My name is Brian “Salvor” Jones and I am the (Former) manager of the vVv SC2 division. I had been brought on a couple months ago to attempt to turn around the ailing division, but was met with a constant stream of challenges, proving, at least to me, that vVv as an organization could not facilitate the success of a sc2 division.
I wasn’t actually planning on making any announcements about what happened with the vVv division shutdown, but I feel have to provide some clarity as to the events leading up to this event. There was an agreement by vVv management and myself (Have recorded evidence) that we were going to coordinate the exit of the division and ensure that the real reasons why we ended up leaving were heard. It is unfortunate that even with these verbal agreements, vVv management decided to go behind our back and post a news article that is not only intentionally misleading, but undermines the efforts of each and every player on the team.
As you may or may not know, vVv’s Starcraft 2 division has long struggled to find its identity within the organization. From as far back as a year ago, the division has battled with disinterested leadership, broken promises, waning organizational passion, and mixed priorities that have crippled the ability of the team, and more importantly, the players, to drive forward towards their goals of self improvement in the SC2 e-sports scene. This tension came to a head recently with the loss of our A-team member and close friend, NuBrGNi.
One of the first things I did upon taking over the Starcraft 2 division was request that we bolster the ranks of our sponsored team, because I and many others on the team felt that sponsored players are where teams receive their biggest ROI, and they give an academy team like Aspire something to look forward to and people to look up to. I was given approval to do this by management, so I start seeking out players to fill the ranks. The first person I ran across was NuBrGNi, and I was instantly drawn to his passion, his strength of will, and his overall incredible knowledge of the game. I won’t go into great detail about the events that follow, because I have a statement from NuBrGNi that gives a pretty clear explanation, but I will give a quick summary on my thoughts.
vVv requires a tremendous amount of effort from their sponsored players. Unlike most organizations, they require constant attention to the community, which actually affects the playtime of the players. This includes posting on forums, hanging out on mumble and coaching the players of their academy team. NuBrGNi was no exception. Everybody quickly became very close with NuBrGNi as he was tireless in his efforts to help everybody, constantly asking for games from lower level players in vVv, providing free coaching, laddering non-stop, streaming etc.
Unfortunately, by no fault of his own, shortly after NuBrGNi was picked up, the entire sponsored team and community was dropped from their Starcraft 2 division, leaving only the academy team. Just to be clear, although Nub’s statement says it below, he received no compensation whatsoever for the 2-3 months that he spent a massive amount of time following the requirements of vVv management.
This is, perhaps, the biggest problem with the organization; the constant promises made to players and their community that are not fulfilled. There is a distinct lack of accountability by upper management. When they lie to you and you call them on it, they say “Who gives a fuck, get over it” or post insincere political apologies. I know Glon, a phenomenal player and another close friend of mine experienced similar issues with upper management during his tenure with vVv.
In the end, there was a unanimous decision made by the Starcraft 2 division that the best thing we could do for ourselves is part ways with vVv. We informed management before we made any announcements and promised each other that we wouldn’t make any posts until we both agreed on the content the next day. I received the following PM from RobZ, Vice President of Operations for vVv around noon the next day, about 6 hours before our prearranged “Exit coordination” meeting:
“Hey Salvor,
After discussing everything internally and talking to LordJerith about it, we have decided that we are going to be closing our Starcraft 2 division entirely and we've already launched the news post. Resignations are never something that we've done publicly, and it doesn't make sense to start now. If the community would still like to post their resignations feel free to send them to us and we will post them in the official resignations forum.
First off, I would like to issue a public apology to NuBrGNi. Although I feel I was being mislead about what the benefits would be, and trust me when I say I fought for you, I feel personally responsible for what happened to you. It’s tough to be the front-man for an organization who does not keep its promises. I actually feel like you are a personal friend, rather than a teammate, so it really sucks to know that I was the one who lead you into this trap, costing you dozens of hours of playing time, as well as months of time you could have spent looking for a team who was actually going to take care of you.
Secondly, I just want to give the community the assurance that everybody in the former vVv sc2 division was very close and won’t let something like this break us apart. We are forming our own Academy team for now so that we can continue our practice regimens and hang together, but are actively pursuing a good home.
Lastly, I want to thank everybody for their private and public displays of support. It was a big blow for us that this organization that we poured our blood, sweat, and tears into turned their back on us, but seeing all of the public outreach and kind words has really gotten us through this trying time.
Thanks! Brian “Salvor” Jones
P.S. I felt Glon's statement was relevant enough to include in the OP. He's obviously one of the hottest up and coming Zs in NA right now, and even he had issues that he wanted to make known about his previous tenure with vVv.
OK I'm going to outline exactly what happened to me this past summer, because it may add to the discussion. Also, I feel an obligation to any player that is thinking about signing with vVv's administration to tell him of what has happened to me. If a player signs with them just to get taken advantage of (like I have been), I would feel some responsibility.
After MLG Anaheim, in order to prevent me from changing teams (I was looking at many different offers), vVv offered me a monthly salary, travel and hotel to every event, and the ability to influence (not decide, just give input) on who they would sign to build their SC2 team again. Notice that they did NOT offer a contract - just a promise (and agreement) - I will get to this later: it's significant, however doesn't really change from what happened.
Now swing around to Fall. I had been playing decently in leagues - won a couple tournaments, almost qualified for the NASL, and qualified for the WCG US Nationals. Here we had a problem. vVv didn't want to pay for my flight or hotel to the WCG US Nationals, and instead of saying so they told me about the conflict with WCG Global Finals (in China) and IPL 5. Although I thought that WCG may have been more important (depending on my seeding/chances of success), I said OK. Potential disaster #1 avoided.
Next, however, came MLG Dallas. I had done very well in the online qualifier, being seeded directly into WR5 for the event. All of the time moving forward towards the event I was talking with vVv's administration and my manager - everything was on board. However, 2 weeks before the event (EVERYTHING was "you're good to go" up until now) they asked me to find a flight. Now, it doesn't take a genius to know that finding a flight 2 weeks before an event is not only stupid but costs money - and a lot more money than if it had been purchased say 2 months before the event. So I found the flight (cheapest was ~ $500) and sent it to them. What was the reply? "No, sorry, we can't do that. We can only give you $135." For a day they left me to wonder at them denying paying for my flight. They had broken yet another promise (salary never happened, whenever I brought up they delayed/didn't answer, and ofc team didn't happen, it's vVv's administration). Now, later vVv would pay for my flight partially because I threatened to go public and also partially because they managed to find a super-cheap deal. However, the time not knowing they had a flight made me think: For all of vVv's promises and supposed "professionalism," all I EVER got out of them was a jersey, 2 hotel rooms (but these don't really count - they didn't buy another hotel room just because I was going), and 1 flight which I had to fight and threaten to get. For all of my dedication to this team, I bought their bull shit for 8 months.
Now to the question of contracts. Let me just establish this: If a player breaks a contract, the team isn't going to sue him. It would be economically a disaster. Likewise goes for the player - the player isn't going to sue a team, they can't afford a full trial. So, basically, in essence contracts don't mean anything in eSports among 90% of teams/players. Having a contract means the same thing as having any other sort of agreement here - the law is not on either's side. Therefore, while yes I may not have had a contract, I still fulfilled the entirety of my part of the agreement while they broke almost every single one of theirs. Also understand that not many players have legitament contracts - very few - so while vVv had a right to break their contract, they still show their character, disloyalty, and willingness to take advantage of players.
John "NuBrGNi" Kim's (Former A-Team Member) statement
So my experience with vVv has been both good and bad. vVv’s community, the people of the ‘Aspire’ program and Salvor had been great to me, supported me and been looking out for me since day 1. I did the best I can to help the Aspire team out as well as change their mindset for tomorrow’s brighter future. When I first applied to vVv, it honestly took a while. The amount of vVv had asked me to do was very time consuming.
vVv asked me to be more active with the community before anything was arranged. I had made many posts, bonded with not only the SC2 division but few of the other people in other gaming categories. The amount of posts and free coaching given to Aspire took a lot of time out of my practice but I decided to take the time since it was one of the things that vVv wanted me to do. During this time I had a fulltime job and had 3 hours of travelling every day so you can imagine how much time I had for SC2. When the time came for my follow up interview, Doomhammer was reluctant to offer me a position within the sponsored team since I couldn’t get GM during that time. The slots were closed and then locked, but they mentioned in the first meeting that they were looking for community active members. This confused me a bit because I figured they would want me at my best performance to represent the team but however that was not the case.
After the meeting, Salvor had helped me with the case by talking with Doomhammer because I did all the things that vVv requested of me, and shortly after I was accepted into vVv but without Salvor’s help it would not have happened. I would have kept making massive amounts of posts and helping out the Aspire program. After the acceptance, I didn’t forget about Aspire. I helped them when I had downtime but put my practice first.
Upon acceptance, they promised me that sponsored players had access to financial support such as Lodging, flight costs, gear and other things. I was reluctant to ask vVv for gear since I was afraid of being ungrateful and asking for things right off the bat but when my keyboard and mouse were acting up, I put in a request. They said not a problem and said they’d take care of it, information was exchanged and I never brought it up again. Shortly after, vVv requested me to write up a 1 month ‘experience with vVv’. I wasn’t expecting to take time out of my practice to write up blogs for vVv, I’ve never wrote blogs before so I was lost and I’m not sure why they wanted me to do this but it was a request so I did it without question. Salvor came up to me one day and got the estimates of MLG Dallas of 2013 in March, we spent about a good 3-4 hours on trying to get the cheapest flight. At this point I was expecting to go to dallas because if they weren’t planning to send me, why would they ask for an estimate?
RobZ came up to me on skype and said. [14/01/2013 3:58:11 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ:, Jordan wanted me to ask you about Dallas. What kind of support do you need for the event? [14/01/2013 3:58:22 PM] John Victor Kim: Support as in what [14/01/2013 3:58:37 PM] John Victor Kim: I figured the trip cost would be that only [14/01/2013 3:58:44 PM] John Victor Kim: I just need a vvv shirt [14/01/2013 3:58:57 PM] John Victor Kim: gear isnt really needed unless u guys want me to change my gear [14/01/2013 3:59:10 PM] John Victor Kim: cause it is made by razer, ttesrpots and my headset is just a random headset i use [14/01/2013 3:59:25 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: Alright ill talk to Jordan about gear [14/01/2013 3:59:39 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: When is the canada event? [14/01/2013 3:59:44 PM] John Victor Kim: the LAN? or ETS? [14/01/2013 3:59:51 PM] John Victor Kim: ETS is on first week of march [14/01/2013 3:59:55 PM] John Victor Kim: i have a LAN event im going to this weekend [14/01/2013 3:59:56 PM] John Victor Kim: on saturday [14/01/2013 3:59:58 PM] John Victor Kim: its about 10ish [14/01/2013 4:00:12 PM] John Victor Kim: but it doesnt matter about the cost [14/01/2013 4:00:14 PM] John Victor Kim: cause its just a local lan [14/01/2013 4:00:20 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: ok we'll get you a shirt for ets and dallas, we're ordering a new layout [14/01/2013 4:00:25 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: working on that today [14/01/2013 4:00:31 PM] John Victor Kim: sick [14/01/2013 4:00:32 PM] John Victor Kim: no rush [14/01/2013 4:00:48 PM] John Victor Kim: jus tlet me know what you need from me [14/01/2013 4:04:00 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: will do, we need the hammer out the details on that content/video idea [14/01/2013 4:07:18 PM] John Victor Kim: sure ofc [14/01/2013 6:22:09 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: Hey John, I was reading back our convo earlier to Jordan and to be clear, what are you expecting vVv to cover for dallas? [14/01/2013 6:24:01 PM] John Victor Kim: uhh [14/01/2013 6:24:15 PM] John Victor Kim: Did you guys want me to go to dllas? [14/01/2013 6:24:17 PM] John Victor Kim: dallas** [14/01/2013 6:24:36 PM] John Victor Kim: I was under the impression that you guys were paying for the flight and staying in the hotel with the rest of you gusy [14/01/2013 6:24:41 PM] John Victor Kim: guys and competing in mlg [14/01/2013 6:25:17 PM] John Victor Kim: cause salvor asked me to do the financial stuff for the tirp [14/01/2013 6:25:20 PM] John Victor Kim: we've concluded it was 383 [14/01/2013 6:25:29 PM] John Victor Kim: just for the trip itself for me and back [14/01/2013 6:25:51 PM] John Victor Kim: i just assumed i was attendin dallas cause he came up to me with the topic [14/01/2013 6:27:25 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: At this point, I'm not sure that we can cover the entire flight and lodging as well. We've traditionally never covered both for a sponsored players first event with us. We asked Salvor to get an estimate of the entire trip including lodging to estimate the investment [14/01/2013 6:27:38 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: Because we'd have to get another room [14/01/2013 6:27:52 PM] John Victor Kim: ooh okay [14/01/2013 6:27:59 PM] John Victor Kim: yeah im having financial troubles [14/01/2013 6:28:08 PM] John Victor Kim: so i cant pay for any of it as of standings [14/01/2013 6:28:25 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: Do you know that MLG will be hots? [14/01/2013 6:28:25 PM] John Victor Kim: atm [14/01/2013 6:28:32 PM] John Victor Kim: i didnt know it was hotS [14/01/2013 6:28:35 PM] John Victor Kim: i thought it was WoL [14/01/2013 6:28:57 PM] John Victor Kim: I have been messing around with HotS and such [14/01/2013 6:29:07 PM] John Victor Kim: i just wont have the game wheni t launhces [14/01/2013 6:29:18 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: [14/01/2013 6:29:32 PM] John Victor Kim: mmk [14/01/2013 6:29:33 PM] John Victor Kim: so Hots it is [14/01/2013 6:29:43 PM] John Victor Kim: I know LAN ETS is hosting WoL [14/01/2013 6:30:23 PM] John Victor Kim: ill prob be attending that but mlg is a bit too much on its own [14/01/2013 6:33:08 PM] John Victor Kim: What can be covered in as itself? [14/01/2013 6:33:26 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: What? [14/01/2013 6:34:00 PM] John Victor Kim: Salvor got an estimite right [14/01/2013 6:34:46 PM] John Victor Kim: and flight and lodging cant be covered, so I was just wondering what can be covered, see if i can make the financial structure if i can go [14/01/2013 6:36:36 PM] Rob Thompson - vVv RobZ: I think we would be able to cover lodging, I'd love to help you out with the flight, but Jordan and Jerry really want to see some content, which I told them that we're working on.
Toxsick's (Former Sponsored player) Statement
I got onto vVv back in September of 2011, was just a mid master zerg player, but won a tournament that got me into the academy. Back then, the team was consisting of the older squad with Titan, MurdeR, and Glon. I was excited, really excited. They were copying coL academy by letting us know that one of us would be lucky enough to get payed trip to the next MLG (Whoever won the academy tournament - Academy consisted of 6 players).
Anyways, a couple of the academy members missed a mumble meeting or two, got kicked off. Some of us didn't change our twitter ID's to have vVv in it, another reason you got bitched at / kicked off, or you just didn't post in the forums enough. Silly things got you kicked out of vVv, so it took a lot of effort for anyone on the squad. By this time, it was just me, an old friend Starkad, and a zerg who's ID is slipping my mind (crbox maybe?).
Anyways, we were excited to see who would win the MLG trip and what not, so we prepared for the event.
We then got this delightful message:
Hey guys,
I have some bad news: MLG Providence competitor passes have sold out. Unfortunately this means we can't send anyone to MLG Providence from the academy this season.
Instead, we are going to hold the tournament as usual. The top player to finish this season will be sent to the next MLG event in 2012. We will also keep this player on the academy next season (so that they can train and prepare with other academy members the entire time between now and then).
Let me know if you have any questions.
Ok, not so bad right? Well, next season I planned on going to MLG Columbus, but ended up paying for it all out of my pocket as vVv declined sending me or anyone from the academy out there (Which they promised right above me).
But nope, I still had faith in vVv. Grandmaster was my goal from the academy so I worked my ass off to get it (about 1.5 ladder games per season) until I finally got GM with zerg with help from mostly Titan. I was excited, I improved with the help of titan, had a couple good practice partners and what not, and they finally moved me up to the sponsored team.
I was really excited, as sponsored players got gear and got to go to MLG's on vVv's dime and what not, seemed like it would be fun, and I really wanted to go to the next MLG (And as a broke college student, I can only afford to pay for so many extra expenses...)
Anyways, all the sponsored players were supposed to get gear, so I asked Sugarbear for a headset. Here's the response!
Hey ToXSiK,
I heard back from Jerry, and we can send you a headset. We need the following from you:
- Unboxing video (if possible) for when you open the headset for the first time - Written review once you've been using it for ~two weeks - Promoting these things on your facebook, twitter, and stream.
