Professional news/discussion

x43r0

Darkglasses wrote: »

Anybody ever been to or is thinking of going to Gfinity? I'm 99% sure I'll make the trip. There's a few pros I'd really love to meet, and I'd like to meet some other fans too. Never actually been to London before though

I live in London and went to G3 a few months ago. It was pretty good. Well run.

There weren't any formal meet and greets but I did meet Hecz, JKap and Formal wandering around the event so it was just luck really. Most of the pros were not seen around in the public areas though

Hopefully this year they organise proper meet and greets though

Darkglasses

You going again next year x43ro? I really want to meet Proof, and Clay too. I'd really like to meet Gucci too, but to be honest I doubt his team will be invited.

Darkglasses

Just a reminder that UMG Orlando starts tomorrow evening and continues onto Sunday night

Darkglasses

Day one reaction

Not quite over yet, but it's going down as a day of huge upsets. Optic Gaming have lost both of their games today 3-0, vs. the relative weaklings in their group Team Revenge and Stunner Gaming. Not just the result, but the comprehensive manner in which they lost raises huge questions over whether they can actually turn around their squad potential into quality LAN results.

Elsewhere, both Faze and Envy lost their first games 3-0 also. Either first day jitters are in play big time, or else the AW meta-game is starting to really be felt - Experienced players who are used to strategic moves in holding the map are now being subsumed by young guns who rely upon reaction speeds to win SMG short-range battles, making it a simple battle of which team can rush fastest and commit to it most fully. Day two may reveal more.

Elsewhere, Optic Nation ran Elevate unbelieveably close in their first pool play match, losing 3-2. They play Prophecy later tonight I believe, I may or may not stay up for it. I don't think there has been any upsets in the open bracket. Denial are probably looking the most convincing team so far.

Darkglasses

Faze have had an absolute stinker, finishing top 16. Massive disappointment after winning the last event. Envy and Optic Nation will also be disappointed with their finish of top 12, but at least they got to play on the Sunday.

Optic Gaming are the only real top traditional top team remaining in the competition as we enter the final few rounds. OG will face Stunner shortly, with the winner advancing to the grand final. They will face the winner of the loser's bracket, which will be the winner out of Synergy (Mboze and Methodz' team), Justus, Denial, sB, Elevate, and the loser of OG and Stunner.


Overall, this event must be considered a massive failure for UMG on all fronts. Not only have the top teams all disappointed (low viewer numbers), but there have been some very serious accusations against Denial for cheating in their game against tK. Basically, the Denial players claimed they only got 1 point for dunking in two uplinks, whereas the footage appears to show them throwing the ball before the dunk.

In addition, there have been major accusations against the UMG refs and staff. Dedo and the sB team are saying that when they requested the LAN router to be reset, the referee said he would flip a coin to decide if he would or not. After sB started to protest, the ref claimed that Dedo actually spat in his face. Furthermore, there was a genuine case of poor score-keeping by UMG, when they initially said that there was a three-way tie in Pool D, before re-counting the rounds and giving it to Justus.

Needless to say, the scheduling has been absolutely abysmal. I doubt a single game has started on-time all weekend, and nobody seems to know where they are playing. UMG events are lightyears behind MLG's on all fronts. MLG are improving all the time, whereas UMG get worse if anything.

All in all, I doubt any supporter (apart from those of the winning team) will be too happy after the weekend. UMG just strike me as absolutely indifferent.

Darkglasses

Denial and Stunner are about to play the loser's bracket finals. The winner will play Optic Gaming in the grand finals.

I'm not a big fan of any of those three, but for the love of God not Stunner. I'm not sure about the Denial cheating thing, but I would hate to see a team that used Stim in league play get into a championship final.

I find it hard to like OG after they dropped Clay and Proof, but Hecz is still cool as f*ck, so I'd be happy for him. Crim is fine too, but I don't really like anybody else on the OG team.

Darkglasses

Stunner beat Denial 3-1 in a pretty awesome Uplink finish. Fair to say Uplink is up there with Hardpoint as a popular gametype now.

DoubleD

Darkglasses wrote: »

Stunner beat Denial 3-1 in a pretty awesome Uplink finish. Fair to say Uplink is up there with Hardpoint as a popular gametype now.

That was a class game, best game all weekend. Been watching some 2 and 5ks the past month or so and been really impressed with that Tjhally young lad. He was so good there, unbelievable play. Him and Huke are going to be the next big thing. A shame they wont be able to play at champs this year.

Darkglasses

And now a UMG staff member just won the raffle. *sigh* UMG please...

x43r0

Darkglasses wrote: »

You going again next year x43ro? I really want to meet Proof, and Clay too. I'd really like to meet Gucci too, but to be honest I doubt his team will be invited.

