BG5 Superstars

Incoming dramas about titles and crap nobody should care about it. Win trading. Rating reset exploiting. Drugs. Sex. Dicks.

/who Serennia

Pretty much sums it up...

Sick dramas! And if this isn't proof Santa Claus is real, what the fuck is?

Last Thoughts on the WSVG Drama

There has been been a lot of recent discussion here, on GameRiot posts, and on IRC centered on the "ethics" of what went down at WSVG. It is rarely my objective to spark up drama and you should be aware that 90% of what I say is in fun or tongue in cheek. While my take on the events is somewhat biased in the favor of YWL, consider that I have been a MoB fan ever since the first WSVG event and we were certainly some of the louder idiots at Bilzzcon professing our love for Godfather during the finals.

I'm not angry at MoB for what happened and I don't think that the MoB players deserve to be the "bad guys" for what went down. I encourage everyone to get the "facts" over on GR from Kow's post. As with most things, the majority of the drama comes from lack of understanding.

Had Blizzard understood the pressing need for updated premades better, had WSVG admins understood the need to be both more flexible and more clear in their rules, had the WSVG admins had better game knowledge to understand that changing a hunter pet is no big deal ethically, had Godfather understood that the Scorpid was not an "unfair advantage", and you could go on and on, but the point is that this situation could have been averted.

I've heard some arguments saying that because this event is "for money" anything goes with respect to sacrificing honor in order to secure the win. I really don't get this line of thinking at all. People are playing competitively because they love the game and because they love the recognition. Certainly there is a "if I'm going to play all weekend anyways, I might as well have a chance to win some money" thing going on, but realistically how many of the WSVG players want to play WoW "professionally?"

Perhaps part of the issue is that it is hard to know if the hardcore PvP audience is really relevant to WoW as a game. How many players are tuning in to these WSVG events, 50k at most? The other 8.95 million players don't give a fuck? And how many of us were watching the CGS 2v2s, at most 100? It doesn't help that the majority of the strong players are on a single battlegroup and that the PvP cliques are generally pretty pretentious. ^^

I think lots of us want people to care a lot more about these events, but truthfully, even though Forgotten Heroes has a lot of PvPers, in a guild with over a 100 members, less than 15 watched the WSVG matches. And to be honest, if I couldn't duel on test between games or talk trash on IRC, I don't know if I would have the patience to sit around to watch the matches. It takes like 10 hrs of wasted time to watch 25 minutes of arena over the span of 3 days. I guarantee the viewership would grow exponentially if the WSVG product was just 25 minutes of solid arena. WSVG either needs overlapping "main stage" matches that they can switch between to reduce dead time or simply needs to not be live. The scheduling needs to be more precise and the whole thing needs to be thought of from the perspective of what the potential viewer wants -- I know this sounds like stupid MBA drivel but how many people have the time/patience for the current format?

You can really look at the idea of competitive WoW in very different ways. One is that you treat the audience as a niche market and tailor your competitive arena PvP product to live up to this small target audience's expectations -- this is the "eSports" approach. I'm not going to go into how else you might market competitive WoW, but is WoW as eSport realistic?

There is a lot of "WoW is a terrible eSport because ..." arguments out there. Too much randomness, too hard to watch as a spectator, too poorly balanced, too much rock/paper/scissors, and too little skill requirement are the most common. Beyond the difficulty in spectating, I'm not sure if this stuff matters too much. Poker has tons of randomness and, because of this randomness, very frequently do players of low relative skill win major events, yet poker has been extremely successful commercially. While the number of poker players is probably an order of magnitude larger than WoW players, I would imagine that the competitive poker market is still several orders of magnitude larger than its WoW equivalent.

I don't want to turn this wall of nonsensical wall of text-ness into a REALLY REALLY long nonsensical wall of text so I'll derail further and say that I think that WoW is a great game in which to be a competitive gamer, but not for the money. (I don't really think that the expected payout of any game or any sport is very good with the exception of poker) I think the whole "there is money on the line" nonsense floating around is well, nonsense. Everyone is playing to have a good time and for the eFame. =p The failures so far in making WoW, which has a huge playerbase, into a successful, competitive game come from not making the spectating experience enjoyable.