Do you think that's all possible?
To which I replied
Yes, all of this will be possible.
Yep, still haven't received anything. In fact, the only thing vVv has ever given me is a t-shirt (Which they were handing out to ANYONE at MLG Columbus, the event that remember I had to pay in full for... The one where they were going to send an academy member to)
I didn't want to make such a big deal about all this, but this is why I eventually left vVv, and it seems people are curious here on why vVv finally shut down. Rocker left because jerry (LordJerith - owner of vVv) came into a team meeting one day and told us he was cutting all player funding from the sc2 squad except for Glon and RuFF because they had done decent at MLG (Like top 50 on the open bracket or something?). Well, I was disappointed, but I still stayed on vVv for about three months to see if things would eventually work out.
Slowly all of our good players left, Rocker left because the team was just going downhill, daisuki left because he got a personal sponsor, Titan and Murder quit, so just me and glon and ruff were really left. At this point I was approached by BlighT (LOL) which I declined and then went with oGaming where they've been super great to me.
Anyways, just thought you guys might be interested in my point of view on the situation, vVv really is not a team, it's just a bunch of gamers that pretend they are a team. They expect 100% from you and give you nothing in return, even if they promise it. I just can't believe it took them this long to die.
You live and you learn? I guess.
Jana "BabyToss" Otahalova's (Former Aspire team captain) statement
"It is time to move on. I joined vVv Gaming in April 2012, with hopes to grow both as a person and a StarCraft 2 player. I ended up coming up with Aspire in the end, to create the desired environment not just for myself, but also for other like-minded people, who wished to pursue StarCraft 2 on more competitive level.
In the end, the direction, which vVv Gaming began to take in last three months was in contradiction to the old values, reasons why I joined the organization and promises from the management, which began directing focus in other way, with their actions and decisions. As such, I believe moving on is the best way for both sides. I personally cannot continue supporting an organization, which doesn't visibly support my division, my team and the game.
All in all, if it wasn't for me joining vVv Gaming, I'd never get to chance to meet some of the awesome people here, I would not learn to be a captain of a team. Despite of all, thank you for all that time. I and my team may be leaving vVv Gaming, but I am not leaving StarCraft 2."
Matthew "Razor" Fernandez's (Former Aspire Rising captain) Statement
I've been part of vVv Gaming for a short time, in which I have been witness of the great people that work here, and how all abide and live throughout their passion.
I've learned so much, and I've met so many people that I believe will bring so much to the eSports scene Unfortunately, as of today me and vVv Gaming have to go separate paths, because our interests no longer align.
I'll always be thankful for this opportunity, as it has helped me grow and discover new things about myself that I didn't even know I had, I want to take a brief space to mention some people I find very remarkable.
SugarBear: I know all the news hit you hard, I'm doing my best to understand what you must be going through right now, but eventually things change, for better of worse, and the outcome can only be decided by ourselves. Don't ever lose your awesome personality, because although you may not longer be aligned with SC2, I know your passion is one in a million. Thank you for being a friend, a mentor, and a role model, all the things you taught me will be used in the future.
Paradise: You sir, are straight awesome, I love what you're doing right now as a community manager, and it's extremely notable that you dedicate a lot of time to the community, you're an exemplary manager and a great leader, I look up to you and so should other people do.
Fluffy: I don't consider this to be a goodbye, neither a farewell, or anything like that. I know you, I care for you, and I think eSports was in need of somebody like you. You will always have 100% of my support in everything, and I'll always have your back no matter what. You are extremely valuable as a person, as a friend, even more. I'm pretty sure you'll do great things for vVv, provided they give you all the tools you'll need for the job.
There's a lot of people I want to mention here, but for space issues I'll just make a list, I want vVv to take good care of this people, for I see in them a great future.
Magicmooch Pherzgul Braindrainer Misty Medusa WaKai (Ear pull for you, you know why.) Blade
I think there's a lot more people I'd like to add, but I can't remember right now. Leaving vVv is one of the hardest decisions I have made, but I wish you all the best of luck in the future.
There's a lesson to be learned here, and let us be sure that history does not repeat it's course with our wrongs, only our rights.
My best wishes to Doom and Rob (Thanks for the Jersey!), and to everyone that I have not mentioned here.
Jared "Hiei" Scruggs's (Former aspire team player) statement
pper management removes the SC2 community, and the sponsered team (1 month after adding a High level player), but decides to keep the Aspire program. The point of the Aspire program (in our eyes) was to get us to a level to play on the sponsored team.
With the sponsored team being removed, a clear lack of direction upper management wanted to take with the division, no interest being shown from the upper management in concerns with the happenings with in the SC2 division, and the lack of communication between upper management and the SC2 division members/managers, the ENTIRE SC2 division lost faith that upper management truly had the best interest in the SC2 division at heart.
The excuse we were given from upper management was "they were spread to thin" and focusing on other projects. It just so happens that all of those projects focused on LoL. I'm fine with that, if that's their passion, go for it. But when other people within the SC2 community want to step up and get things rolling, because upper management doesn't is dragging their feet, the community members were constantly getting shut down, or sometimes not even addressed at all.
So the SC2 division came to the conclusion that vVv's upper management was only serving as a hindrance, and served no real use to the division as a whole, so the Aspire program decided to leave vVv.
It's a pity people's hard work gets flushed down the drain due to incompetence, greed and insincerity of others. I hope NuBrGNi gets the pro/semi-pro team he deserves, and wish you all the best for your academy team!
That's sad to hear... I feel bad for the players and all the people who put effort into this, just to see they can't even leave the organization properly, being disrespected that much in the process...
Thank you for your honesty and openness. I believe the important thing is to just wish the best for the players and move on from this. There's not much we as a community can do but hope the players have learned strong life lessons that will better them and help them in the future.
As a former player for vVv Aspire division. The management was the worst part of the whole thing. This caused a lack of communication with both Starcraft and the management. As nub told me that they wouldn't pay for his entire trip I felt bad for him and lied to as a player who want to acquire one of those sponsorships in the future. This then followed up by series of events and other ordeals that I don't need to explain because others have already explained.
Not to say that everyone else on vVv is bad because I met tons of nice and amazing people while their such as my fellow team mates and other people who don't realize the lack of truth and the misconception of vVv. I hope all those people on vVv can enjoy their time and hopefully the same thing won't happen to them. Doesn't help the matter when these managers from vVv thinking they put time and effort into the Starcraft division just to shut it down is absolutely depressing.
In the end I will move on as a player with these fellow team mates and hope to achieve goals and such at major events this year. I will put this in the past and look forward to the future. We all agree that vVv has been lying through their teeth just to save them time and effort. I won't talk about who they are because I don't want to give them exposer to the world but they know who they are. Good luck to all of the people on vVv and hopefully a bright future lies ahead for us players from the Starcraft division.
I am David “LuNa” Kronika, former member of the vVv Aspire Program and new member of the newly formed Aspire e-Sports team.
Personally I was very disappointed by the recent turn of events regarding the Aspire team and the vVv organization. I first began my time with vVv about 2 months ago and was an official as of January 4th, 2013. Over the course of this time I had a great experience with the Aspire program and vVv. However over the last week or so it was my understanding that vVv would begin to dissolve the support they gave for starcraft 2, first starting with the sponsored team.
I want to say that I am very, very sorry for John “NuBrGNi”, he absolutely worked his ass off ever since he joined vVv and he was one of the people that I think made my experience with Aspire even that much better. The passion he had for the game and the community was beyond extraordinary. For me I really can't make much sense of why vVv would decide to pick up John in an attempt to rebuild the sponsored team only to cut him a couple of weeks later unless they didn't really have the commitment towards the team that they claimed to have.
I believe that between the sponsored team and the community members for starcraft 2 being dropped, this created a feeling of instability among everyone within Aspire that vVv may not have much interest in truly supporting SC2 and after reading a recent post from LordJerith it seems our feelings were true. His own words said that vVv should have dropped the starcraft division a long time ago so in a sense I am a bit frustrated that there was no communication between management and me or the Aspire members in general. I also was disappointed to find out that vVv would break their agreement with Salvor and BabyToss regarding their “press release” when it was originally agreed upon that they would wait for Salvor and BabyToss before making their post so only the absolute truth would come out from this and not lies and rumors. I'm not accusing or claiming vVv screwed over their sponsored players (I can't honestly speak on this because I obviously don't know of the specifics agreed upon between John and vVv) but I do feel that vVv is responsible for why we (the Aspire program) decided to part ways. Even if they didn't want to commit to starcraft as much as they want to for LoL and Shootmania, they could have at least communicated with us and with NuBrGNi instead of letting everything go and come to a boil.
I hope that for people who have any backlash against vVv that it's directed towards the management and those in charge and not us (the academy team). We were simply a team that BabyToss has worked her ass off for and we just wanted a structure to help us accomplish our goals in gaming. We had no wrong doing in what went on so I don't think we should be receiving backlash for something the management of vVv had done. Regardless of whether or not we're “known” or important players, I feel that people should at least know the truth behind what had happened and for our sakes (the Aspire members) we can at least be cleared of the backlash that has been going on since this news broke yesterday.
On January 30 2013 03:13 shid0x wrote: Just so you know : Its not like we ever cared about your so called ''team''. I think i can speak on the behalf of 80% of TL.
This kind of post is really unneeded. You really should re-think what you post. And no, u can't speak on the behalf of 80% of TL
On January 30 2013 03:13 shid0x wrote: Just so you know : Its not like we ever cared about your so called ''team''. I think i can speak on the behalf of 80% of TL.
Is this serious? If you don't care about teams that aren't signing big name players, then frankly just don't post in their threads. I don't personally support nor disapprove of vVv, but saying this in their goodbye thread isn't the smartest thing to do.
On topic sad to see an organization close down. Hope the players and managers move on to a brighter future though.
TL is a very unfortunate place to have a frank discussion about what "really" happened, although it highlights the miscommunication between management and players.
I hope everyone can move forward and find an organization that will treat you guys right.
My Statement (Former A-Team/Sponsored player, NuBrGNi)
They make you do stupid huge, time-consuming and tedious tasks that benefits their organization by either make money for themselves or get their viewership count up in trade of false hopes or little to no support for the people who provides either the content or work they invested into. All the flack you about vVv are true, no denial of it.
They didn't want to commit to anything SC2 again because their rep sucked from their history, they tried to clean the slate with me but they failed because all their built up, we shall call it 'notoriety', didn't get cleaned off. Instead of trying to fix their image to the community, they decided to apparently 'drop' their SC2 division. 99.99% of their members left due to their unreasonable ways. I really got baited hard with their offers and such, they had a new management, Salvor, a good hearted person to take up management to renew their tarnished image. Only problem is that they lied to both me and Salvor with the requests. When processes go in, Salvor would put them through but the higher up, the people I don't want to name because it brings fame to them, would just ignore it and constantly make lies or excuses why it has not gone through. I was promised Dallas, LAN ETS 2013 as well as Gear, shirt, financial support as a sponsored player but they kept making excuses and delaying everything. Shady organization as always.
Even if it's not SC2 they're looking into, this organization should be boycotted and not even allowed to be in ANY eSports community. The community itself is blinded by their lies so they just have to follow, it's the managers who you should look out for. I was warned about this organization but with the new management, it would be fixed and people deserve second chances. No.
I just wish the best of luck to ANYONE wanting to be apart of this organization, just prepare the lube for the inevitable.
Yes Salvor, I understand you tried EVERYTHING you could have to make everything happen to the best of your abilities. No one is blaming you or should, its the higher ups that need to be pointed fingers. I thank you and everyone on Aspire for giving me the support and the mouse you've purchased for me due to this fiasco. I really don't know how to repay you back. This man 110% legit cares about the players he represents and goes 110% to get the job done. He should be the leader of ANY organization, we need more people like this. NOT the current vVv heads.
The whole point of this situation and the responses are not to, what people say "bitch and complain", it is the total opposite. This is a public warning the future up coming players that are being poached and used by this organization. The truth must be said, both sides of each story should be explained.
vVv with a history of lying, and trying to make their organization the "good guy" in this situation and making whoever they took a shat on the 'bad guy', this organization needs to be at least brought to the community's attention as the shady deceivers they are.
EDIT:
On January 30 2013 03:17 LuNa. wrote:
Even if they didn't want to commit to starcraft as much as they want to for LoL and Shootmania, they could have at least communicated with us and with NuBrGNi instead of letting everything go and come to a boil.
Yeah at least the decent thing to do was to give me a heads up about this rather than just blowing all at once. It really shows how much they cared about my work I put in meant nothing to them. They are two faced schemers, they talk so friendly in person via mumble and skype but when it comes down to it...
Upon joining vVv, I knew the organization had received much hate in the past. I felt that most of it was unjustified, and I was convinced by their own "everything for the community" spiel, and always looking out for the players best interest. I can tell you from a first hand experience that is an undeniable lie. At no point did I ever feel that the vVv had the players best interest at heart, and they only acted on what best suited their wishes. I pride myself on my policy of no bullshit, and I have voiced my opinion about vVv and their actions (Particularly when the President of vVv gave me answered a question I posed, and I told him I felt that he was bullshiting me.)
I personally haven't lost a whole lot. I feel worse for all of the players that have been taken advantage of, and all of the good people in the vVv community that are ignorant to what vVv truely is about. If anything, I feel that I have actually gained a lot from this whole experience. I've learn that things are not always as they seem, that there are bad organizations out there, that will take advantage of you. I feel as if I'm wiser.
Most importantly though, I've gain the friendship of the Aspire team, who I am still involved with, and continue to train with. I feel like if I had to go through this process alone, it would be no where near as bearable.
One last thing. Something that SalvorMallow did not mention in his post, when Nub was removed from vVv, effectively wasting 2 month of his time, Salvor bought Nub a new steelseries mouse, with money out of his own pocket, and shipped it to him, as a token of his appreciation to Nub. I feel the worst for Sal in this whole fiasco, the only thing I was constantly sure of, was that Salvor would have the players backs, and that he would do everything in his power to help them, even if it ment he'd have to take it for the team. He is everything you could want in a manager and more, and I genuinely hope that this whole ordeal does not end up hurting him.
Nooborghini: How close do you live to ETS? Sucks that all that shit happened, but I live diagonally from the ETS venue and can have you stay at my place if you still can afford to go there and compete (I'll provide you with food/cooking & lodging).
No charge, just figured my couch would enjoy someone's tired soul on it.
Oh and vVv sucks, LordJerith is completely incompetent, I didn't expect his crew of "upper management" to be any better.
On January 30 2013 03:46 t e a C h e r wrote: NuBrGNi, barely even plays, This season he has less than 10 games, Then he wonders why vVv ain't paying/supporting....
If I was invited to play for vVv, i'd just play, no complaints no posts on TL.
You are privileged to play for a decent team like vVv, they aren't on the lvl of col or EG, so you can't expect much.
argggg , people think they deserve what they have not earned.
Like most players, he has a smurf that he ladders on.
On January 30 2013 03:46 t e a C h e r wrote: NuBrGNi, barely even plays, This season he has less than 10 games, Then he wonders why vVv ain't paying/supporting....
If I was invited to play for vVv, i'd just play, no complaints no posts on TL.
You are privileged to play for a decent team like vVv, they aren't on the lvl of col or EG, so you can't expect much.
argggg , people think they deserve what they have not earned.
Like most players, he has a smurf that he ladders on.
I'm sure he does, but most pros still get GM or at least have more than 10 games, on their main account, each season....
you're really complaining that his named account is low? As his room mate I can tell you that he uses 2 smurfs and then has the main. Main is for tournaments, 1 smurf for trying new builds/timings, 1 to try to ez that ladder. GL, and good on Torte de Lini for offering up a place. Hope nubrgini takes it.
On January 30 2013 03:54 CanadianSC wrote: you're really complaining that his named account is low? As his room mate I can tell you that he uses 2 smurfs and then has the main. Main is for tournaments, 1 smurf for trying new builds/timings, 1 to try to ez that ladder. GL, and good on Torte de Lini for offering up a place. Hope nubrgini takes it.
If he was a GM player, he would have his main/named account in GM right? Come on dude make sense... Why he smurfin if he aint even high mater? I doubt his smurfs have high master points.
(Former Aspire member) I have with the vVv team since July. My goal for joining vVv gaming was to join the Aspire team so that i could improve and maybe be sponsored someday and follow that dream that all video game lovers want and that is become good at their game and here there named cheered when on that big stage. Unfortunately the protoss section of the team was filled and i was left out for some time. for several months if you were not in the aspire team all you did nothing sc2 related with vVv. The aspire members that were at the same level as me at the time were too busy to play or hang out. The only thing that i got of being a part of vVv at that time was just the tag that was attached to my name.