I might do - depends on the timing.

It's a very well run and entertaining event but I won't be cancelling any plans to make it

DoYouEvenLift

Can anyone explain this cod championships qualifying stuff? Watched a video and they have different qualifying rounds from all around the world and Ireland/UK will have 4 teams going to the final? How and when were the 4 teams decided?

Darkglasses

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Can anyone explain this cod championships qualifying stuff? Watched a video and they have different qualifying rounds from all around the world and Ireland/UK will have 4 teams going to the final? How and when were the 4 teams decided?

Online heats, they have not been played yet.

The rules and registration for it are here - http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/news/qualify-2015-call-of-duty-championship

Darkglasses

Pro League Play offs live from the MLG arena in Columbus, Ohio just started over on mlg.tv/cod

Tonights games -

Faze - Aware
Proph - tK
Optic - Rise
Denial - Aware

Rosters for this event -

Optic Gaming: Nadeshot, Scump, Crimsix, Formal
Faze Red: Enable, Aches, Parasite, Slasher
Denial: Jkap, Clayster, Replays, Attach
Prophecy: Mboze, Ricky, Classic, Mochila
EnVyUs: Saints, Merk, Zooma, Nameless
Team Kaliber: Sharp, Loony, Goonjar, Theory
Rise: Diabolic, Pacman, Miyagi, Chino
Aware: Accuracy, Happy, Huke, TJHaly


First match has started, Aware have taken a surprise 2-0 lead against Faze. For the last month or so Aches has looked a shadow of the player we saw dominate MLG Columbus with a stitched up hand.

Darkglasses

There's a very good LAN in progress in the North American regional qualifiers right now. The broadcast quality is absolutely top notch, MLG still improving all the time. Great to see Rambo on the analyst desk.

This is the last step towards qualifying for the main COD Champs tournament, you need to make it to Winner's Round 3 or Loser's Round 4 I believe to qualify.

There has been one really major upset, Total Revenge swept Denial 3-0 in WR. Orbit also a big surprise in knocking Stunner Gaming out of the running.

Great game up next, Optic Gaming up against Team Kaliber - mlg.tv/cod

Darkglasses

Huge game coming up later between Faze Red and Optic Nation. 6 of the 7 COD Championships winners will be in action, in about an hour's time or so.

Darkglasses

Faze Black against Total Revenge on right now, tR aren't a big name but a very solid team. After this it's Optic Gaming against Envy, then the winner of the current game against Faze Red. Great selection of matches there

Darkglasses

Pretty awesome news - TCM are moving to the USA to compete in Season 2, having bought Aware's league position. Their current roster is Gunshy, Moose, Shane, and King Jurd

Darkglasses

TCM are playing their first MLG pro league games tonight, including our very own Jordan "Jurd" Crowley. They've got a baptism of fire with their first matches against Optic Gaming and Optic Nation.

Not 100% sure if there will be a stream from TCM's perspective (although there probably will be). Failing that, you can definitely see them on mlg.tv/teepee and then on mlg.tv/crimsix. Starts around 11pm.

DoYouEvenLift

Our very own as in he's a boards member? Or he's just Irish?

Makaveli

Irish

Darkglasses

Playing again now on mlg.tv/esr

First map has ended, a healthy win over Prophecy

Darkglasses

TCM win their first league match 3-1, fantastic series.

Darkglasses

The biggest COD event of the year is this weekend, the finals of the Call of Duty World Championships. Starts Friday at 4:30 pm GMT

Darkglasses

Here are the pools -

Simply Red

Hard to look past anyone but optic winning, would be a major choke if they didnt the way theyve been playing recently. Denial tk and faze red would be my top 4. Hopefully tcm and epsilon will give a good showing

Darkglasses

Simply Red wrote: »

Hard to look past anyone but optic winning, would be a major choke if they didnt the way theyve been playing recently. Denial tk and faze red would be my top 4. Hopefully tcm and epsilon will give a good showing

Yeah, it should be Optic's championship to lose. I'm always up for the underdog, but it's hard to look at scump and nade and say they don't deserve it. They've been grinding for longer than most and never really got the success they deserve. That said, I'll be shouting for TCM, Faze Black, and Epsilon in that order

DoYouEvenLift

Does hecz own optic nation the same way he does optic gaming?

Saw that video of the optic house lan where they've just been scrimming all day for the last few days. It's crazy thinking about console gaming being done that seriously but they're competing for $400k which kinda justifies it.