Why World of Ming is Awesome

Posts like these: (And how inevitable was this LOL)

13. Godrambo - July 7, 2007

This girl is obviously fat IRL and that is why she plays WoW. You’ll notice the first strike, fat face. Second strike, picture of mostly face at strange angle. Third strike, fat shoulder. YOU FAT CUNT GODRAMBO IS YOUR GOD

Your God
Rambo

Sometimes, at night, I like to hide cupcakes under my fat rolls. Then when your comments make me cry in a corner, I can pick them out and nibble on them while cutting myself.

THIS ISS DRRRAAAAMAAAA

I'm just keeping quiet. ^^

I realize that I never congratulated the 2s teams who earned invites to the next stage of the CGS qualifiers, so, way to be!! A few of my favorite players in the battlegroup made it, so rep Stormstrike. (<3 to Hamchook and Eks especially)

I'm psyched to watch this week's WSVG and I really recommend for everyone to show support and watch it. None of us will be at this one, but give it time. ^^ 3s is awesome to both play and watch, and I love the WSVG rule set.

** Mini Update **

Um, forgot that I need to get Vegas etc. all over again after reformatting so that's what I've been up to instead of posting today. I been working on a silly joke project in WoW that should probably be finished up this weekend; I was hoping sooner but I leave tomorrow for Vegas for a few days and won't be back to work on it till Saturday. Though between WSVG and arena catchup, who knows how much time I'll have. ^^

I've been messing around with the relentless earthstorm diamond for the past few hours in game; my initial reaction is that it is quite good, maybe the best meta for 5s, but probably much worse than the focus gem in the smaller arenas. That's basically just intuition/theorycraft from running around with it in BGs, so take that how you will. (I.E. DON'T FLAME ME IF I CHANGE MY MIND IN A FEW DAYS KK?)

My Two Cents

On this whole Oozo, Ming, and Neilyo flamefest:

I think the stiffest competition for 1v1 is on test. Ming's PTR dueling video from WoW 1.0 was definitely one of the all-time great vids. His recent vid (and my vid too!) are not as entertaining but showcase a ton of talented players.

Whenever I see 1v1 clips in videos, I'm not watching to assess "can he win this matchup than I cannot", I'm just thinking about what I'd be doing versus what I'm seeing and judge how good the clip/fight was based on how he played. I'm not trying to assess the video maker's skill by the "level" opponents he beats -- that might make a little sense for a PTR dueling video (and is a cool idea for someone who wants to do it, I picture cheesy wild west wanted posters)

So I can watch Evertras vids and think "this guys owns", but do I think he would beat Valanmor or Azael in a duel? No, not really. But I'm still entertained watching him play because he's very good and understands game mechanics well. Besides it's not like if you're a strong player, you won't be strong against crazy geared opponents, you just need practice and to adjust your strats.

So when I watch the beginning of Neilyo and the duel with the fire mage, I'm thinking "nice vanish" not "big deal you beat a fire mage as a rogue."

I would never ever ever ever go check armory ratings of players I see in videos, who cares? Certainly arena rating is correlated with skill, but who knows if they're even really trying. I mean if I'm jumped outside, I'll try to win with as minimal CD as possible and use CD as they become necessary, but in a duel I won't hesitate at all. What are you really demonstrating if you fraps barely beating me when I summon my WE 30 seconds into the fight? Nothing. But if you play the fight well, and I play the fight well, it still might be fun to watch. ^^

Videos are about entertainment, showcasing ability, and improving the overall skill of the playerbase. They need not do all 3, and if a vid can accomplish any of the three well, it can and should be well received.

I didn't really enjoy Oozo's vid, but I loved the Neilyo vid. It had nothing to do with the competition they respectively faced, but the Neilyo vid is just awesome to watch. Tons of fancy vanishes, beautiful blinds into vanish saps, and some great clips of utterly dominating outdoors (the two mages section is priceless and it could very well end up one of those 'classic' moments in pvp vids)