I tried to set up in house tournaments to have the community members come together and have the community become more of a family. I talked to SugarBear who was the sc2 manager at the time and he said that its a good idea but people rarely show up. He was right but i feel that someone that has more power or more influence in the situation could have taken charge and designed ways for the sc2 community of vVv to come together and become the family that vVv say they strive for. I was getting to the point where i was just going to leave the vVv community until i thought about making the second aspire team. The requirements would be the same and the skill level would be the same. Making a team that would of equal skill as the original team would not be difficult because people were always wondering about joining the aspire team. At this point i asked SugarBear again about this and he told me to do it and see if things would happen. Now through out all of this SugarBear had made it known that his passion for sc2 had disappeared and wanted to give the manager position to someone that had a passion for the game. I feel that he waited too long for getting a replacement because a community member should not be the one setting everything up for an extra team and community events all by themselves. Salvor came along and one could tell that he wanted to improve the sc2 community in vVv.
I paid little attention to this because i was on the new aspire rising team was spending most of my time with them. I forgot all of the faults of the management until they dropped the A team and the sc2 community. I feel for nooborghini because of all the time he put in but i felt more for the sc2 community members because i was one for the longest time. The management for sc2 was finally changing for the better where community events were being planed and the aspire teams were talking and hanging out more with some of the community members. Then upper management drops them because they felt that they could not add value. I wonder what value they wanted out of them when they never questioned me about the value i added and never really talked to me. I don't understand what they wanted from the community members and what possible harm would occur if the community was kept. i was really saddened when i found out that they were destroying a part of the community that had finally been given the chance to grow, I left for the major reason that the sc2 community that i was a part of would be growing and would be kept stagnant and negative feelings would always be directed toward upper management. I wanted to stay with the family i created with aspire and decided that i should leave with them because i had no confidence in myself that i could fix the sc2 program of vVv by myself.
On January 30 2013 03:54 CanadianSC wrote: you're really complaining that his named account is low? As his room mate I can tell you that he uses 2 smurfs and then has the main. Main is for tournaments, 1 smurf for trying new builds/timings, 1 to try to ez that ladder. GL, and good on Torte de Lini for offering up a place. Hope nubrgini takes it.
If he was a GM player, he would have his main/named account in GM right? Come on dude make sense... Why he smurfin if he aint even high mater? I doubt his smurfs have high master points.
A lot of pro players don't stick a main account in GM. Hence you see countless barcode accounts. You can't really claim he isn't where he is due to this.
I dont post much anymore as i have not been a part of vVv for a while now. While yes, this also seems very similar to me. I do know this was probably needed. The sc2 team has only gone downhill from when they were originally started.
There are some really great people in that organization. At the very least they give some players a chance to compete.
On January 30 2013 03:13 shid0x wrote: Just so you know : Its not like we ever cared about your so called ''team''. I think i can speak on the behalf of 80% of TL.
This kind of post is really unneeded. You really should re-think what you post. And no, u can't speak on the behalf of 80% of TL
Exactly. I hate it when people say stuff like that. 80% is a pretty big number to put on your back! :D
Its great that you guys are making an academy team after all this mess. I think its something that we need for SC2 and that is talent development outside of the big teams because they will only hire the big players and not the up and comers. As for all this drama I don't think many people took the team seriously since it didn't have any known players and had pretty much no community presence because of that.
Hey, I'm vVv Astraëa, firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
Still, when you joined vVv you accepted to respect the 5pillars ( http://www.vvv-gaming.com/forum/topic/39135-five-pillars-of-vvv-gaming/ ) that you are actually breaking. You probably don't give a dam, but as a vVv member I do. This is not helping you, this is not helping us. Yes they didn't proceed as you accorded, so what? Take it for what it is and live with it.
Since the Starcraft 2 division was closed, we have in deed had a few things going on in our heads. But this is an intern problem, not a public problem. I do acknowledge that you are not directly the one who threw out the word and that vVv themselves endangered the pillars by going on reddit saying they were closing the division... it was a bit like searching for the stick that will beat them... But the mature thing to do would've been to get over it.
If I had the same feelings and thoughts as you, I wouldn't be complaining the slightest about not being a member of vVv anymore. I would embrace my freedom, and start something else, something new, and most important, something bigger just to show them where they were wrong. But here's the thing, you can't... Why? I don't know and don't really care, thing is you just showed yourself trustful by going public instead of discussing with the concerned people (pillar N°4 for the recall).
So obviously by joining vVv gaming and accepting to respect the five pillars, you lied. Please note this, no one ever told you they would pay you, and after all why would they? you don't bring them money so... that's that, plus I'd like to bring something back to your minds, you and the aspire team, when you applied to vVv it wasn't as a sponsorship application but as a member of the community. Does Millenium Serveur (french WoW pserver) pay me for being active on their forums and stuff? I don't think so... No one forced you into doing what you did, if you didn't want to it's your problem, if you thought you would have something in return, you blinded yourself for nothing, because unless you can prove that they did a statement saying: I will do [this] for you if you do [this], you are the only one to blame for your situation.
Some of you may dislike Lordjerrith, Understandable, and note that it is his objective. He know that the only way to be listened to in this world is by being hated, or being made fun of. Just like that, how much of you have never watch a video of a guy raging on youtube? ok harder, How much of you have never watched a video of a guy hurting himself and talked about it to someone else? It is the same way that this works. He insults people to bring their attention to them by interposed people, and that is where this is strong, because when you are insulted, it is your self esteem that is heart, so you want to hear everything the other guy has to say to be able to counter attack so you just listen to the losers bracket in which you were talked about, and try to find something, only thing is you only find truth and that makes you hate him even more... You think that when he says to you that he has x years of experience in x domain and you don't it's annoying? Seriously man... just hang up then... This man here has brought ideas that nowadays seem to be common sense... And guess what, he also has ideas to develop esports that will be in place in the future...
For the direction of vVv, if you think RobzGod and Doomhammer are misleading vVv, tell them directly, don't wait for it to implode, if you felt abandoned, you should have talked with them instead of building hate and losing faith in them over time.
NuBrGNi left by his own. Okay, I do appreciate this guy, and do admit that what they asked from him was to much considering his life style, but still, he didn't say no. And they didn't say in that skype conversation that they would pay his travel. If the direction asked him for solid evidence that they should put money in him, well bro go check out the team liquid SC2 events calender and choose weekly tournaments to do, even if you shall stop streaming to do so, or if you have to stop helping team mates, no big deal, they should know what are the priorities. But now please don't come complain...
I think this is going too far for what the vVv SC2 Division was, after all we didn't have a roster and as I just said, it was a Division, not a team. People are just happy because it allows them to poop on vVv once again, please note that even if the head of vVv is "full of shit" as would say NuBrGNi, the vVv community isn't, and we don't need this to tarnish I image, some of us have ambitions and we'd like to not be stuck at some point because thank to people that dislike the head of the association decided that the members were as bad...
I'm sorry for the loss of the division, plus for myself it is the 3rd time I change status in vVv for diverse reasons, but it will not stop me from playing Starcraft, so why should it stop you? after all with or without them, it obviously makes no change since they didn't bring you anything from your says. Maybe you just needed this to appear as a scandal for you all to feel better, but seriously... You'll soon realize this is accomplishing nothing.
On January 30 2013 03:13 shid0x wrote: Just so you know : Its not like we ever cared about your so called ''team''. I think i can speak on the behalf of 80% of TL.
edit for people who gets mad at this post : Deal with it.
User was warned for this post
Reason people care about this team (and all other small teams for that matter), myself included, is because if up and coming players keep getting burned by small teams, what are they gonna do when they need to go to larger teams to support them properly, they won't trust them and the contracts will get thicker and more costly before they will sign, then you (us) will end up footing that bill in extra costs in the long run because percentages of everything will have to go to team.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
On January 30 2013 03:54 CanadianSC wrote: you're really complaining that his named account is low? As his room mate I can tell you that he uses 2 smurfs and then has the main. Main is for tournaments, 1 smurf for trying new builds/timings, 1 to try to ez that ladder. GL, and good on Torte de Lini for offering up a place. Hope nubrgini takes it.
If he was a GM player, he would have his main/named account in GM right? Come on dude make sense... Why he smurfin if he aint even high mater? I doubt his smurfs have high master points.
Glon was very often top 20 gm on NA this past year on his smurf. Yet I bet you've never seen vVvGlon in GM, hell I don't think I even have and I keep track of that shit pretty closely.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: This is not helping you, this is not helping us. Yes they didn't proceed as you accorded, so what? Take it for what it is and live with it.
Ever heard of Breach of contract? SC2 is not Halo, these are the big leagues. Luckily for your team, no one had signed contracts or else LJ would be receiving a couple letters from lawyers right now.
By the way, this is why this matters and why "take it for what it is and live with it" is quite possibly the most retarded response to this situation: http://sc2earnings.com/
By posting this information they might save some other players from wasting months of efforts into this shady bunch of people that make up vVv's management.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: Hey, I'm vVv Astraëa, firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
Still, when you joined vVv you accepted to respect the 5pillars ( http://www.vvv-gaming.com/forum/topic/39135-five-pillars-of-vvv-gaming/ ) that you are actually breaking. You probably don't give a dam, but as a vVv member I do. This is not helping you, this is not helping us. Yes they didn't proceed as you accorded, so what? Take it for what it is and live with it.
Since the Starcraft 2 division was closed, we have in deed had a few things going on in our heads. But this is an intern problem, not a public problem. I do acknowledge that you are not directly the one who threw out the word and that vVv themselves endangered the pillars by going on reddit saying they were closing the division... it was a bit like searching for the stick that will beat them... But the mature thing to do would've been to get over it.
If I had the same feelings and thoughts as you, I wouldn't be complaining the slightest about not being a member of vVv anymore. I would embrace my freedom, and start something else, something new, and most important, something bigger just to show them where they were wrong. But here's the thing, you can't... Why? I don't know and don't really care, thing is you just showed yourself trustful by going public instead of discussing with the concerned people (pillar N°4 for the recall).
So obviously by joining vVv gaming and accepting to respect the five pillars, you lied. Please note this, no one ever told you they would pay you, and after all why would they? you don't bring them money so... that's that, plus I'd like to bring something back to your minds, you and the aspire team, when you applied to vVv it wasn't as a sponsorship application but as a member of the community. Does Millenium Serveur (french WoW pserver) pay me for being active on their forums and stuff? I don't think so... No one forced you into doing what you did, if you didn't want to it's your problem, if you thought you would have something in return, you blinded yourself for nothing, because unless you can prove that they did a statement saying: I will do [this] for you if you do [this], you are the only one to blame for your situation.
Some of you may dislike Lordjerrith, Understandable, and note that it is his objective. He know that the only way to be listened to in this world is by being hated, or being made fun of. Just like that, how much of you have never watch a video of a guy raging on youtube? ok harder, How much of you have never watched a video of a guy hurting himself and talked about it to someone else? It is the same way that this works. He insults people to bring their attention to them by interposed people, and that is where this is strong, because when you are insulted, it is your self esteem that is heart, so you want to hear everything the other guy has to say to be able to counter attack so you just listen to the losers bracket in which you were talked about, and try to find something, only thing is you only find truth and that makes you hate him even more... You think that when he says to you that he has x years of experience in x domain and you don't it's annoying? Seriously man... just hang up then... This man here has brought ideas that nowadays seem to be common sense... And guess what, he also has ideas to develop esports that will be in place in the future...
For the direction of vVv, if you think RobzGod and Doomhammer are misleading vVv, tell them directly, don't wait for it to implode, if you felt abandoned, you should have talked with them instead of building hate and losing faith in them over time.
NuBrGNi left by his own. Okay, I do appreciate this guy, and do admit that what they asked from him was to much considering his life style, but still, he didn't say no. And they didn't say in that skype conversation that they would pay his travel. If the direction asked him for solid evidence that they should put money in him, well bro go check out the team liquid SC2 events calender and choose weekly tournaments to do, even if you shall stop streaming to do so, or if you have to stop helping team mates, no big deal, they should know what are the priorities. But now please don't come complain...
I think this is going too far for what the vVv SC2 Division was, after all we didn't have a roster and as I just said, it was a Division, not a team. People are just happy because it allows them to poop on vVv once again, please note that even if the head of vVv is "full of shit" as would say NuBrGNi, the vVv community isn't, and we don't need this to tarnish I image, some of us have ambitions and we'd like to not be stuck at some point because thank to people that dislike the head of the association decided that the members were as bad...
I'm sorry for the loss of the division, plus for myself it is the 3rd time I change status in vVv for diverse reasons, but it will not stop me from playing Starcraft, so why should it stop you? after all with or without them, it obviously makes no change since they didn't bring you anything from your says. Maybe you just needed this to appear as a scandal for you all to feel better, but seriously... You'll soon realize this is accomplishing nothing.
Sincere regards and respect,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel.
You don't know what you're talking about, as you could see if you actually read anything, we did talk to the management several times, you can't break a pillar of vVvGaming if you've already left.
The aspire team never asked for money.
The SC2 division was under the impression that the upper management would co-operate with them, and they didn't, that's why we left.
WE'RE NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT BEING DROPPED! WE LEFT! WE ARE NOT TRYING TO HELP vVv!
I got onto vVv back in September of 2011, was just a mid master zerg player, but won a tournament that got me into the academy. Back then, the team was consisting of the older squad with Titan, MurdeR, and Glon. I was excited, really excited. They were copying coL academy by letting us know that one of us would be lucky enough to get payed trip to the next MLG (Whoever won the academy tournament - Academy consisted of 6 players).
Anyways, a couple of the academy members missed a mumble meeting or two, got kicked off. Some of us didn't change our twitter ID's to have vVv in it, another reason you got bitched at / kicked off, or you just didn't post in the forums enough. Silly things got you kicked out of vVv, so it took a lot of effort for anyone on the squad. By this time, it was just me, an old friend Starkad, and a zerg who's ID is slipping my mind (crbox maybe?).
Anyways, we were excited to see who would win the MLG trip and what not, so we prepared for the event.
We then got this delightful message:
Hey guys,
I have some bad news: MLG Providence competitor passes have sold out. Unfortunately this means we can't send anyone to MLG Providence from the academy this season.
Instead, we are going to hold the tournament as usual. The top player to finish this season will be sent to the next MLG event in 2012. We will also keep this player on the academy next season (so that they can train and prepare with other academy members the entire time between now and then).
Let me know if you have any questions.
Ok, not so bad right? Well, next season I planned on going to MLG Columbus, but ended up paying for it all out of my pocket as vVv declined sending me or anyone from the academy out there (Which they promised right above me).
But nope, I still had faith in vVv. Grandmaster was my goal from the academy so I worked my ass off to get it (about 1.5 ladder games per season) until I finally got GM with zerg with help from mostly Titan. I was excited, I improved with the help of titan, had a couple good practice partners and what not, and they finally moved me up to the sponsored team.
I was really excited, as sponsored players got gear and got to go to MLG's on vVv's dime and what not, seemed like it would be fun, and I really wanted to go to the next MLG (And as a broke college student, I can only afford to pay for so many extra expenses...)
Anyways, all the sponsored players were supposed to get gear, so I asked Sugarbear for a headset. Here's the response!
Hey ToXSiK,
I heard back from Jerry, and we can send you a headset. We need the following from you:
- Unboxing video (if possible) for when you open the headset for the first time - Written review once you've been using it for ~two weeks - Promoting these things on your facebook, twitter, and stream.
Do you think that's all possible?
To which I replied
Yes, all of this will be possible.
Yep, still haven't received anything. In fact, the only thing vVv has ever given me is a t-shirt (Which they were handing out to ANYONE at MLG Columbus, the event that remember I had to pay in full for... The one where they were going to send an academy member to)
I didn't want to make such a big deal about all this, but this is why I eventually left vVv, and it seems people are curious here on why vVv finally shut down. Rocker left because jerry (LordJerith - owner of vVv) came into a team meeting one day and told us he was cutting all player funding from the sc2 squad except for Glon and RuFF because they had done decent at MLG (Like top 50 on the open bracket or something?). Well, I was disappointed, but I still stayed on vVv for about three months to see if things would eventually work out.
Slowly all of our good players left, Rocker left because the team was just going downhill, daisuki left because he got a personal sponsor, Titan and Murder quit, so just me and glon and ruff were really left. At this point I was approached by BlighT (LOL) which I declined and then went with oGaming where they've been super great to me.
Anyways, just thought you guys might be interested in my point of view on the situation, vVv really is not a team, it's just a bunch of gamers that pretend they are a team. They expect 100% from you and give you nothing in return, even if they promise it. I just can't believe it took them this long to die.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: Hey, I'm vVv Astraëa, firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
Still, when you joined vVv you accepted to respect the 5pillars ( http://www.vvv-gaming.com/forum/topic/39135-five-pillars-of-vvv-gaming/ ) that you are actually breaking. You probably don't give a dam, but as a vVv member I do. This is not helping you, this is not helping us. Yes they didn't proceed as you accorded, so what? Take it for what it is and live with it.
