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| Mellow @ ECL Blog |
I was going to write a LAN blog like everyone else but the whole thing would end up being longer than the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition so in short I thought I'd summarise various aspects of it.
Thursday's Meal:
Met up with the whole ECL team for the first time and it was great fun. Good food and ended up having a good few drinks afterwards with some Gears of War kids. Got a fair bit of stick for being a Yorkshireman including being accused of being a Miner and wearing Flat Caps. A good way to kick off the weekend.
Imperial Esports:
Obviously as well as running the event, I am still the owner of the Imperial. We had a great event again, winning two of the tournaments and an MVP award. AdamW beat Sensation on his way to 1st place which was great (sorry Rob). While Focus surprised a lot of people and showed just how good they were at this tournament. Was great to see them win because they're all really sound guys as well. Validus proved that they were dedicated to our organisation by rocking home made shirts which I thought was a nice touch. Although they didn't go on to win, I was still very pleased with their placement so overall, I great weekend for our organisation. I hope/pray that this will be the last event where our players rock home made shirts though lol.
Sunday Night:
After working over 50 hours over the course of three days, it was great to just be able to go out for a drink and relax. Turned out to be a great night out and it was great seeing everyone out. I wish I could say more about this night but I don't remember much/anything. What I do remember though is paying paid £3 to hold my breath under water in a water fountain by Emo who apparently filmed it so I'm already dreading watching that. What's worse is that KerrBearr had to drive me home and I was too drunk to be bothered to shower so she had to put up with me smelling funkier than an 80s disco. But anyway, from what I remember, it was a good laugh so a shout out to everyone who was out for making it a decent night.
Running the Event:
So I guess this is the biggest section. As I explained above, I worked around 50 hours over the course of the event so there is obviously a lot to talk about. From Set Up to Pack Down I barely got a free moment but all in all, I really enjoyed doing it and I think that the event was a huge success. I want to take this time to thank all the staff who worked really hard over the course of the weekend to help us run the event and without them the whole thing wouldn't have been possible. I'd also like to thank each and every gamer that parted with their (or their parents) hard earned cash to attend our event and contribute to ECL Liverpool.
As with everything, the event wasn't without its flaws and I hope it goes without saying that this was our first event and there was no way we'd be able to pull things off flawlessly. Having read the thread about what needs improving for the next event, I thought I'd clear up some important points so you know what our mindset is also:
- PAT Testing: This was a disaster because the whole thing lasted about 3x as long as we had anticipated/scheduled for and even though the PAT Testers worked like machines for hours and hours, there was little we could do to speed things along and this completely threw our schedule out.
- Scheduling: Before the event I spent hours writing an extremely detailed plan of how long we expected each round of events to take at their maximum but various problems including the PAT test obviously affected our ability to stick to the schedule. This is something we've learned from and will improve in the future. Next time I will release the full detailed schedule rather than just posting a rough one as we did this time around. Halo was one of the games affected the most due to the high volume of sign ups and unfortunately we had to make teams play late on Saturday - some past 2am. I know some people were upset by this and we didn't want to have to do that but we had no choice. I appreciate the understanding from the individuals involved.
- Coverage: This is something that we will definitely improve. For the next event I hope to see a dedicated team of ECLers creating content so that everyone at home knows every fine detail about the event. We will also release a Streaming Schedule so people know exactly when their favourite games will take place.
- CoD 4: Obviously the rules just do not work on LAN. We need to be able to know what the maximum time of a game will be and right now we can't. From reading what other people have said, I think that the way forward would be to set SnD to a maximum round limit i.e. Best of 9 and also cut down on Domination to 5 minute sides. Sabo just doesn't work at all and although it can be really intense, we need to think of more than just this for tournaments/events and I hope to see within the next few weeks either a solution to this or for Sabotage to be dropped or replaced. The sooner changes are made, the sooner teams can start practising the new rules before the next ECL event. I guess a lot is down to Black Ops but if we're still rocking CoD 4 this time in a few months, the whole community needs to come together and find new teams for LANs. I refuse to believe that with a bit more effort we can't get 32 teams.
- Small coffee cups: This was down to the limitations of what we could offer in terms of food or drink because the event itself already had catering. As a result, we could only give out a free sample that had a maximum size.
These are just the small issues brought up but there are a lot of things that I will ensure get changed so we have an all round better event next time around. The whole thing has been a learning curve for us but we will keep trying to raise the bar and learn from our mistakes.
