end people in suits take the decitions, persons that just dont know about games. Hopefully future exgamers will run this things, or at least have some power on the decition making, that way we will see better tournaments, tournaments that will make money and that will, at the same time, be of high competition quality.
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EPT