Since the Starcraft 2 division was closed, we have in deed had a few things going on in our heads. But this is an intern problem, not a public problem. I do acknowledge that you are not directly the one who threw out the word and that vVv themselves endangered the pillars by going on reddit saying they were closing the division... it was a bit like searching for the stick that will beat them... But the mature thing to do would've been to get over it.
If I had the same feelings and thoughts as you, I wouldn't be complaining the slightest about not being a member of vVv anymore. I would embrace my freedom, and start something else, something new, and most important, something bigger just to show them where they were wrong. But here's the thing, you can't... Why? I don't know and don't really care, thing is you just showed yourself trustful by going public instead of discussing with the concerned people (pillar N°4 for the recall).
So obviously by joining vVv gaming and accepting to respect the five pillars, you lied. Please note this, no one ever told you they would pay you, and after all why would they? you don't bring them money so... that's that, plus I'd like to bring something back to your minds, you and the aspire team, when you applied to vVv it wasn't as a sponsorship application but as a member of the community. Does Millenium Serveur (french WoW pserver) pay me for being active on their forums and stuff? I don't think so... No one forced you into doing what you did, if you didn't want to it's your problem, if you thought you would have something in return, you blinded yourself for nothing, because unless you can prove that they did a statement saying: I will do [this] for you if you do [this], you are the only one to blame for your situation.
Some of you may dislike Lordjerrith, Understandable, and note that it is his objective. He know that the only way to be listened to in this world is by being hated, or being made fun of. Just like that, how much of you have never watch a video of a guy raging on youtube? ok harder, How much of you have never watched a video of a guy hurting himself and talked about it to someone else? It is the same way that this works. He insults people to bring their attention to them by interposed people, and that is where this is strong, because when you are insulted, it is your self esteem that is heart, so you want to hear everything the other guy has to say to be able to counter attack so you just listen to the losers bracket in which you were talked about, and try to find something, only thing is you only find truth and that makes you hate him even more... You think that when he says to you that he has x years of experience in x domain and you don't it's annoying? Seriously man... just hang up then... This man here has brought ideas that nowadays seem to be common sense... And guess what, he also has ideas to develop esports that will be in place in the future...
For the direction of vVv, if you think RobzGod and Doomhammer are misleading vVv, tell them directly, don't wait for it to implode, if you felt abandoned, you should have talked with them instead of building hate and losing faith in them over time.
NuBrGNi left by his own. Okay, I do appreciate this guy, and do admit that what they asked from him was to much considering his life style, but still, he didn't say no. And they didn't say in that skype conversation that they would pay his travel. If the direction asked him for solid evidence that they should put money in him, well bro go check out the team liquid SC2 events calender and choose weekly tournaments to do, even if you shall stop streaming to do so, or if you have to stop helping team mates, no big deal, they should know what are the priorities. But now please don't come complain...
I think this is going too far for what the vVv SC2 Division was, after all we didn't have a roster and as I just said, it was a Division, not a team. People are just happy because it allows them to poop on vVv once again, please note that even if the head of vVv is "full of shit" as would say NuBrGNi, the vVv community isn't, and we don't need this to tarnish I image, some of us have ambitions and we'd like to not be stuck at some point because thank to people that dislike the head of the association decided that the members were as bad...
I'm sorry for the loss of the division, plus for myself it is the 3rd time I change status in vVv for diverse reasons, but it will not stop me from playing Starcraft, so why should it stop you? after all with or without them, it obviously makes no change since they didn't bring you anything from your says. Maybe you just needed this to appear as a scandal for you all to feel better, but seriously... You'll soon realize this is accomplishing nothing.
Sincere regards and respect,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel.
The management lied, publicly, and you blame the players for speaking out in public? I'm sure no one here is blaming your community, they're blaming the management.
You think that when he says to you that he has x years of experience in x domain and you don't it's annoying? Seriously man... just hang up then... This man here has brought ideas that nowadays seem to be common sense... And guess what, he also has ideas to develop esports that will be in place in the future...
I'm a nonamer on the esports scale and I have more managerial and esports organizational experience than Jerith. He is NOBODY. Get off his D and explore the world, you might figure that vVv is an insignificant, annoying rock in the community's shoe. The man brought no ideas, he got them elsewhere. He also has horrible business sense, as vVv is still at rock bottom and unknown to most people (I only know of vVv because I've been heaviliy involved in esports in the past and I regard them as one of those joke orgas that failed hard to adapt to the PC reality when switching from consoles). You just wouldn't know any better because it's clear that you haven't experienced any different.
If I had the same feelings and thoughts as you, I wouldn't be complaining the slightest about not being a member of vVv anymore. I would embrace my freedom, and start something else, something new, and most important, something bigger just to show them where they were wrong. But here's the thing, you can't... Why? I don't know and don't really care, thing is you just showed yourself trustful by going public instead of discussing with the concerned people (pillar N°4 for the recall).
Nobody is complaining that they can't be a member anymore (like seriously ... you must be kidding, nobody cares about what team tag they wear, as long as they get support and exposure, which vVv has none of). Obviously they will keep playing, so why do you say "here's the thing, you can't"... Nobody here said they were quitting the game, learn to read ffs. They will keep going as just Aspire, but the post, as you clearly don't seem to understand, is to warn other potential victims about vVv's malpractices.
And insulting community pillars like scoots, wheat, sundance or others won't get you anywhere. Especially when these people have accomplished a million times more things than Jerith and his crew ever will.
Oh and the vVv community might not be shit (although LJ is shit), but it's certainly a bunch of casuals with clearly no understanding of esports outside of vVv. It's like if you lived on an island your whole life and just aren't aware of the world around you, so I can't even blame you for being so ignorant about the larger picture here.
On January 30 2013 03:54 CanadianSC wrote: you're really complaining that his named account is low? As his room mate I can tell you that he uses 2 smurfs and then has the main. Main is for tournaments, 1 smurf for trying new builds/timings, 1 to try to ez that ladder. GL, and good on Torte de Lini for offering up a place. Hope nubrgini takes it.
If he was a GM player, he would have his main/named account in GM right? Come on dude make sense... Why he smurfin if he aint even high mater? I doubt his smurfs have high master points.
Glon was very often top 20 gm on NA this past year on his smurf. Yet I bet you've never seen vVvGlon in GM, hell I don't think I even have and I keep track of that shit pretty closely.
Unfortunate. I never knew much about vVv aside from playing some of their players on ladder, but it sure looks like a lot of good people had their time and hard work go into improving the team. It's sad it had to end this way.
On January 30 2013 05:02 zuhairZ wrote: VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV toxsik, Titan and nooborghini all my home boys. always heard bad things aobut vVv management :\
Wow zoohairz, was your other account banned THAT long ago that they've not caught this one? Damn how time flies ~. But yea, don't think anyone in sc2 will be missing vVv.
On January 30 2013 03:54 CanadianSC wrote: you're really complaining that his named account is low? As his room mate I can tell you that he uses 2 smurfs and then has the main. Main is for tournaments, 1 smurf for trying new builds/timings, 1 to try to ez that ladder. GL, and good on Torte de Lini for offering up a place. Hope nubrgini takes it.
If he was a GM player, he would have his main/named account in GM right? Come on dude make sense... Why he smurfin if he aint even high mater? I doubt his smurfs have high master points.
Glon was very often top 20 gm on NA this past year on his smurf. Yet I bet you've never seen vVvGlon in GM, hell I don't think I even have and I keep track of that shit pretty closely.
Umm vVvgLon account is in gm...
Ok turns out from sc2ranks history that his main account ended in GM twice in 2012 out of 5 seasons, once in top 16 gm. Whereas his smurf was in GM every season after the first, after he got it (3 times). And in fact his smurf has been renamed to GosuGlon and is the one currently in GM. So I guess he does play both sort of, but mainly his smurf.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
I do know all this and that is also a fact, vVv gaming is not a pro gaming team. It is a multi-gaming community with players within the community looking to go higher.
I do have a hard planned schedule, but don't feel ready to try tournaments. Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down. Plus, the fact that the Aspire members decided to leave suddenly made them close the entire SC2 division, therefor they are to blame for my last change.
I see you talk about contracts (happy you do), as mentioned, these players didn't have one. Therefor vVv did have no legal engagement. As said previously, I do as good as I can to help the WoW server I play on develop itself even though it does take me time. But since I have no contract with them, it is just pure passion.
i think the notion of passion is something that is being neglected more and more in the esports domain, a lot of players start to forget that playing games once was for fun and not to win or make money. I believe that reminding those principals too kids at school as much as possible could solve that, still I doubt any school would do this for the esports community, no school (or at least french one) accepted an esports scholarship thinking that video games are bad for health and stuff like that that the medias brought to their heads...
As a matter of a fact, there are some things that do happen to turn bad. So to the "Why?" I answer "because". You said that the people that vVv sent out were clowns, who tells you they had anything better... That might have been what made the head of vVv need proof of NuBrGNi's level to decide if they would give him money, because until then the only people to who they did give money turned out to be clowns... vVv hasn't had the good elements because they weren't offering the big pay checks, the few players they got fucked them up, so in return they got suspicious about the people they engaged. That could easily explain the place they got stuck in.
But let's take this as a new start for us. We don't have any players on the games that old players dishonored our name on, and our leader isn't Lordjerrith anymore but a young nice guy going under the name of DoomHammer. The community seems to have grown from the mistakes of the past and shall probably respond as such.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
I do know all this and that is also a fact, vVv gaming is not a pro gaming team. It is a multi-gaming community with players within the community looking to go higher.
I do have a hard planned schedule, but don't feel ready to try tournaments. Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down. Plus, the fact that the Aspire members decided to leave suddenly made them close the entire SC2 division, therefor they are to blame for my last change.
I see you talk about contracts (happy you do), as mentioned, these players didn't have one. Therefor vVv did have no legal engagement. As said previously, I do as good as I can to help the WoW server I play on develop itself even though it does take me time. But since I have no contract with them, it is just pure passion.
i think the notion of passion is something that is being neglected more and more in the esports domain, a lot of players start to forget that playing games once was for fun and not to win or make money. I believe that reminding those principals too kids at school as much as possible could solve that, still I doubt any school would do this for the esports community, no school (or at least french one) accepted an esports scholarship thinking that video games are bad for health and stuff like that that the medias brought to their heads...
As a matter of a fact, there are some things that do happen to turn bad. So to the "Why?" I answer "because". You said that the people that vVv sent out were clowns, who tells you they had anything better... That might have been what made the head of vVv need proof of NuBrGNi's level to decide if they would give him money, because until then the only people to who they did give money turned out to be clowns... vVv hasn't had the good elements because they weren't offering the big pay checks, the few players they got fucked them up, so in return they got suspicious about the people they engaged. That could easily explain the place they got stuck in.
But let's take this as a new start for us. We don't have any players on the games that old players dishonored our name on, and our leader isn't Lordjerrith anymore but a young nice guy going under the name of DoomHammer. The community seems to have grown from the mistakes of the past and shall probably respond as such.
Hope I have answered your questions,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel
Can you please clarify as to how the SC2 'sponsored team', and the academy 'dishonoured' vVv? From the numerous player statements, it seems that the vVv management did not live up to what they promised, not the other way round.
Okay I guess I'll have to do a general answer again...
If you have a problem with Lordjerrith, please know that he is only the owner of vVv and no longer at the head of the community. As I just said, we have a new path in front of us and will advance on other games than Starcraft. you may think vVv is a joke, we all have our bad days...
Some of you may think I'm a C Sucker because I am defending a community (I insist on "COMMUNITY" not team) that was once ruled by a jerk with no sense, and that once had shit players that tarnished their image, to that I reply that I am defending the players of a community that have potential and motivation for their passion. Even though our principals were not respected until now, the players we have now do respect them and they won't change. That is the reason why better than leaving vVv we prefer to restore the image of the community so that one day it'll be called a team.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
I do know all this and that is also a fact, vVv gaming is not a pro gaming team. It is a multi-gaming community with players within the community looking to go higher.
I do have a hard planned schedule, but don't feel ready to try tournaments. Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down. Plus, the fact that the Aspire members decided to leave suddenly made them close the entire SC2 division, therefor they are to blame for my last change.
I see you talk about contracts (happy you do), as mentioned, these players didn't have one. Therefor vVv did have no legal engagement. As said previously, I do as good as I can to help the WoW server I play on develop itself even though it does take me time. But since I have no contract with them, it is just pure passion.
i think the notion of passion is something that is being neglected more and more in the esports domain, a lot of players start to forget that playing games once was for fun and not to win or make money. I believe that reminding those principals too kids at school as much as possible could solve that, still I doubt any school would do this for the esports community, no school (or at least french one) accepted an esports scholarship thinking that video games are bad for health and stuff like that that the medias brought to their heads...
As a matter of a fact, there are some things that do happen to turn bad. So to the "Why?" I answer "because". You said that the people that vVv sent out were clowns, who tells you they had anything better... That might have been what made the head of vVv need proof of NuBrGNi's level to decide if they would give him money, because until then the only people to who they did give money turned out to be clowns... vVv hasn't had the good elements because they weren't offering the big pay checks, the few players they got fucked them up, so in return they got suspicious about the people they engaged. That could easily explain the place they got stuck in.
But let's take this as a new start for us. We don't have any players on the games that old players dishonored our name on, and our leader isn't Lordjerrith anymore but a young nice guy going under the name of DoomHammer. The community seems to have grown from the mistakes of the past and shall probably respond as such.
Hope I have answered your questions,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel
Can you please clarify as to how the SC2 'sponsored team', and the academy 'dishonoured' vVv? From the numerous player statements, it seems that the vVv management did not live up to what they promised, not the other way round.
Where did you see promises? I didn't see any...
These players are tarnishing the image of vVv by trying to create a scandal around our community to make themselves interesting... plus they are going against the principals of the team they seemed to like by not respecting the fourth pillar of vVv gaming which reveals of common sense.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
I do know all this and that is also a fact, vVv gaming is not a pro gaming team. It is a multi-gaming community with players within the community looking to go higher.
I do have a hard planned schedule, but don't feel ready to try tournaments. Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down. Plus, the fact that the Aspire members decided to leave suddenly made them close the entire SC2 division, therefor they are to blame for my last change.
I see you talk about contracts (happy you do), as mentioned, these players didn't have one. Therefor vVv did have no legal engagement. As said previously, I do as good as I can to help the WoW server I play on develop itself even though it does take me time. But since I have no contract with them, it is just pure passion.
i think the notion of passion is something that is being neglected more and more in the esports domain, a lot of players start to forget that playing games once was for fun and not to win or make money. I believe that reminding those principals too kids at school as much as possible could solve that, still I doubt any school would do this for the esports community, no school (or at least french one) accepted an esports scholarship thinking that video games are bad for health and stuff like that that the medias brought to their heads...
As a matter of a fact, there are some things that do happen to turn bad. So to the "Why?" I answer "because". You said that the people that vVv sent out were clowns, who tells you they had anything better... That might have been what made the head of vVv need proof of NuBrGNi's level to decide if they would give him money, because until then the only people to who they did give money turned out to be clowns... vVv hasn't had the good elements because they weren't offering the big pay checks, the few players they got fucked them up, so in return they got suspicious about the people they engaged. That could easily explain the place they got stuck in.
But let's take this as a new start for us. We don't have any players on the games that old players dishonored our name on, and our leader isn't Lordjerrith anymore but a young nice guy going under the name of DoomHammer. The community seems to have grown from the mistakes of the past and shall probably respond as such.
Hope I have answered your questions,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel
Can you please clarify as to how the SC2 'sponsored team', and the academy 'dishonoured' vVv? From the numerous player statements, it seems that the vVv management did not live up to what they promised, not the other way round.
Where did you see promises? I didn't see any...
These players are tarnishing the image of vVv by trying to create a scandal around our community to make themselves interesting... plus they are going against the principals of the team they seemed to like by not respecting the fourth pillar of vVv gaming which reveals of common sense.
???? Did you willfully not read the posts of some of the former players (not referring to the Aspire players)???
And why would you bother to not say things publicly when you're clearly getting a PR shaft up the anus and no longer part of the community/team?
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down.
Proving my point. Not a single progamer does that. No one. Nada. Some switch (like completely switch, stop a game totally and play another one full-time). To get you to "tournament status" in SC2 would require well over a year of 6-10 hours of laddering if you have no competitive background in BW, maybe 6-8 months if you were a solid BW player.