So I guess that's it really. Once again I'd like to make shout outs to everyone who contributed to the weekend. The ECL team, the Staff who helped at the event, the production team, Mike Bembenek, the sponsors, my Imperial staff, the Imperial players, and basically everyone who contributed to the event in some way, shape or form to make it as enjoyable as it was. I hope everyone had a great time and it was good to see you all again.
Mellow
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| Posted by Mellow 03.08.2010 at 18:16 |
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| Imperial.COD4 Tek9 AEF Preview |
IMPERIAL ESPORTS
 Geir "gizzor" Wivelstad
Robin "robonz" Bakken
 David "ono" McConnell
 Jasko "cozje" Berbic
 Kévin "FRENCHY" Héraudet
A team of true melting pot style, Imperial eSports have one of the most difficult line-ups in terms of logistics, but still have fought off most of the critics by delivering strong and upsetting results at earlier events. Most of you will have remembered their breakthrough performance at the Crossfire Intel Challenge 7 where they were seeded as they were beaten quite convincingly in the Seeding tournament just a couple of weeks earlier by NCE.I3D. During their group stage, they seemed unstoppable and delivered blow after blow to their four opponents and easily advanced through to the play-offs. While doing so, they were to face off against Team-Dignitas, who had been tipped as one of the outsiders to take a win there, and simply seemed to play more coherent and more organized than the Brits, giving them their biggest upset win of the tournament. Everything past this point would only be considered a bonus for the European mixed team. Quite unfortunately, they immediately met up with FnaticMSI in the play-offs and had to concede a loss. However, they did take a map from the Call of Duty 4 champions and would walk away from the event with their heads held high. This was a first and foremost performance by what many deemed as just your average mix team and this gave the team a boost and feeling as if they still had plenty of room to grow.
The months passed and they kept on playing, but unfortunately, were faced with problems somewhere around May. This dramatically affected the team's activity and when Dan "VAE" Ball announced afterwards that he would be unable to attend the Antwerp Esports Festival due to unforeseen commitments, the team had not been having a lot of practice and needed to find a new player to still try and do as well as possible. Picking up former TCM-Gaming player, Kévin "FRENCHY" Héraudet is definitely a plus in my eyes, as he has been one of the better players in the French scene in the last 6 to 9 months. However, the French are not known for the exquisite foreign language skills and therefore it will be interesting to see how well Imperial's ingame communication is going to be when it really matters.
The way this team is built up, they should be considered as a strong and capable opponent by all of the top teams, they should not be underestimated in any case. But, and this is a big one, they have not been able to really play a lot with many of the team's players out on holiday during June and July, they have only been able to put in two weeks' worth of practice with a completely new player. This will dramatically decrease their odds of doing better than a top 8 finish, yet teams who practise less have been known to do better on LAN, but that will always be a long-shot guess and will involve a lot of luck. Even though, I like this team, I think this is not their event. But I could be wrong, as I often am.
STATEMENT ONO
"We have had some problems running up to AEF,with gizzor's pc breaking in early May and the ear operation he had afterwards, which kept him out of playing for a while. We also had to find a 5th for the event due to VAE not being able to attend for reasons he could not control, as well as everyone in the team, apart from me, going on a holiday. Yet I still believe we can finish top 4 if we don’t get FnaticMSI in the first round  "
Tek9 AEF Preview
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| Posted by oLi 26.07.2010 at 22:07 |
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| Think Imperial, Think Inspiration |
First of all I would like to thank Mellow for bringing me on board and giving me the opportunity to embark on an amazing experience and for me to help the organisation finally get that last push to be one of the biggest eSport Organisations in Europe.
To start off I would like to introduce myself for those of you who might not know me. My name is Kerry Bennett, also known as KerrBearr xo. I am 18 and I'm currently an Operations Administrator for a construction company in West Yorkshire. When I was 6 I moved to North Carolina in America and lived there until I was 13. Living in a different country for 7 years has given me a different outlook on cultures, people and life itself.
I am just a normal, average, every day girl, however I have a passion for gaming and I have played games from the age of 6. Not only do I have a passion for gaming but I have a big interest in business in general.
For the Imperial eSports organisation I will be the Console Manager. In my time here, I plan to revamp and bring a whole new and an even more positive outlook to the organisation as a whole. Imperial has always been quite high up in the competitive gaming stakes and I plan on taking this further and filling in those gaps that keep popping up.
Following on from this, I would like to talk about some of the early changes and announcements that I believe will make the Imperial eSports Organisation stronger.
