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Poland375 Posts
So a top player wrote that he wouldn't want to go to an Intel Extreme Masters event after seeing today's action in Kiev. I am not going to blame him since we've made mistakes, though I'd hope we would get a little bit more credit.
(Long post incoming.)
Cologne, Guangzhou and New York City went just fine (as esports events go). We had problems at this event. There's only so much you can do to prepare for an event like this. There will always be issues to solve that are beyond your control. Here's what happened:
The venue in Kiev is a huge PC bang with a built-in stage to host esports matches. It has two synchronous 100Mbit lines which are independent from each other - one for the gaming, one for the streaming. It runs dozens of bigger and smaller tournaments all year round.
We ran a very successful event here last year - the Intel Extreme Masters European Championship. Despite knowing the venue well, we visited it in December again to perform our due dilligence and plan the event anew. Our only worry was whether or not we can set up our streaming and video on time.
I can honestly say that we have covered all the areas which we know to be critical. Sometimes that is simply not good enough.
While the Counter-Strike 1.6 and League of Legends tournaments were running completely fine and without any issues (technical or ping-related), the SC2 tournament was plagued with difficulties:
- Players had lag that affected gameplay and sometimes the result (naniwa and, to a lesser degree, Strelok);
- Naniwa voiced concerns to the referee that he had lag issues (other players also). As it turned out their lag spikes were not at all as bad as naniwa's. One of the players intervened and convinced naniwa that by changing some network settings and shutting off some software the connection would be fixed. Naniwa got talked into playing - as it turned out it was a mistake not to put him on another PC (the reasoning being that all players claimed to have some spikes).
- The situation with naniwa happened later on (naniwa having lag issues that affected the outcome of his game). His instant emotional reaction was to want to discontinue playing, but he came back to finish his games on another PC and won the group. Throughout the entire situation - from the start until after all of his games, he was considerate and understanding and his behaviour was very professional. No bullshit.
- Meanwhile, I spent almost the entire day investigating the root of the problem. I spent a lot of the time on the phone with Blizzard's employees, talking to the local IT masterminds who called the local ISP (100Mbit line for gaming only, remember). I asked for the group play to be halted because that time could have allowed us to find the solution.
- The players have avoided PCs where the bad lag occured and continued play. No players have had anything major since then, except for Grubby where it seemed like a commentator lagging out was the problem (he had no other lags - I don't think it was related to the naniwa issue).
Here is what we did in order to fix this issue:
- call Blizzard countless times to make sure it's not a routing issue;
- call the local ISP countless times to do the same;
- test other PCs in the gaming center to see if the same issues occur (they are the same configuration - some lagged, others did not);
- the Arena IT have set up completely fresh Windows PCs with SC2 only on them - those will be the machines used in the remainder of the tournament;
There were no issues whatsoever with League of Legends or Counter-Strike 1.6. At the end of the day it seems like there still might be a minor routing issue (which is not ideal but playable) and the PCs were totally wiped and cleaned up.
To whomever was disappointed with today: I am obviously very sorry that you did not receive the kind of entertainment that we always want to deliver. I can say with all honesty that we did our very best to fix the issues and make sure that the rest of the tournament is flawless.
Please give us some credit and save the pitchforks for after the finals.
I would like to enclose a statement from White Ra who knows the venue very well and participated in last year's Intel Extreme Masters tournament as well (obviously if you're one of the players in Kiev, feel free to chip in with a comment - good or bad, I don't mind):
"Today it was not normal but playable. All of the players have the same conditions. Sometimes there's a lag spike, other times it is all smooth. I experienced one lag issue myself in the game vs. Strelok but the game was decided by then.
I have never seen this before in the Arena. I have played a best of 7 show match vs. Dimaga a couple of months ago on stage and we did not have any problems. At last year's Intel Extreme Masters event here there were no such problems either. There was one problem with electricity but that was because it went down in the entire area of Kiev."
Can we control everything? No.