You are a casual gamer dude. And that's totally fine, but you can't relate to the players on Aspire. You're probably a terrible player at all 3 games when gauged on a competitive scale. If you focused on a single game, you'd probably end up decent in it, depending on the skill cap of your game of choice and the time invested in it.
I spent almost 10 years playing CS 1.6 and still wasn't at the top. True competitive platforms like BW/SC2, CS1.6, Q3 and a few others require years of intense practice to get anywhere at a competitive level. These guys from Aspire aren't trying to be casuals and that's not why vVv took them onboard. The goal was to be competitive. This is why what vVv did is just flat-out bad.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
I do know all this and that is also a fact, vVv gaming is not a pro gaming team. It is a multi-gaming community with players within the community looking to go higher.
I do have a hard planned schedule, but don't feel ready to try tournaments. Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down. Plus, the fact that the Aspire members decided to leave suddenly made them close the entire SC2 division, therefor they are to blame for my last change.
I see you talk about contracts (happy you do), as mentioned, these players didn't have one. Therefor vVv did have no legal engagement. As said previously, I do as good as I can to help the WoW server I play on develop itself even though it does take me time. But since I have no contract with them, it is just pure passion.
i think the notion of passion is something that is being neglected more and more in the esports domain, a lot of players start to forget that playing games once was for fun and not to win or make money. I believe that reminding those principals too kids at school as much as possible could solve that, still I doubt any school would do this for the esports community, no school (or at least french one) accepted an esports scholarship thinking that video games are bad for health and stuff like that that the medias brought to their heads...
As a matter of a fact, there are some things that do happen to turn bad. So to the "Why?" I answer "because". You said that the people that vVv sent out were clowns, who tells you they had anything better... That might have been what made the head of vVv need proof of NuBrGNi's level to decide if they would give him money, because until then the only people to who they did give money turned out to be clowns... vVv hasn't had the good elements because they weren't offering the big pay checks, the few players they got fucked them up, so in return they got suspicious about the people they engaged. That could easily explain the place they got stuck in.
But let's take this as a new start for us. We don't have any players on the games that old players dishonored our name on, and our leader isn't Lordjerrith anymore but a young nice guy going under the name of DoomHammer. The community seems to have grown from the mistakes of the past and shall probably respond as such.
Hope I have answered your questions,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel
Can you please clarify as to how the SC2 'sponsored team', and the academy 'dishonoured' vVv? From the numerous player statements, it seems that the vVv management did not live up to what they promised, not the other way round.
Where did you see promises? I didn't see any...
These players are tarnishing the image of vVv by trying to create a scandal around our community to make themselves interesting... plus they are going against the principals of the team they seemed to like by not respecting the fourth pillar of vVv gaming which reveals of common sense.
It sounds like vVv broke their own pillars by enticing players with offers and then failing to deliver.
???? Did you willfully not read the posts of some of the former players (not referring to the Aspire players)???
And why would you bother to not say things publicly when you're clearly getting a PR shaft up the anus and no longer part of the community/team?
Did you not read what I said earlier? there are no evident promises that have been made and those who are stated aren't provided with proof !
And they may not be members of the community any more, it doesn't take away there common sense... other wise they deserved to get screwed even if it isn't the case
On January 30 2013 03:54 CanadianSC wrote: you're really complaining that his named account is low? As his room mate I can tell you that he uses 2 smurfs and then has the main. Main is for tournaments, 1 smurf for trying new builds/timings, 1 to try to ez that ladder. GL, and good on Torte de Lini for offering up a place. Hope nubrgini takes it.
If he was a GM player, he would have his main/named account in GM right? Come on dude make sense... Why he smurfin if he aint even high mater? I doubt his smurfs have high master points.
Glon was very often top 20 gm on NA this past year on his smurf. Yet I bet you've never seen vVvGlon in GM, hell I don't think I even have and I keep track of that shit pretty closely.
Umm vVvgLon account is in gm...
If you see Nub's match history its like 99% customs with high masters/gm. You dont need to ladder to be good at the game.
We've traditionally never covered both for a sponsored players first event with us.
Does this not break anyone else's brain? What the fuck? Isn't the ENTIRE POINT of signing a contract for sponsorship that they cover these things? If they told me this I would instantly drop from the team.
I'm not gonna post too much in details as I only stayed with the academy for about two weeks but things have been shady from the beginning... This happened a long time ago like back when they had Hasu - Ruff - Titan - I think it was even before Glon (not sure), but they never were so clear about what any details. I don't think they ever planned to run a legitimate team, they just tried to hustle some sponsorship with lower players trying to make a name of themselves.
I'm glad most people came clean, but, without attacking the people behind it, I think VvV was a really shitty organization that treated it's players like crap.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down.
Proving my point. Not a single progamer does that. No one. Nada. Some switch (like completely switch, stop a game totally and play another one full-time). To get you to "tournament status" in SC2 would require well over a year of 6-10 hours of laddering if you have no competitive background in BW, maybe 6-8 months if you were a solid BW player.
You are a casual gamer dude. And that's totally fine, but you can't relate to the players on Aspire. You're probably a terrible player at all 3 games when gauged on a competitive scale. If you focused on a single game, you'd probably end up decent in it, depending on the skill cap of your game of choice and the time invested in it.
I spent almost 10 years playing CS 1.6 and still wasn't at the top. True competitive platforms like BW/SC2, CS1.6, Q3 and a few others require years of intense practice to get anywhere at a competitive level. These guys from Aspire aren't trying to be casuals and that's not why vVv took them onboard. The goal was to be competitive. This is why what vVv did is just flat-out bad.
I would also like to point out I had a feeling there was a disconnect involved when he, being a vVv "mmo player", namely WoW, has his WoW play consisting of playing on a private (read: nonlegit) WotLK (read: 2 expansions ago) server. Aka no chance of any actual competitive play whatsoever, so obviously completely casual, which is not what Aspire was supposedly for, unless there was some miscommunication there too.
It's like saying you're an SC2 player when Legacy of the Void is the current expansion, but you play Wings of Liberty on a Chinese private server.
So I'm not sure if he's getting the viewpoint and expectations of the Aspire team, and what they may have communicated with management. Or perhaps there was miscommunication on both sides and Aspire was never meant to be anything but a "community" and not a "team" from the management's side? Have no idea, what a mess. But I can't help but get the feeling there was an asymmetry in expectations based on this guy's view of what vVv is and isn't.
But all that aside, there's still the missed expecations of some of the earlier players before the whole Aspire thing happened, so maybe the SC2 management is just shady after all.
???? Did you willfully not read the posts of some of the former players (not referring to the Aspire players)???
And why would you bother to not say things publicly when you're clearly getting a PR shaft up the anus and no longer part of the community/team?
Did you not read what I said earlier? there are no evident promises that have been made and those who are stated aren't provided with proof !
And they may not be members of the community any more, it doesn't take away there common sense... other wise they deserved to get screwed even if it isn't the case
PM I sent to Doomhammer after I found out the next day that SC2 were all removed from vVv:
Me: That is a strange decision. The content of the post and the way this was handled completely contradicts the spirit of our discussions last night.
Also, Astraea was dropped even though he was super active in the forums and had no affiliation with our decision to leave. Might want to reconsider him. I believe he was moved to SC2 from GW2 fairly recently.
I'm the one who got you added back into vVv. The fact that you're badmouthing me now even though you were removed from vVv without being talked to is hilarious.
???? Did you willfully not read the posts of some of the former players (not referring to the Aspire players)???
And why would you bother to not say things publicly when you're clearly getting a PR shaft up the anus and no longer part of the community/team?
Did you not read what I said earlier? there are no evident promises that have been made and those who are stated aren't provided with proof !
And they may not be members of the community any more, it doesn't take away there common sense... other wise they deserved to get screwed even if it isn't the case
So they never promised the winner of their academy tournament a trip to the next mlg and have taken it back later? All these players just thought up this coordinated lie, that the management doesn't keep promises ( like sending players to tournaments), or the promise that they make a coordinated post about them leaving which the management obviously ignored to make it into a post that they "dropped" them?
How can u even trust in such douchebags as a management team.
On January 30 2013 03:41 Torte de Lini wrote: Nooborghini: How close do you live to ETS? Sucks that all that shit happened, but I live diagonally from the ETS venue and can have you stay at my place if you still can afford to go there and compete (I'll provide you with food/cooking & lodging).
No charge, just figured my couch would enjoy someone's tired soul on it.
Oh and vVv sucks, LordJerith is completely incompetent, I didn't expect his crew of "upper management" to be any better.
Hey I got saw, I PM'D you but I'll post it on here just in case.
Unfortunately I can't afford to go to LAN ETS cause of the ticket + travel cost.
I really wanted to go but I just can't afford the trip myself.
Thank you so much for your kind offer but unfortunately due to the finances I can't.
If there is anything you need from me, feel free to ask!
Thanks again ^^
On January 30 2013 03:46 t e a C h e r wrote: NuBrGNi, barely even plays, This season he has less than 10 games, Then he wonders why vVv ain't paying/supporting....
If I was invited to play for vVv, i'd just play, no complaints no posts on TL.
You are privileged to play for a decent team like vVv, they aren't on the lvl of col or EG, so you can't expect much.
argggg , people think they deserve what they have not earned.
On the contrary, I play A LOT. I don't like people assuming I'm not either high in points or play a lot since I don't play on my main. For my roommates and people who know me I ALWAYS play. If I have down time, I play until I can't play anymore.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
I do know all this and that is also a fact, vVv gaming is not a pro gaming team. It is a multi-gaming community with players within the community looking to go higher.
I do have a hard planned schedule, but don't feel ready to try tournaments. Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down. Plus, the fact that the Aspire members decided to leave suddenly made them close the entire SC2 division, therefor they are to blame for my last change.
I see you talk about contracts (happy you do), as mentioned, these players didn't have one. Therefor vVv did have no legal engagement. As said previously, I do as good as I can to help the WoW server I play on develop itself even though it does take me time. But since I have no contract with them, it is just pure passion.
i think the notion of passion is something that is being neglected more and more in the esports domain, a lot of players start to forget that playing games once was for fun and not to win or make money. I believe that reminding those principals too kids at school as much as possible could solve that, still I doubt any school would do this for the esports community, no school (or at least french one) accepted an esports scholarship thinking that video games are bad for health and stuff like that that the medias brought to their heads...
As a matter of a fact, there are some things that do happen to turn bad. So to the "Why?" I answer "because". You said that the people that vVv sent out were clowns, who tells you they had anything better... That might have been what made the head of vVv need proof of NuBrGNi's level to decide if they would give him money, because until then the only people to who they did give money turned out to be clowns... vVv hasn't had the good elements because they weren't offering the big pay checks, the few players they got fucked them up, so in return they got suspicious about the people they engaged. That could easily explain the place they got stuck in.
But let's take this as a new start for us. We don't have any players on the games that old players dishonored our name on, and our leader isn't Lordjerrith anymore but a young nice guy going under the name of DoomHammer. The community seems to have grown from the mistakes of the past and shall probably respond as such.
Hope I have answered your questions,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel
Can you please clarify as to how the SC2 'sponsored team', and the academy 'dishonoured' vVv? From the numerous player statements, it seems that the vVv management did not live up to what they promised, not the other way round.
Where did you see promises? I didn't see any...
These players are tarnishing the image of vVv by trying to create a scandal around our community to make themselves interesting... plus they are going against the principals of the team they seemed to like by not respecting the fourth pillar of vVv gaming which reveals of common sense.
The promises were made in mumble in a verbal agreement, when I confronted Doomhammer regarding a contract he dismissed it as neutrally as possible. I thought nothing of it, I just let it slide where I messed up.
Most of the promises were made via mumble, since they made SO many mistakes before via email, skype, something with saved evidence, they moved into mumble/verbal agreements. At the time I was too busy focused with the ridiculous things that they were asking me to do, as well as maintain both my 44+ hr fulltime job w/ 3 hour travel time AND sc2. He even made me write out a stupid week to week schedule on where I practice sc2 and what I do. I already had this but the time spent doing this ON paper and sending it over to him, on a week to week basis was a pain in the ass.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote:
As a matter of a fact, there are some things that do happen to turn bad. So to the "Why?" I answer "because". You said that the people that vVv sent out were clowns, who tells you they had anything better... That might have been what made the head of vVv need proof of NuBrGNi's level to decide if they would give him money, because until then the only people to who they did give money turned out to be clowns... vVv hasn't had the good elements because they weren't offering the big pay checks, the few players they got fucked them up, so in return they got suspicious about the people they engaged. That could easily explain the place they got stuck in.
But let's take this as a new start for us. We don't have any players on the games that old players dishonored our name on, and our leader isn't Lordjerrith anymore but a young nice guy going under the name of DoomHammer. The community seems to have grown from the mistakes of the past and shall probably respond as such.
Hope I have answered your questions,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel
A new start isn't deserved with the head of vVv. This is exactly what is happening with you, you are being controlled and manipulated by vVv to speak good on their behalf. You constantly speak of "community" but you try to defend the head of vVv, I did NOT say anything about the community, I support the community 110% as they supported me.
Your posts are influenced by vVv's head management, you're fooling no one here.
I was not promised the gear I required, the LAN tickets/financial support I required to go to these events. I even missed the buy-in for LAN ETS ticket BECAUSE they didn't even look into it and they sold out. Now the price is like $115.
For the past few LAN's I've been to, I paid for my own money because it's like $10 AND I'm having financial issues.
I asked for a shirt, they asked for my size, nothing was given.
EVERYTHING that vVv has told me that they were doing, nothing was being done. Here how the system works.
Me requesting things to either Salvor or another Head of vVv. Salvor would tell a Head of vVv. Head of vVv does not process it. AT ALL. If I went to a Head of vVv, I was told lies and said that it was being done.
We've traditionally never covered both for a sponsored players first event with us.
Does this not break anyone else's brain? What the fuck? Isn't the ENTIRE POINT of signing a contract for sponsorship that they cover these things? If they told me this I would instantly drop from the team.
This was an alarm for me but Dallas was HotS so I decided to just turn a blind eye because I played Wings at the time, I haven't practiced HotS at all.
On January 30 2013 05:21 exfrozensteel wrote: Okay I guess I'll have to do a general answer again...
If you have a problem with Lordjerrith, please know that he is only the owner of vVv and no longer at the head of the community. As I just said, we have a new path in front of us and will advance on other games than Starcraft. you may think vVv is a joke, we all have our bad days...
Some of you may think I'm a C Sucker because I am defending a community (I insist on "COMMUNITY" not team) that was once ruled by a jerk with no sense, and that once had shit players that tarnished their image, to that I reply that I am defending the players of a community that have potential and motivation for their passion. Even though our principals were not respected until now, the players we have now do respect them and they won't change. That is the reason why better than leaving vVv we prefer to restore the image of the community so that one day it'll be called a team.
Peter "Astraëa" Steel
It'll never be respected until it is competitive (by competitive, here, I mean that it places high in tourneys or has players perform well in visible leagues/ladders/lans).
It'll never be competitive until it picks up good players.
It'll never pick up good players until it gets serious
It'll never get serious because it is a non-competitive community
See the circle?
Again, sorry to break it to you, but you're probably awful at the games you play. You can't take vVv seriously when players can just switch from game to game as divisions shut down, unless you were some sort of gaming genius, in which case anyone here would have heard your name. Even the mid-tier of US pros (so the bottom tier of the pro scene), have probably spent more time playing SC2 in the last 2 years then you've spent playing games, period. You just can't appreciate the dedication required to achieve pro status in a game like SC2, CS or even LoL at this point (like, CLG status, not like, you do good against your buddies status), as most casual gamers do.
On January 30 2013 04:36 exfrozensteel wrote: firstly GW2 player for vVv then Community Gamer for vVv, then SC2 player for vVv, just member no sponsor thing, now MMO player.
And this is why vVv can't be considered a serious legitimate eSports organization but nothing else than a community site/clan. You might not understand where I'm coming from with this but no serious team would have "community teams" or switch players from a game to the other (I mean, if you were a legend in say, GW2 then switching to SC2, that'd be one thing, they could promote it and bring GW2 fans to follow the SC2 by streaming your progress but I doubt you follow a pro practice regimen of playing 6-10 hours of intense SC2 laddering) but if you were such a legend, we'd all know your name, so as far as I know you're just some gamer like anyone here, so why a "pro team" would have you on their line up in the first place is puzzling and also evidence that vVv is not a serious team.
As far as your statement and defending vVv, well I wouldn't really expect an outsider to eSports to understand right off the bat, but pro SC2 players dedicate what is pretty much a "full-time job" type of time commitment into their practice, so for them to be promised incentives in exchange for creating content and bringing visibility to the vVv brand and then for the organization to reneg on their promises is shady, immoral and downright disgusting. This is why pro teams nowadays have contracts, they protect both the organization and the players. But vVv has never been in the business of protecting their players, nor have they ever had a clue how to run an organization.