First off is our new charity sponsor called GamesAid. GamesAid is a children and young people's charity. We believe this charity is a way for the gamer to help the people who are less fortunate than themselves. In the near future, we will be planning on hosting various tournaments with prizes for the winners. All the profits will be donated to GamesAid to give them the funding they need to support those in need. More information will be found on this at a later date.
As you might notice over the next couple of weeks, we will be undergoing changes on the site to improve its efficiency as well as other aspects to keep the ball rolling here in the community. In the future, I would like to see changes made to the website and see VBulletin integrated. However, this will take time and we will keep you updated with the progress.
I have also often noticed the site is not updated regularly and usually has out of date announcements and other content, or in some cases, none at all. So therefore, we will be updating news articles, new sponsors and various other up to date content to keep the Imperial community posted. This also brings me to mention our new content writer Stephen "Recap" Fairhurst. I would like to welcome him on board and wish him the best of look in his articles and content.
Mellow and I plan on going over new potential sponsors in the near future. This way we can hopefully see this particular part of the Imperial grow, which allows us as an organisation offer more to our teams.
The final change I would like to announce for this moment is time is an organisational strap line. You will see it on the site in due course. I believe adding a slogan will help convey to other gamers and potential sponsors, what we as an organisation, seek to invoke. I think it adds character to a business and can get a core message across in a few simple words.
My next topic is teams. Obviously since I am Console Manager I will be looking through the teams we have and hopefully recruiting some new teams for different games. I will be looking for teams across all competitive console games and my details will be below if you or anyone you know would like to contact me to arrange a chat.
In 6 months time, I hope to see Imperial high on the eSports ladder and giving competitors something to strive for. I want to see us with more console teams which are loyal and willing to work with us to improve our service.
All I ask of you as a community is to be supportive and patient, as any changes to any company takes a lot of time, effort and thought. All my intentions will be in Imperial's best interest and I hope you will look forward to seeing some of these changes in the near future.
Thank you for taking your time to read this and I hope it has answered some of your questions as to who I am and what I will be doing. If you would like to contact me any further regarding team recruitments or any other information my details are listed below.
KerrBearr xo
MSN: KerryC.Bennett@Gmail.com
Skype: KerryC.Bennett
Twitter: www.Twitter.com/KerrBearrxo
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| Mellow's Basic Guide To Starting an eSports Organisation |
I'm not really sure where to post this but after Scene asked for some advice the other day, I sent him this email and thought it may help out a few people:
Your brand and website: Your starting point will be based on whether or not you have money and also how much money you have to invest to begin with. Your brand name is important because this is what people will know you by. If your name is more memorable and isn't cheesy or cliché, you'll be in a better starting position. You'll more than likely want a logo to represent your brand name, again, this could be anything, but this will more than likely be used in press releases, particularly when you become more popular, so a better logo is more likely to give out a better sense of professionalism surrounding your brand. Your website is also very important. Again, this is a key part in beginning to build your brand. Content should be easy to find and read. There should be sufficient space for partners as and what you're in a position to want to display their logos and/or adverts etc. Quality content will help you build a fan base of regular visitors which is vital for you to help market your organisation.
Picking the right teams: It's important that you get a proper understanding of a scene before you enter it. It's also important to understand where is best to enter the scene. From experience, I prefer to approach teams or players myself rather than having them come to me. This means I know who they are and how good they are. To start off with, you'll obviously have to aim low. For console, your best bet is to just shop around and see who is available. If you're lucky you'll be able to attract a team without any kind of financial input. They may not be that good but everyone has to start somewhere. On PC, your best bet is to get a server sponsor. There are a lot of game hosting companies and therefore, it's a competitive market and companies are willing to give up a free server every now and then if it means that they'll sell three more servers in the next month. Once you've got a server, you should be able to attract a medium skilled team off the back of this. From experience, this is the minimum requirement for a team looking to join an organisation on games like 1.6, CSS and CoD 4. Whoever you pick up, make sure you research them so they do not take advantage of you.
Getting to know the scene: For this, I think it's vital to understand how the community boards work. For example, Cadred has a certain culture and if you do not abide by this, you're liable to leave yourself open to insults and such. Websites like Cadred can also be a useful tool to track results from LAN events to help you get to know a scene better.
Always be professional: Remember that you're representing your organisation at all times. Whether it be in game, at LAN or on a forum. I always type in full English and where possible, avoid confrontation that could become offensive. Doing so should give people a more professional opinion of you as a manager and your organisation.