It's really silly that all this is done on consoles though to be honest. I'm not even a PC gamer and I agree it's the most competitive platform with the most talented players. CoD 4 promod competitions were always great to watch, the level that some of the players were at was ridiculous. I know I'd never get anywhere near the level of even these console players but I'd still prefer to see the absolute 100% best players in the world at the game competing, and that would be PC players. Really sad that cod devs started catering more towards console than PC as the games had such potential to be a serious competitive platform had it continued like CoD 4s presence on PC. Still, will be interesting to see what kind of viewer numbers this weekend pulls compared to the >1m for the CS tournament last week.

DoYouEvenLift

Darkglasses wrote: »

Yeah, it should be Optic's championship to lose. I'm always up for the underdog, but it's hard to look at scump and nade and say they don't deserve it. They've been grinding for longer than most and never really got the success they deserve. That said, I'll be shouting for TCM, Faze Black, and Epsilon in that order

Optic have really done well outside of the actual gaming as well. They've really put the effort in to become the best known team, or even organisation at this stage, for call of duty. More teams need to do similar to what they're doing to get a solid base for the overall industry. Once there are a few solid teams like them, the whole thing will only grow faster and become even more 'professional'.

Darkglasses

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Does hecz own optic nation the same way he does optic gaming?

Saw that video of the optic house lan where they've just been scrimming all day for the last few days. It's crazy thinking about console gaming being done that seriously but they're competing for $400k which kinda justifies it.


It's really silly that all this is done on consoles though to be honest. I'm not even a PC gamer and I agree it's the most competitive platform with the most talented players. CoD 4 promod competitions were always great to watch, the level that some of the players were at was ridiculous. I know I'd never get anywhere near the level of even these console players but I'd still prefer to see the absolute 100% best players in the world at the game competing, and that would be PC players. Really sad that cod devs started catering more towards console than PC as the games had such potential to be a serious competitive platform had it continued like CoD 4s presence on PC. Still, will be interesting to see what kind of viewer numbers this weekend pulls compared to the >1m for the CS tournament last week.

Well if they were competing COD on PC, it would change the nature of the beast entirely. A lot of the top players have transitioned from Halo rather than having anything to do with CS, so transitioning to PC gaming is not on the cards at all. They'll never pull in anything close to the viewership that CS:GO does, they'll be doing well to meet their all-time record of about 250k. Seriously, comparing COD with CS:GO really isn't worthwhile, they can't compete. Comparing COD with Halo would be more appropriate.

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Optic have really done well outside of the actual gaming as well. They've really put the effort in to become the best known team, or even organisation at this stage, for call of duty. More teams need to do similar to what they're doing to get a solid base for the overall industry. Once there are a few solid teams like them, the whole thing will only grow faster and become even more 'professional'.

Absolutely, and their professionalism hasn't just been good for them, it's been good for all of professional Call of Duty. Faze, Team Kaliber, Denial, and most definitely Envy can thank Nadeshot and Scumpii for their livelihood. COD absolutely wouldn't be a shadow of what it is if it wasn't for those two guys (and Hecz). But that said, they really need to win some more championships.

DoYouEvenLift

Darkglasses wrote: »

Well if they were competing COD on PC, it would change the nature of the beast entirely. A lot of the top players have transitioned from Halo rather than having anything to do with CS, so transitioning to PC gaming is not on the cards at all. They'll never pull in anything close to the viewership that CS:GO does, they'll be doing well to meet their all-time record of about 250k. Seriously, comparing COD with CS:GO really isn't worthwhile, they can't compete. Comparing COD with Halo would be more appropriate.



Absolutely, and their professionalism hasn't just been good for them, it's been good for all of professional Call of Duty. Faze, Team Kaliber, Denial, and most definitely Envy can thank Nadeshot and Scumpii for their livelihood. COD absolutely wouldn't be a shadow of what it is if it wasn't for those two guys (and Hecz). But that said, they really need to win some more championships.

Yeah, the only real comparable things about CoD and Cs are that they're both FPS really. I think though that CoDs competitive scene would've been where it is now much earlier if the developers had worked more towards the PC scene as they did with CoD 2 and CoD 4. Seems like MW2 onwards was widely made with the console gamer in mind and the OC scene began getting less and less interest from the devs. Don't misconstrue what I'm saying though, CoDs wide success with overall sales and mainstream popularity was because of this decision to target consoles more, so it's not all bad. It's just that if they were looking to really get into the competitive scene and make it a great eSport that could be taken more seriously among the other games in the scene, they would've been much better off to have started targeting the PC players again and reintroduce a similar setup to promod. This just would've resulted in the absolute best of the best players of the game representing it. We'd be able to be fully confident that the players we're watching are the absolute pinnacle of CoD players in the world.


I hope they win as well, they deserve it and it'll give them some more steam in progressing altogether and they'll then cause a knock on effect for next years championships so fans will be excited to see if Optic can be beaten and cause some more excitement.