Why has vVv, with all the console community support it had/has with casuals, not become as big and powerful as an EG, coL or Liquid? If Jerith is such a genius businessman, why is vVv regarded as a joke by most competitive teams and esports "personalities"? FPS community thinks vVv is horrid and plays shit games with controllers that only appeal to casual pre-teens. RTS community thinks vVv is shady as hell and abused the trust of up and coming players. FGC community would like to stab Jerith a few times... Not to mention Jerith constantly contradicts himself.... rants against multigenre gamers but the only people on vVv to ever get exposure were the noob clowns they had in WCG Ultimate Gamer (people who couldnt even dominate their native games, yet play anything else)...
And don't even get me started on vVv having "professional" guitar hero and dj hero players....
I do know all this and that is also a fact, vVv gaming is not a pro gaming team. It is a multi-gaming community with players within the community looking to go higher.
I do have a hard planned schedule, but don't feel ready to try tournaments. Thing is I am a diverse player, so one week it'll be LoL, the other it'll be SC2 and the other WoW. Thing is, I try to keep an equal level in the three of them in case these things happen when your division is shut down. Plus, the fact that the Aspire members decided to leave suddenly made them close the entire SC2 division, therefor they are to blame for my last change.
I see you talk about contracts (happy you do), as mentioned, these players didn't have one. Therefor vVv did have no legal engagement. As said previously, I do as good as I can to help the WoW server I play on develop itself even though it does take me time. But since I have no contract with them, it is just pure passion.
i think the notion of passion is something that is being neglected more and more in the esports domain, a lot of players start to forget that playing games once was for fun and not to win or make money. I believe that reminding those principals too kids at school as much as possible could solve that, still I doubt any school would do this for the esports community, no school (or at least french one) accepted an esports scholarship thinking that video games are bad for health and stuff like that that the medias brought to their heads...
As a matter of a fact, there are some things that do happen to turn bad. So to the "Why?" I answer "because". You said that the people that vVv sent out were clowns, who tells you they had anything better... That might have been what made the head of vVv need proof of NuBrGNi's level to decide if they would give him money, because until then the only people to who they did give money turned out to be clowns... vVv hasn't had the good elements because they weren't offering the big pay checks, the few players they got fucked them up, so in return they got suspicious about the people they engaged. That could easily explain the place they got stuck in.
But let's take this as a new start for us. We don't have any players on the games that old players dishonored our name on, and our leader isn't Lordjerrith anymore but a young nice guy going under the name of DoomHammer. The community seems to have grown from the mistakes of the past and shall probably respond as such.
Hope I have answered your questions,
Peter "Astraëa" Steel
Can you please clarify as to how the SC2 'sponsored team', and the academy 'dishonoured' vVv? From the numerous player statements, it seems that the vVv management did not live up to what they promised, not the other way round.
Where did you see promises? I didn't see any...
These players are tarnishing the image of vVv by trying to create a scandal around our community to make themselves interesting... plus they are going against the principals of the team they seemed to like by not respecting the fourth pillar of vVv gaming which reveals of common sense.
It's useless talking and reading your posts if you won't even do the courtesy of reading what others post. Read what the sponsored players said, then post. This can be a pillar of the Team Liquid Forum, if you will. If your management decides to completely disregard agreements, and blatantly lie about stuff, then former players not only have a right to go public about it, they have a moral duty to do it. If your management breaks the rules, then you can't fault FORMER players from breaking them as well.
Please understand that if a person LEAVES from an organisation, he is no longer bound by its rules. That's common sense.
(for spoonfeeding purposes, one of the lies that irked the former players was that the following: The management decided to stop of funding and support to the SC2 division, and due to this, the players decide to leave - they were in discussion with the management to announce what really is happening, that the team decided to leave, but the management then just went ahead and said that they were closing the SC2 division and releasing all players because competitive support for the game was waning - which is a big load of crap)
???? Did you willfully not read the posts of some of the former players (not referring to the Aspire players)???
And why would you bother to not say things publicly when you're clearly getting a PR shaft up the anus and no longer part of the community/team?
Did you not read what I said earlier? there are no evident promises that have been made and those who are stated aren't provided with proof !
And they may not be members of the community any more, it doesn't take away there common sense... other wise they deserved to get screwed even if it isn't the case
PM I sent to Doomhammer after I found out the next day that SC2 were all removed from vVv:
Me: That is a strange decision. The content of the post and the way this was handled completely contradicts the spirit of our discussions last night.
Also, Astraea was dropped even though he was super active in the forums and had no affiliation with our decision to leave. Might want to reconsider him. I believe he was moved to SC2 from GW2 fairly recently.
I'm the one who got you added back into vVv. The fact that you're badmouthing me now even though you were removed from vVv without being talked to is hilarious.
[14/01/2013 6:28:23 PM] John Victor Kim: im applying for welfare this week and waiting on the process
Applying for welfare and playing professional SC2? SMH
Do you support your college fund into your parents financial crisis? Did you have to spend the past few years trying to feed yourself, a girlfriend, 8 year old sister AND 2 parents?
You can shake your head all you want, I am proud to be a change within my family, its hard enough to be first generation and still try to chase my dream.
I know this is very unprofessional but this post hit a bit too close to home so I re-buttle with a go fuck yourself. Who the FUCK are you to judge me?
EDIT: I try to maintain the HIGHEST level of professionalism is kept on certain levels but if you are going to be as arrogant and rude then I have NO problem speaking my mind.
[14/01/2013 6:28:23 PM] John Victor Kim: im applying for welfare this week and waiting on the process
Applying for welfare and playing professional SC2? SMH
Do you support your college fund into your parents financial crisis? Did you have to spend the past few years trying to feed yourself, a girlfriend, 8 year old sister AND 2 parents?
You can shake your head all you want, I am proud to be a change within my family, its hard enough to be first generation and still try to chase my dream.
I know this is very unprofessional but this post hit a bit too close to home so I re-buttle with a go fuck yourself. Who the FUCK are you to judge me?
EDIT: I try to maintain the HIGHEST level of professionalism is kept on certain levels but if you are going to be as arrogant and rude then I have NO problem speaking my mind.
I think it would do a lot of posters in this thread a lot of good to take some of these discussions elsewhere. On public boards it looks rather silly, no need to air out dirt laundry in front of everyone.
On January 30 2013 03:41 Torte de Lini wrote: Nooborghini: How close do you live to ETS? Sucks that all that shit happened, but I live diagonally from the ETS venue and can have you stay at my place if you still can afford to go there and compete (I'll provide you with food/cooking & lodging).
No charge, just figured my couch would enjoy someone's tired soul on it.
Oh and vVv sucks, LordJerith is completely incompetent, I didn't expect his crew of "upper management" to be any better.
We've traditionally never covered both for a sponsored players first event with us.
Does this not break anyone else's brain? What the fuck? Isn't the ENTIRE POINT of signing a contract for sponsorship that they cover these things? If they told me this I would instantly drop from the team.
That would've been common sense from the players who visibly didn't have enough and now they are complaining.
No offense but this whole story is non-notable because vVv fell off long ago. I don't think many people are interested in reading all these different statements, when they have barely ever heard of the team. There's something to be said for keeping your threads in proportion to your team's stature.
Ugh this thread is saddening. exfrozensteel just shows what gutter trash vVv is.
Sadly, dropping this division probably has given vVv more 10x more publicity than usual, not that they really have many people in their community in the first place. Their shootmania builds thread on reddit has ~8 comments and 11 upvotes at the moment. Some cocksucking post by one of their LoL guys has 2 upvotes (http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/16au1g/the_should_mentality_of_a_gamer/ for reference).
It looks like they influence their members into writing some mid-high school level articles and posting them up for the ~50 views they'll get.
I'm also not very sorry for their "community players." I've met 1 decent guy with the vVv tag on his name in the 2+ years I've played this game. I've played against plenty of high diamond/low masters vVv members and the common delineating factor seems to be a horrid lack of manners and a missing chromosome.
It's sad a bunch of semi-pros got hosed and never got their chance to become big timers, but we should be glad that the vVv blight removed itself from our community.
[14/01/2013 6:28:23 PM] John Victor Kim: im applying for welfare this week and waiting on the process
Applying for welfare and playing professional SC2? SMH
Do you support your college fund into your parents financial crisis? Did you have to spend the past few years trying to feed yourself, a girlfriend, 8 year old sister AND 2 parents?
You can shake your head all you want, I am proud to be a change within my family, its hard enough to be first generation and still try to chase my dream.
I know this is very unprofessional but this post hit a bit too close to home so I re-buttle with a go fuck yourself. Who the FUCK are you to judge me?
EDIT: I try to maintain the HIGHEST level of professionalism is kept on certain levels but if you are going to be as arrogant and rude then I have NO problem speaking my mind.
Well... to be fair his point was more that you're using other people's money that are not willingly supporting your "choice" to play full time games. Instead, welfare is supposed to be a system that helps with a lull in income. His point is rather legitimate, but I think everyone here would understand from many past examples of personalities in the scene who truly love the game that many of us will do whatever it takes to stick with it.
[14/01/2013 6:28:23 PM] John Victor Kim: im applying for welfare this week and waiting on the process
Applying for welfare and playing professional SC2? SMH
Do you support your college fund into your parents financial crisis? Did you have to spend the past few years trying to feed yourself, a girlfriend, 8 year old sister AND 2 parents?
You can shake your head all you want, I am proud to be a change within my family, its hard enough to be first generation and still try to chase my dream.
I know this is very unprofessional but this post hit a bit too close to home so I re-buttle with a go fuck yourself. Who the FUCK are you to judge me?
EDIT: I try to maintain the HIGHEST level of professionalism is kept on certain levels but if you are going to be as arrogant and rude then I have NO problem speaking my mind.
Well... to be fair his point was more that you're using other people's money that are not willingly supporting your "choice" to play full time games. Instead, welfare is supposed to be a system that helps with a lull in income. His point is rather legitimate, but I think everyone here would understand from many past examples of personalities in the scene who truly love the game that many of us will do whatever it takes to stick with it.
#this You are using people's money to not work so you, when you boil it down, to play video games? If youre on welfare and gaming is your #1 priority you might want to think about your priorities. There's more to life than gaming, its fine to chase dreams, but dont siphon money out of a system that supposed to help people that are legit having troubles with finances and not making it a choice. Gaming full time is a choice.
[14/01/2013 6:28:23 PM] John Victor Kim: im applying for welfare this week and waiting on the process
Applying for welfare and playing professional SC2? SMH
Do you support your college fund into your parents financial crisis? Did you have to spend the past few years trying to feed yourself, a girlfriend, 8 year old sister AND 2 parents?
You can shake your head all you want, I am proud to be a change within my family, its hard enough to be first generation and still try to chase my dream.
I know this is very unprofessional but this post hit a bit too close to home so I re-buttle with a go fuck yourself. Who the FUCK are you to judge me?
EDIT: I try to maintain the HIGHEST level of professionalism is kept on certain levels but if you are going to be as arrogant and rude then I have NO problem speaking my mind.
Well... to be fair his point was more that you're using other people's money that are not willingly supporting your "choice" to play full time games. Instead, welfare is supposed to be a system that helps with a lull in income. His point is rather legitimate, but I think everyone here would understand from many past examples of personalities in the scene who truly love the game that many of us will do whatever it takes to stick with it.
The only reason why I've applied to that and IE is because the job market has been short for the past few months. When I move onto a new job, every expense was put towards my credit card. This is my first time applying for it, I don't like it but I have to cause no jobs at the moment due to the holidays.
[14/01/2013 6:28:23 PM] John Victor Kim: im applying for welfare this week and waiting on the process
Applying for welfare and playing professional SC2? SMH
Do you support your college fund into your parents financial crisis? Did you have to spend the past few years trying to feed yourself, a girlfriend, 8 year old sister AND 2 parents?
You can shake your head all you want, I am proud to be a change within my family, its hard enough to be first generation and still try to chase my dream.
I know this is very unprofessional but this post hit a bit too close to home so I re-buttle with a go fuck yourself. Who the FUCK are you to judge me?
EDIT: I try to maintain the HIGHEST level of professionalism is kept on certain levels but if you are going to be as arrogant and rude then I have NO problem speaking my mind.
Well... to be fair his point was more that you're using other people's money that are not willingly supporting your "choice" to play full time games. Instead, welfare is supposed to be a system that helps with a lull in income. His point is rather legitimate, but I think everyone here would understand from many past examples of personalities in the scene who truly love the game that many of us will do whatever it takes to stick with it.
#this You are using people's money to not work so you, when you boil it down, to play video games? If youre on welfare and gaming is your #1 priority you might want to think about your priorities. There's more to life than gaming.
You guys are under the impression I'm going under welfare to play games... That's retarded...? I put sc2 to a halt because the job market is slow. Why are you folks assuming of what I'm doing right now? I need some help for the past few months that I was terminated due to something unexpected in my life and I hit a rough patch.
Plus I'm not even on it right now, I've been using coaching money/sc2 money to fund myself. Please don't give me a speech about what is right and what is wrong about how I'm siphoning money out of people who pay taxes. I payed the taxes too, the sheer assumption you put in your post shows me how ignorant you are to the entire situation.
Sorry if my post was not clear, I was elaborating on what I believe the other poster was attempting to say. For that reason he seemed to have a valid point due to your rebuttle not really having any relevance to what the message attempted to convey. As I noted at the end of my post I don't really have an opinion one way or the other.
On January 30 2013 06:11 -Kyo- wrote: Sorry if my post was not clear, I was elaborating on what I believe the other poster was attempting to say. For that reason he seemed to have a valid point due to your rebuttle not really having any relevance to what the message attempted to convey. As I noted at the end of my post I don't really have an opinion one way or the other.
He needed to explain himself better. That part in the skype convo should've been removed.
Awkward thread is awkward. Feels like watching a fight break out at a wedding or something alike. Does anyone outside the people involved actually care about this whole thing?
On January 30 2013 03:41 Torte de Lini wrote: Nooborghini: How close do you live to ETS? Sucks that all that shit happened, but I live diagonally from the ETS venue and can have you stay at my place if you still can afford to go there and compete (I'll provide you with food/cooking & lodging).
No charge, just figured my couch would enjoy someone's tired soul on it.
Oh and vVv sucks, LordJerith is completely incompetent, I didn't expect his crew of "upper management" to be any better.
Wow. You are the pinnacle of mankind Torte de Lini, that is true charity.
OK I'm going to outline exactly what happened to me this past summer, because it may add to the discussion. Also, I feel an obligation to any player that is thinking about signing with vVv's administration to tell him of what has happened to me. If a player signs with them just to get taken advantage of (like I have been), I would feel some responsibility.
After MLG Anaheim, in order to prevent me from changing teams (I was looking at many different offers), vVv offered me a monthly salary, travel and hotel to every event, and the ability to influence (not decide, just give input) on who they would sign to build their SC2 team again. Notice that they did NOT offer a contract - just a promise (and agreement) - I will get to this later: it's significant, however doesn't really change from what happened.
Now swing around to Fall. I had been playing decently in leagues - won a couple tournaments, almost qualified for the NASL, and qualified for the WCG US Nationals. Here we had a problem. vVv didn't want to pay for my flight or hotel to the WCG US Nationals, and instead of saying so they told me about the conflict with WCG Global Finals (in China) and IPL 5. Although I thought that WCG may have been more important (depending on my seeding/chances of success), I said OK. Potential disaster #1 avoided.
Next, however, came MLG Dallas. I had done very well in the online qualifier, being seeded directly into WR5 for the event. All of the time moving forward towards the event I was talking with vVv's administration and my manager - everything was on board. However, 2 weeks before the event (EVERYTHING was "you're good to go" up until now) they asked me to find a flight. Now, it doesn't take a genius to know that finding a flight 2 weeks before an event is not only stupid but costs money - and a lot more money than if it had been purchased say 2 months before the event. So I found the flight (cheapest was ~ $500) and sent it to them. What was the reply? "No, sorry, we can't do that. We can only give you $135." For a day they left me to wonder at them denying paying for my flight. They had broken yet another promise (salary never happened, whenever I brought up they delayed/didn't answer, and ofc team didn't happen, it's vVv's administration). Now, later vVv would pay for my flight partially because I threatened to go public and also partially because they managed to find a super-cheap deal. However, the time not knowing they had a flight made me think: For all of vVv's promises and supposed "professionalism," all I EVER got out of them was a jersey, 2 hotel rooms (but these don't really count - they didn't buy another hotel room just because I was going), and 1 flight which I had to fight and threaten to get. For all of my dedication to this team, I bought their bull shit for 8 months.