Did we fuck up? Could we have done better? Yes.
Will we do better? Yes.
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Huk made Carmac type down yet another long post...
well goodluck in the future the lags need to be fixed sir
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This post comes out just as Nightend more or less lost because off lagg during the deciding battle. You could see that he diden't micro his stalkers to target down the broods.
Nice that you wrote this post to adress the issue rather then ignoring it!
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Please apologize to Nightend, he lost the game due to lag!
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how about nigthend losing a battle where he may of won in the game three???
whata joke...
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Actually we should thank HuK that he doesn't accept the invite. This way we're going to get a GOOD representative from Korea. I still remember him failing in Cologne 2 times.
User was warned for this post
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I think the big problem is that games are decided by lag. You can argue that Naniwa lost his game against Strelok because of lag, Grubby might not have lost against Zenio because of lag and NightEnd might not have lost the last game against Zenio because of lag (Engagement on the west side of Dual side with the blink stalkers under the brood lords)
Especially since I am a fan of Grubby and NightEnd I am sad to see them lose, but under circumstances that could have been better and the games might have been different.
I have a lot of respect for IEM and ESL because they try to get new talent into the mix, but this shit has to be better...
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Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly.
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Its a bad thing, but it happens. Thanks for being so open minded.
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On January 20 2012 06:37 mrtomjones wrote:
Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly.
will u shut up. It obviously affected the players and why shoudlnt both players have equal settings?
it sucks when the moment two armies are together you have sp[ikes where you cant mciro shit... its a joke as the mroe time broodlords are alive the motr damage they do with the broodlings andmore broodlings are alive.....
User was warned for this post
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Canada1637 Posts
WhiteRA calling it "playable" is just wrong IMO. Any amount of lag is just unacceptable, I really think Blizzard needs to step in and provide some kind of portable LAN functionality or tournament servers, I don't understand how people can take SC2 seriously when thousands and thousands of dollars are riding on games where there is lag, it devalues the competitiveness of the game.
I really feel this is more Blizzard's fault than IEMs...
Props to Carmac for being transparent on the issue.
edit: Sounds like its because the computers are poor, that's a shame, I still think the LAN issues still stand though.
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It doesn't matter if its 'playable' a majority of the time, lag spikes deciding the game just destroys the entire integrity of the tournament, good luck getting it fixed for tomorrow/finals but today was undeniably a joke.
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The problem with introducing LAN just for tournaments is that pro-gamers then cannot practice under tournament conditions, it must be all or nothing.
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Add Nightend to the list. In his last game vs. Zenio it was OBVIOUS PC lag that caused him no to control his stalkers right! He was basically robbed.
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You tried hard to fix the issue but some things are just out of your hands, I don't think this post was needed but I appreciate you putting in the time and effort to clear up some comments being made, looking forward to the rest of the tournament and hope things are plain sailing from now on.
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well blame blizzard for lack of lan...
As long as an event is completly at the mercy of a stable internet connection there will be problems. MLG had it's problems, IPL had them and now IEM becomes just another case in point.
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I sharpened my pitchfork good today, tomorrow I might have to start stabbing. (Ooh, SOTG will be on soon, I hope they have brought their pitchforks too, I'll definitely tune in.)
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On January 20 2012 06:38 Tommylew wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 06:37 mrtomjones wrote:
Sounds like its just the shitty luck of internet. Someone wont come now because of it? Silly. will u shut up. It obviously affected the players and why shoudlnt both players have equal settings? it sucks when the moment two armies are together you have sp[ikes where you cant mciro shit... its a joke as the mroe time broodlords are alive the motr damage they do with the broodlings andmore broodlings are alive.....
Uhh wow dude. I comment that it is because of bad net and you snap on me? Fun. Someone never going to another IEM event is silly. MLG has had lag issues before. Everyone still goes to those. Every tournament has had troubles of some sort and people still go to GSL and Dreamhack. Perhaps you should chill.
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EPT