Now to the question of contracts. Let me just establish this: If a player breaks a contract, the team isn't going to sue him. It would be economically a disaster. Likewise goes for the player - the player isn't going to sue a team, they can't afford a full trial. So, basically, in essence contracts don't mean anything in eSports among 90% of teams/players. Having a contract means the same thing as having any other sort of agreement here - the law is not on either's side. Therefore, while yes I may not have had a contract, I still fulfilled the entirety of my part of the agreement while they broke almost every single one of theirs. Also understand that not many players have legitament contracts - very few - so while vVv had a right to break their contract, they still show their character, disloyalty, and willingness to take advantage of players.
On January 30 2013 07:00 Glon wrote: OK I'm going to outline exactly what happened to me this past summer, because it may add to the discussion. Also, I feel an obligation to any player that is thinking about signing with vVv's administration to tell him of what has happened to me. If a player signs with them just to get taken advantage of (like I have been), I would feel some responsibility.
After MLG Anaheim, in order to prevent me from changing teams (I was looking at many different offers), vVv offered me a monthly salary, travel and hotel to every event, and the ability to influence (not decide, just give input) on who they would sign to build their SC2 team again. Notice that they did NOT offer a contract - just a promise (and agreement) - I will get to this later: it's significant, however doesn't really change from what happened.
Now swing around to Fall. I had been playing decently in leagues - won a couple tournaments, almost qualified for the NASL, and qualified for the WCG US Nationals. Here we had a problem. vVv didn't want to pay for my flight or hotel to the WCG US Nationals, and instead of saying so they told me about the conflict with WCG Global Finals (in China) and IPL 5. Although I thought that WCG may have been more important (depending on my seeding/chances of success), I said OK. Potential disaster #1 avoided.
Next, however, came MLG Dallas. I had done very well in the online qualifier, being seeded directly into WR5 for the event. All of the time moving forward towards the event I was talking with vVv's administration and my manager - everything was on board. However, 2 weeks before the event (EVERYTHING was "you're good to go" up until now) they asked me to find a flight. Now, it doesn't take a genius to know that finding a flight 2 weeks before an event is not only stupid but costs money - and a lot more money than if it had been purchased say 2 months before the event. So I found the flight (cheapest was ~ $500) and sent it to them. What was the reply? "No, sorry, we can't do that. We can only give you $135." For a day they left me to wonder at them denying paying for my flight. They had broken yet another promise (salary never happened, whenever I brought up they delayed/didn't answer, and ofc team didn't happen, it's vVv's administration). Now, later vVv would pay for my flight partially because I threatened to go public and also partially because they managed to find a super-cheap deal. However, the time not knowing they had a flight made me think: For all of vVv's promises and supposed "professionalism," all I EVER got out of them was a jersey, 2 hotel rooms (but these don't really count - they didn't buy another hotel room just because I was going), and 1 flight which I had to fight and threaten to get. For all of my dedication to this team, I bought their bull shit for 8 months.
Now to the question of contracts. Let me just establish this: If a player breaks a contract, the team isn't going to sue him. It would be economically a disaster. Likewise goes for the player - the player isn't going to sue a team, they can't afford a full trial. So, basically, in essence contracts don't mean anything in eSports among 90% of teams/players. Having a contract means the same thing as having any other sort of agreement here - the law is not on either's side. Therefore, while yes I may not have had a contract, I still fulfilled the entirety of my part of the agreement while they broke almost every single one of theirs. Also understand that not many players have legitament contracts - very few - so while vVv had a right to break their contract, they still show their character, disloyalty, and willingness to take advantage of players.
Two quick corrections:
1. We promised to help you find personal sponsorship if it was possible, not salary. 2. We discussed having you as the sole member of the SC2 team at Anaheim in front of a room full of witnesses.
On January 30 2013 05:02 zuhairZ wrote: VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV toxsik, Titan and nooborghini all my home boys. always heard bad things aobut vVv management :\
Wow zoohairz, was your other account banned THAT long ago that they've not caught this one? Damn how time flies ~. But yea, don't think anyone in sc2 will be missing vVv.
I got unbanned cause I came in 4th at Esports Canada LAN + They were nice enough to give me a 2nd chance.
On January 30 2013 07:00 Glon wrote: OK I'm going to outline exactly what happened to me this past summer, because it may add to the discussion. Also, I feel an obligation to any player that is thinking about signing with vVv's administration to tell him of what has happened to me. If a player signs with them just to get taken advantage of (like I have been), I would feel some responsibility.
After MLG Anaheim, in order to prevent me from changing teams (I was looking at many different offers), vVv offered me a monthly salary, travel and hotel to every event, and the ability to influence (not decide, just give input) on who they would sign to build their SC2 team again. Notice that they did NOT offer a contract - just a promise (and agreement) - I will get to this later: it's significant, however doesn't really change from what happened.
Now swing around to Fall. I had been playing decently in leagues - won a couple tournaments, almost qualified for the NASL, and qualified for the WCG US Nationals. Here we had a problem. vVv didn't want to pay for my flight or hotel to the WCG US Nationals, and instead of saying so they told me about the conflict with WCG Global Finals (in China) and IPL 5. Although I thought that WCG may have been more important (depending on my seeding/chances of success), I said OK. Potential disaster #1 avoided.
Next, however, came MLG Dallas. I had done very well in the online qualifier, being seeded directly into WR5 for the event. All of the time moving forward towards the event I was talking with vVv's administration and my manager - everything was on board. However, 2 weeks before the event (EVERYTHING was "you're good to go" up until now) they asked me to find a flight. Now, it doesn't take a genius to know that finding a flight 2 weeks before an event is not only stupid but costs money - and a lot more money than if it had been purchased say 2 months before the event. So I found the flight (cheapest was ~ $500) and sent it to them. What was the reply? "No, sorry, we can't do that. We can only give you $135." For a day they left me to wonder at them denying paying for my flight. They had broken yet another promise (salary never happened, whenever I brought up they delayed/didn't answer, and ofc team didn't happen, it's vVv's administration). Now, later vVv would pay for my flight partially because I threatened to go public and also partially because they managed to find a super-cheap deal. However, the time not knowing they had a flight made me think: For all of vVv's promises and supposed "professionalism," all I EVER got out of them was a jersey, 2 hotel rooms (but these don't really count - they didn't buy another hotel room just because I was going), and 1 flight which I had to fight and threaten to get. For all of my dedication to this team, I bought their bull shit for 8 months.
Now to the question of contracts. Let me just establish this: If a player breaks a contract, the team isn't going to sue him. It would be economically a disaster. Likewise goes for the player - the player isn't going to sue a team, they can't afford a full trial. So, basically, in essence contracts don't mean anything in eSports among 90% of teams/players. Having a contract means the same thing as having any other sort of agreement here - the law is not on either's side. Therefore, while yes I may not have had a contract, I still fulfilled the entirety of my part of the agreement while they broke almost every single one of theirs. Also understand that not many players have legitament contracts - very few - so while vVv had a right to break their contract, they still show their character, disloyalty, and willingness to take advantage of players.
Two quick corrections:
1. We promised to help you find personal sponsorship if it was possible, not salary. 2. We discussed having you as the sole member of the SC2 team at Anaheim in front of a room full of witnesses.
You can have all the little "corrections" you want. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone is going to believe them. You outright lie in public posts (like the one in vVv where you painted me in a bad light for leaving because I didn't think Aspire was going anywhere...?). On top of your dishonesty, you even managed to post in the "vVv NuBrGNi Appreciation thread" the DAY after you took part in screwing him over that he was a "great symbol to be looked up to." Now please, don't even begin to try and argue.
On January 30 2013 06:18 MiQ wrote: Awkward thread is awkward. Feels like watching a fight break out at a wedding or something alike. Does anyone outside the people involved actually care about this whole thing?
wow, thats a really good analogy.
at least this guy cares:
On January 30 2013 07:25 Morgoth wrote: Hooray for boobies!
On January 30 2013 07:00 Glon wrote: OK I'm going to outline exactly what happened to me this past summer, because it may add to the discussion. Also, I feel an obligation to any player that is thinking about signing with vVv's administration to tell him of what has happened to me. If a player signs with them just to get taken advantage of (like I have been), I would feel some responsibility.
After MLG Anaheim, in order to prevent me from changing teams (I was looking at many different offers), vVv offered me a monthly salary, travel and hotel to every event, and the ability to influence (not decide, just give input) on who they would sign to build their SC2 team again. Notice that they did NOT offer a contract - just a promise (and agreement) - I will get to this later: it's significant, however doesn't really change from what happened.
Now swing around to Fall. I had been playing decently in leagues - won a couple tournaments, almost qualified for the NASL, and qualified for the WCG US Nationals. Here we had a problem. vVv didn't want to pay for my flight or hotel to the WCG US Nationals, and instead of saying so they told me about the conflict with WCG Global Finals (in China) and IPL 5. Although I thought that WCG may have been more important (depending on my seeding/chances of success), I said OK. Potential disaster #1 avoided.
Next, however, came MLG Dallas. I had done very well in the online qualifier, being seeded directly into WR5 for the event. All of the time moving forward towards the event I was talking with vVv's administration and my manager - everything was on board. However, 2 weeks before the event (EVERYTHING was "you're good to go" up until now) they asked me to find a flight. Now, it doesn't take a genius to know that finding a flight 2 weeks before an event is not only stupid but costs money - and a lot more money than if it had been purchased say 2 months before the event. So I found the flight (cheapest was ~ $500) and sent it to them. What was the reply? "No, sorry, we can't do that. We can only give you $135." For a day they left me to wonder at them denying paying for my flight. They had broken yet another promise (salary never happened, whenever I brought up they delayed/didn't answer, and ofc team didn't happen, it's vVv's administration). Now, later vVv would pay for my flight partially because I threatened to go public and also partially because they managed to find a super-cheap deal. However, the time not knowing they had a flight made me think: For all of vVv's promises and supposed "professionalism," all I EVER got out of them was a jersey, 2 hotel rooms (but these don't really count - they didn't buy another hotel room just because I was going), and 1 flight which I had to fight and threaten to get. For all of my dedication to this team, I bought their bull shit for 8 months.
Now to the question of contracts. Let me just establish this: If a player breaks a contract, the team isn't going to sue him. It would be economically a disaster. Likewise goes for the player - the player isn't going to sue a team, they can't afford a full trial. So, basically, in essence contracts don't mean anything in eSports among 90% of teams/players. Having a contract means the same thing as having any other sort of agreement here - the law is not on either's side. Therefore, while yes I may not have had a contract, I still fulfilled the entirety of my part of the agreement while they broke almost every single one of theirs. Also understand that not many players have legitament contracts - very few - so while vVv had a right to break their contract, they still show their character, disloyalty, and willingness to take advantage of players.
Two quick corrections:
1. We promised to help you find personal sponsorship if it was possible, not salary. 2. We discussed having you as the sole member of the SC2 team at Anaheim in front of a room full of witnesses.
Might want to leave. Even if you're right (which you aren't) no one is going to believe a word you say, and rightly so.
On January 30 2013 05:02 zuhairZ wrote: VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV toxsik, Titan and nooborghini all my home boys. always heard bad things aobut vVv management :\
Wow zoohairz, was your other account banned THAT long ago that they've not caught this one? Damn how time flies ~. But yea, don't think anyone in sc2 will be missing vVv.
I got unbanned cause I came in 4th at Esports Canada LAN + They were nice enough to give me a 2nd chance.
You owe us after party beer money. Drank out beer and skipped out on the beer tab.. Also noob pmed about ticket.
I remember vVv screwing around CS teams (both source and 1.6) forever ago. They would reach an agreement with an up and coming team, but then jerk around with the sponsorship. Flights would be misplaced, etc.
There needs to be a universal list where stuff like this is reported, because very often it's the same people who mess around with this shit. Just look at Blight.
On January 30 2013 07:00 Glon wrote: OK I'm going to outline exactly what happened to me this past summer, because it may add to the discussion. Also, I feel an obligation to any player that is thinking about signing with vVv's administration to tell him of what has happened to me. If a player signs with them just to get taken advantage of (like I have been), I would feel some responsibility.
After MLG Anaheim, in order to prevent me from changing teams (I was looking at many different offers), vVv offered me a monthly salary, travel and hotel to every event, and the ability to influence (not decide, just give input) on who they would sign to build their SC2 team again. Notice that they did NOT offer a contract - just a promise (and agreement) - I will get to this later: it's significant, however doesn't really change from what happened.
Now swing around to Fall. I had been playing decently in leagues - won a couple tournaments, almost qualified for the NASL, and qualified for the WCG US Nationals. Here we had a problem. vVv didn't want to pay for my flight or hotel to the WCG US Nationals, and instead of saying so they told me about the conflict with WCG Global Finals (in China) and IPL 5. Although I thought that WCG may have been more important (depending on my seeding/chances of success), I said OK. Potential disaster #1 avoided.
Next, however, came MLG Dallas. I had done very well in the online qualifier, being seeded directly into WR5 for the event. All of the time moving forward towards the event I was talking with vVv's administration and my manager - everything was on board. However, 2 weeks before the event (EVERYTHING was "you're good to go" up until now) they asked me to find a flight. Now, it doesn't take a genius to know that finding a flight 2 weeks before an event is not only stupid but costs money - and a lot more money than if it had been purchased say 2 months before the event. So I found the flight (cheapest was ~ $500) and sent it to them. What was the reply? "No, sorry, we can't do that. We can only give you $135." For a day they left me to wonder at them denying paying for my flight. They had broken yet another promise (salary never happened, whenever I brought up they delayed/didn't answer, and ofc team didn't happen, it's vVv's administration). Now, later vVv would pay for my flight partially because I threatened to go public and also partially because they managed to find a super-cheap deal. However, the time not knowing they had a flight made me think: For all of vVv's promises and supposed "professionalism," all I EVER got out of them was a jersey, 2 hotel rooms (but these don't really count - they didn't buy another hotel room just because I was going), and 1 flight which I had to fight and threaten to get. For all of my dedication to this team, I bought their bull shit for 8 months.
Now to the question of contracts. Let me just establish this: If a player breaks a contract, the team isn't going to sue him. It would be economically a disaster. Likewise goes for the player - the player isn't going to sue a team, they can't afford a full trial. So, basically, in essence contracts don't mean anything in eSports among 90% of teams/players. Having a contract means the same thing as having any other sort of agreement here - the law is not on either's side. Therefore, while yes I may not have had a contract, I still fulfilled the entirety of my part of the agreement while they broke almost every single one of theirs. Also understand that not many players have legitament contracts - very few - so while vVv had a right to break their contract, they still show their character, disloyalty, and willingness to take advantage of players.
Two quick corrections:
1. We promised to help you find personal sponsorship if it was possible, not salary. 2. We discussed having you as the sole member of the SC2 team at Anaheim in front of a room full of witnesses.
Looks like jerry has taught you well in the art of lying. Thankfully enough people are coming forward that it doesn't matter.
vVv Blavek, that "collumnist / MMO guru" should be fired.
He actually said, on the third page of the vVv-gaming forum, that the SC2 division got dropped because it lacked creativity, talent, and a worthwhile work effort.
What in the FUCK. I know for a fact that vVv has streamed while running logos/plugging/youtubing content like there's no tomorrow. God... reading his thoughtless self-righteous post made me want to ram my head through a cheese grater. How unprofessional can you POSSIBLY be to people who were your colleagues not a week ago?
I also played vVv for their A-Team for a couple of months under (vVvReseT). The team was going great and of course I was excited to join(especially since I was playing with a former WC3 teammate and good friend, vVvMurDeR. I was never one of those people who were ever to get sponsored or go to a trip, but I do remember asking one manager if I end up going to an MLG(and paying out of my own pocket) if I can stay in the vVv room, which then I was told no I couldn't. I'm not posting this to bash vVv but it really saddens me because I saw players who were promise so many things either that be a trip to MLG, paid flight, or even a hotel room, yet got that taken away from them.
But the organization was very shady. I also remember being removed from the A-Team because of my lack of playing which I understand. However, I know that wasn't a real reason or anything because I was told if I start to play more than before then I could be on the team again. I began to practice very hard and trained 5-8 hours a day(more than my previous 2-4) but was still told I couldn't play. Stuff like this really puts you in a position to just scream and slap the management. I was even promised something small like a mouse and when I asked for it they said (go get one). I was also the one who almost streamed the most because I was told it would bring a lot of publicity but even then I wasn't given credit for it.
I don't know it was just a very shady organization. I am deeply sadden though that this was the way it had to end! I had some great times with Rocker, Murder, Toxsik, Glon, Titan, EzaLB, Daisuki, Ruff, and many others. Hope they all end up on good teams(if they still play)! Good luck boys!
Man, vVv already sounded like a shit team back when that SugarBear guy made a TL thread a year or two ago about their academy they were making where you were required to go to a major offline tournament per month at your expense lol. I don't think they ever had the slightest clue of what they were doing.
I'm sorry, but my impression over the years was that vVv was a family clan? I mainly remember a shit guild on WoW Ursin, a pretty bad (but populated) runescape clan and a few CS players with the tag.
Hi, I am Fearful and This is my statement(Former Aspire Player) I joined vVv a little under 2 years now and I was very excited to be a part of the organization. I loved the Loser's Bracket and Wednesday Night Starcraft. I loved all the focus we had in the Starcraft 2 community. It was really fun at the start.
But over the months, things started to crumble. We lost Time, Titan, and mainly our entire A team. vVv Stopped giving us attention as they were more focused on LoL since they were more passionate about it, which is understandable.
Over that time, I saw less and less activity going on where I wanted to raise activity, but no one really cared anymore. When BabyToss joined the organization, she had complete dedication to Starcraft 2 and vVv and even defended it time and time again when people bashed on us. She now knows why they were and is no longer blinded by it.
Anyways, she requested to start and Academy Team and got what she wanted. From there on out, we have grown and got a second Academy team. We were all excited and passionate individuals. The only problem was, the management had like no communication with us at all. We only had Salvor who tried to do everything possible to keep us satisfied.
When Nub joined vVv, I was excited because I thought that vVv was starting to take more interest in our division again, but I was wrong. Shortly after he joined, the dropped the entire A-Team. Nub was given broken promises(from what I have seen and heard) and that has upset all of us to the point where the entire Aspire players decided to leave. That then gave vVv almost no one in the Starcraft 2 division, so they dropped it.
They told BabyToss that they would give us a goodbye thread as we have all decided to leave, but instead made it seem like they just dropped us and gave the reason that Starcraft 2 was a dying e-Sport. I will not bash on vVv nor will I curse them.
I am unhappy with what they did and how they tried to fill the hole they dug for themselves, but I am glad that I got to meet the amazing people that were in this with me. They are what made vVv enjoyable for me and not the management. If it weren't for them, I would have left vVv a long time ago. That is what I have to say and I wish to all of us good luck in our future endeavors as we will go on to do big things.
This is something that I expected to happen with basically any clan not "sponsoring" the very very top players. If you are a middle tier national player in the US who has no realistic shot of placing well in any major event, why would any company sponsor you? And I dont mean that with any disrespect towards the players themselves, but I mean from the companies perspective, what exposure does a middle of the road US player get? And when I say middle of the road I mean something outside of top 5 or whatever (you choose the arbitrary metric). I mean, maybe its me being jaded, but I never for once believed that most teams would do a fraction of what they supposedly promised.
For a large company that has a vested interest in its players, paying several hundred dollars for a plane ticket is absolute chump change. To all players, if your team even gives a hint that a full plane ticket wouldnt be covered for a domestic US flight, you are in a poor relationship. I get that some people simply like to play the game and will take whatever they can get and thats fine if you understand the situation you are in. I dont know everyones situation, but I would guess theres maybe a handful of players in North America who are truly "sponsored".
If you arent placing high in events like MLG/IEM/WCG/WCS, etc regularly, chances are you arent really "sponsored" and need to be realistic regarding your situation.
The circlejerking in the vVv forum is hilarious and sad at the same time. I don't know why any ex vVv member would make it a point to differentiate between the shitty management and the community, since the community seems to be all to eager to ride the management's dick over their news post and proclaim that the SC2 division was dropped because they were bad and/or the game is dying.
It's always a shame when another team turns out to be a scam or at the very least incompetent and exploitative, but the nature of the eSports industry sadly allows for it. All aspiring progamers can do is to be vigilant and remember the names of guys who have fucked people over before. So remember Jerry Prochazka a.k.a. LordJerith, the owner of vVv, and stay away from that asshole.
Interesting stuff =/. I'm dead tired, so I apologize if this is incoherent
As a member of the old squad consisting of Time, Murder, Rigid and Myself (ruff came a little later <3), I should probably say a few things. To me, Jerry was rather forward of what he expected and truthfully gave us the conditions which were expected in order to earn a sponsorship. I can even remember the times at MLG where he would completely annihilate me for not performing well enough-- threatening to drop me, etc. (it was true, I could have really done well. Although, the one time I did well, I wasn't forced to catch a flight the day of at 6am and play until 1am into the 4th bracket. Ironically, the one time I showed up the day before, I only ended up losing to white-ra 2-1). At the time, he wanted to pull sponsorship completely and raze the sc2 division to the ground. But, he couldn't. He was stuck with us because all the more known players were taken, leaving him us.
So, he tried to build a foundation for vVv by making the most talented player the captain, Murder. Fast-forward a few months and life pulls him away for a little bit. Time decides to move on, Rigid is already gone (miss you!), and i'm pretty much the only one remaining. This is when Ruff and Hasu show up to fulfill the open roster spots in efforts to piece the team back together. But, no offense, Murder and Time were the stronger players at the time and helped put vvv on the map for early sc2.
This is about the time sponsorship actually hit its peak for vVv. All the events previous to the time ruff, hasu, and myself competed, I paid out of my pocket to attend (minus hotel). For I think 2-3 events, Jerry ended up paying the full sponsorship as promised from the contracts during this time. Sadly, we performed horribly (except ruff. lol at strifeco game). So, Rhode Island was pretty much the last major venture I think vVv ended up taking. Well, at least for the time I was there.
I don't know if this has shared any revelation of what not, but I thought it should at lest be written for whoever feels the need to read my shitty writing.
Personally, I like Jerry and Jordan. They are intelligent men who have helped me along my way through life and countless others who were on the team. It is odd when your boss talks to you more about personal issues/life than he does the business side.
As for the business side, I can understand the reasoning for Jerry's investment and the realism he displayed during my time with them. However, I do believe they missed an opportunity when Time/Murder/Myself were seriously considering a team house. The talent of murder and the freaking genius of Time was absurd. I think we could have made a strong team, especially with Glon/Rocker/Ruff/Hasu coming to the team a little later. We could have been scary... so much talent, what a waste.
I had 1 or 2 friends in the academy that played with our clan from time to time when my clan was still functioning. From what I gathered from them, being in vVv's academy was basically being a twitter pusher ect mixed with some starcraft. That always sounded pretty sad to me. With all of this stuff coming out in the open now, I'm glad I never threw any of my teammates their way. Also really sad to anyone who gets caught up in these kind of things. There are an amazing amount of opportunists and shady characters in our scene, from teams to tournament organizers ect. While it is sad to hear, and worse for the players that had to waste their time with it, it's great that this stuff comes to light. Hopefully the more bad press this kind of stuff gets, the higher the bar gets raised and the less we see of it.
obscure team trying to make it in a "vocation" that actually doesnt work. i mean cmon, did you think that short of being one of the top TOP TOP TOP not just "gm" players in the world would give you a career in this? i think the problem with esports is they want to be like sports. online games are not sports, less money, less absolute skill assessment, and with less money comes less qualified personal/teams/etc.
the best players play ladder. you dont need to be in a team to play ladder, you dont need to be in a team to meet good players and get better. you can without the help of ANYONE get into gm and once you have done that people will at least give u a chance to practice/discuss with etc. esports needs to just stop existing in the physical world and just do online tournys and get a dayjob. if a team has mad money through whatever means, dont get a teamhouse just send them to events and give em a uniform or whatever. you squander money on things that dont matter in an attempt to be more legitimate but in the end you just hurt yourselves and then players/the esport
God damn i cant stand people who post shit like "who cares?" and "vVv who?"
Seriously, it has nothing to do with whether they are known, how much skill they have or anything
Its the amount of time and dedication all these people were putting in, when they are told they will get something out of it, then they find out they are being lied to and taken advantage of.
Im truely sorry to hear so many people are effected by the horrible management that was behind your team. i hope the best for you guys, and well the vVv management? Sad to say buy i hope this bites you in your ass 10x over.
On January 30 2013 11:05 Sadist wrote: This is something that I expected to happen with basically any clan not "sponsoring" the very very top players. If you are a middle tier national player in the US who has no realistic shot of placing well in any major event, why would any company sponsor you? And I dont mean that with any disrespect towards the players themselves, but I mean from the companies perspective, what exposure does a middle of the road US player get? And when I say middle of the road I mean something outside of top 5 or whatever (you choose the arbitrary metric). I mean, maybe its me being jaded, but I never for once believed that most teams would do a fraction of what they supposedly promised.
For a large company that has a vested interest in its players, paying several hundred dollars for a plane ticket is absolute chump change. To all players, if your team even gives a hint that a full plane ticket wouldnt be covered for a domestic US flight, you are in a poor relationship. I get that some people simply like to play the game and will take whatever they can get and thats fine if you understand the situation you are in. I dont know everyones situation, but I would guess theres maybe a handful of players in North America who are truly "sponsored".
If you arent placing high in events like MLG/IEM/WCG/WCS, etc regularly, chances are you arent really "sponsored" and need to be realistic regarding your situation.
Highly agree. People have to be realistic.
Some guy spoke here about joining the team academy when he was mid masters. If that is so, then, had I played a few more games in 2011 every day to push up my points, I could have been next in line to get "sponsored".
But you and I know that I'm nowhere near good, and likewise, a mid master player may be "very good" on bnet but relatively awful in tournaments. I don't even know what people mean by "placing well" anymore in MLG. Top 3? Top 16? Top 50?
Let's take Desrow for example, who I think can be called a bona fide pro player. He's not simply edging into GM, he's consistently in GM, quite prominent, attends many NA tournaments. But let's not kid ourselves, he'll get steamrolled by any real MLG contender.
So what makes you think a company can shell out a half grand to fly their players here and there when short of a miracle, the best thing they'll ever achieve in a tournament is relative ignominy?
On January 30 2013 11:32 -vVvTitan- wrote: Interesting stuff =/. I'm dead tired, so I apologize if this is incoherent
As a member of the old squad consisting of Time, Murder, Rigid and Myself (ruff came a little later <3), I should probably say a few things. To me, Jerry was rather forward of what he expected and truthfully gave us the conditions which were expected in order to earn a sponsorship. I can even remember the times at MLG where he would completely annihilate me for not performing well enough-- threatening to drop me, etc. (it was true, I could have really done well. Although, the one time I did well, I wasn't forced to catch a flight the day of at 6am and play until 1am into the 4th bracket. Ironically, the one time I showed up the day before, I only ended up losing to white-ra 2-1). At the time, he wanted to pull sponsorship completely and raze the sc2 division to the ground. But, he couldn't. He was stuck with us because all the more known players were taken, leaving him us.
So, he tried to build a foundation for vVv by making the most talented player the captain, Murder. Fast-forward a few months and life pulls him away for a little bit. Time decides to move on, Rigid is already gone (miss you!), and i'm pretty much the only one remaining. This is when Ruff and Hasu show up to fulfill the open roster spots in efforts to piece the team back together. But, no offense, Murder and Time were the stronger players at the time and helped put vvv on the map for early sc2.
This is about the time sponsorship actually hit its peak for vVv. All the events previous to the time ruff, hasu, and myself competed, I paid out of my pocket to attend (minus hotel). For I think 2-3 events, Jerry ended up paying the full sponsorship as promised from the contracts during this time. Sadly, we performed horribly (except ruff. lol at strifeco game). So, Rhode Island was pretty much the last major venture I think vVv ended up taking. Well, at least for the time I was there.
I don't know if this has shared any revelation of what not, but I thought it should at lest be written for whoever feels the need to read my shitty writing.
Personally, I like Jerry and Jordan. They are intelligent men who have helped me along my way through life and countless others who were on the team. It is odd when your boss talks to you more about personal issues/life than he does the business side.
As for the business side, I can understand the reasoning for Jerry's investment and the realism he displayed during my time with them. However, I do believe they missed an opportunity when Time/Murder/Myself were seriously considering a team house. The talent of murder and the freaking genius of Time was absurd. I think we could have made a strong team, especially with Glon/Rocker/Ruff/Hasu coming to the team a little later. We could have been scary... so much talent, what a waste.
Totally agree with everything you said. We were definately a strong team for the time. We lost 3-4 to Prime and they didn't play bullshit players they sent out MKP vs Time in the Ace match when MKP was already an established fan favorite.
On January 30 2013 12:13 Marcus420 wrote: God damn i cant stand people who post shit like "who cares?" and "vVv who?"
Seriously, it has nothing to do with whether they are known, how much skill they have or anything
Its the amount of time and dedication all these people were putting in, when they are told they will get something out of it, then they find out they are being lied to and taken advantage of.
Im truely sorry to hear so many people are effected by the horrible management that was behind your team. i hope the best for you guys, and well the vVv management? Sad to say buy i hope this bites you in your ass 10x over.
I completely agree with this. The non-chalant attitude of people "who gives a fuck" etc really annoys me and essentially gives smaller organizations the leeway to get away with this kind of stuff. It's totally despicable and ethically wrong.
Glon - Good luck on GoSu! Titan - Miss you. Fearful - Keep working.
<3.
On January 30 2013 12:50 hiru wrote: Who cares about any of this? Why does every single piece of news in the SC community have to be made into drama?
Did you even read the thread? This community *amazes* me sometimes...and not in a good way.
@Titan - sounds like shit if they threaten you at events that if you don't perform you're cut... that's the kind of shit you talk about when the player doesn't already have the stress of playing games.
Seems like the reality is that vVv management had ridiculous expectations, and basically expected their team to put in a full-time effort with no promise of return. I wish all of their former players the best of luck!
On January 30 2013 14:29 Pokebunny wrote: @Titan - sounds like shit if they threaten you at events that if you don't perform you're cut... that's the kind of shit you talk about when the player doesn't already have the stress of playing games.
Seems like the reality is that vVv management had ridiculous expectations, and basically expected their team to put in a full-time effort with no promise of return. I wish all of their former players the best of luck!
This is absolutely correct. They expected you to play as a full time player and only receive hotel as compensation + mlg pass. Now this could have changed but I have a feeling it did not.
Not only that he specifically said that he did not believe in pro players getting a salary (this was when we first had our interview this was before sc2 really exploded as well). I don't know if he ever changed his mind on this later on but I know at the first meeting (I was the first along with murder/time/rigid/ngry and uh can't remember who else) to join vVv and this was what he said some other things I can't remember.
I believe I left a few weeks - month later and am very thankful I did. I think the whole having to interact with their vvv community was bullshit as a player should be able to focus on his game more then having to interact + post on twitter + facebook every day at least once. I believe in having to do things for your team but you should also be given something in return if you demand a lot as well which vVv did (demanded a lot, gave little in return except if you paid to go to an MLG you got free hotel and they said they would pay for your pass as well wooo!).
What an elaborate lie. Seriously, this is impressive. I mean, everybody who cares about esports saw the Lord Jerith post. Everybody knows you all got together and scraped this conspiracy for a while to come up with such impressive fake stories and conversations. I'm truly amazed to see this done. *clap clap*
On January 30 2013 20:35 son1dow wrote: What an elaborate lie. Seriously, this is impressive. I mean, everybody who cares about esports saw the Lord Jerith post. Everybody knows you all got together and scraped this conspiracy for a while to come up with such impressive fake stories and conversations. I'm truly amazed to see this done. *clap clap*
You know, if I hadn't read your other post, I wouldn't have been sure you were being sarcastic :p
On January 30 2013 22:43 redFF wrote: Who are all these random people giving statements. Nobody cares.
What you'd rather the thread degrades down to people posting "vvv who?" and "nobody cares" rather than hear people talk about their actually relevant experiences with the team? :| They know firsthand what the organisation is like which beats speculation.
@Astrea from vVv or anyone that posts saying this shouldn't of been made public.
esports is growing, down the road (years possibly tens of years) it could become an actual professional endeavor. As tech improves, ways to watch improve, and more people grow up with competitive gaming it's entirely possible. Sports like Basketball, Football etc. didn't just get popular over night, it took years and years on the backs of people who were lucky if they got paid and had to fight for every dollar to become what they are now.
For that transition to ever happen organizations such as yours have to be exposed for what they are. People who work in this industries conditions have to improve and over time become a legitimate expenditure of time. Frankly right now for anyone not in the top 1 to 2% of players, entertainers, refs, techs, etc. working in this industry as your only means of a future is a fools errand. To change that things have to change, and organizations who treat people working in the industry unfairly need to be exposed.
So I'd strongly disagree that these types of disputes and failings on teams or organizations should not be made public. The more that becomes public in esports the quicker things can get to a more professional level.
EPT
It's a pity people's hard work gets flushed down the drain due to incompetence, greed and insincerity of others. I hope NuBrGNi gets the pro/semi-pro team he deserves, and wish you all the best for your academy team!