Sustainability: Many organisations fail because they try to live above their means. For example, they'll have £1000 in the bank and they'll spend that to get one team to one event in an effort to attract a sponsor. While I acknowledge that this may work on the odd occasion, it'll more than likely leave you £1000 worse off and in no better position. It takes time to build a brand that is marketable to potential sponsors and partners. You should support teams that you'll be able to support on an ongoing basis.
Build a rapport: Something that players value almost as much as support is a strong rapport with their manager. This can be the difference between them leaving you to join another team and them staying with you for years. How you do this is down to you, but just things like taking an interest in their team, helping them out where necessary and keeping them updated about the organisation are all things I do with my teams and players. The amount of free time you have will have an effect in this area, but at the same time, I would recommend that you draw a line with some things. Don't become their bitch and have to do their dirty work. Trust is an important factor in your relationship and this can easily be broken. Always be honest with things like LAN support because once you've let down a team or player, they'll be reluctant to trust you again but not only that, word can spread extremely quickly and a damaged reputation can take years to fix.
Marketing your organisation: Once you start to get consistent web traffic, you may be in a position to attract sponsors. I cannot really advise you on the best way to do this. It's mostly down to your own strengths and weaknesses. However, what I will say is that you have to understand the bottom line of what all businesses want and that is to make a profit. Whether you call a company, send a proposal or meet them face to face, their underlying interest will be whether or not you can make a profit for them. It's unlikely that they will want to hear about all the ins and outs of your team, at least not in the first contact. Be persistent. It's likely that you will face a lot of rejections but as you grow and adapt your marketing strategy, you'll hopefully achieve the success that you're looking for.
Edit: Something I thought I'd add that never really gets asked.
Why run an organisation?: Everyone has different motives for running an organisation. For me, I kind of fell into a management role as a way of remaining involved with the gaming scene while being unable to compete myself. It also gave me the chance to experience the thrill of competition with flexible hours. As time progressed, I wanted a chance to really prove myself as a gaming manager and that is what drove me forward. Essentially, being a gaming manager doesn't make you a gamer, it makes you a businessman operating in a very niche market. You have to rely on a range of skills to succeed as well as a fair amount of luck and a lot of commitment. Other people will have different motives. I know a lot of people do this because they want to one day make a living out of eSports management. Although this is a rare achievement, managers like ODEE of dignitas and Kboy of Fnatic have proven that this dream is achievable if you're a class above the rest of your competition.
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| Posted by Mellow 18.05.2010 at 18:55 |
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| Cadred Interview FeTiSh |
After The Imperial.css were crowned champions of the ESL EMS Season V, Cadred.org one of the biggest community websites around interviewed the teams in-game leader,  Henrik 'FeTiSh' Christensen.
Here is a small portion of the interview
| Its hard to say, the competetive scene will look at CSP if the bigger events pick it up and if that doesnt happen no-one will care the least big about CSP. Problem with CSP is that its FREE and doesnt get any exposure towards the newer generations, these have bought CSS for the last 3-4 years and have absolutely no relations towards 1.6 so I dont see why they'd care about it yet alone like it when they're CSS players |
To read to whole interview go to Cadred.org!
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| Player Spotlight falls on purityy |
Over the next few months we will be interviewing some of The Imperial's players from both the PC and console teams. This weeks interview is of Jesper 'purityy' Larsen, one of The Imperial's Counter Strike: Source players
Q. First of all can you tell the readers about yourself and your gaming history?
Purity:
Well, hello! I’m Jesper Høj Larsen. I’ll turn 20 shortly and have been playing Counter-Strike: Source since 2005. When I’m not playing CS:S with my other teammates, I’m working on getting through HTX (Higher technical exam) where I’m on my 3rd and final year. Back in 2005 when it all began, me and a couple of mates were heading out to try the new net café which had moved to town. When we got there we realised they didn’t have diablo2, which was my game of choice at that moment, but the owner talked us into paying for an hour to try this new FPS game. I got hooked instantly and spend the next 2 months at the place until I bought it myself. I played my first PCW about a year into the game and realised that CS:S is more than just running around and shooting headshots, and that’s when I got into competitive gaming. Went to my first LAN that same year, and loved every aspect of it. Since then I’ve just wanted to be the best at the game, and look at us now, almost there.
Q. By doing this HTX course what career are you hoping to move into and will you continue playing CSS?
Purity:
*When I'm done this summer, I'm hoping to take a math course so I can qualify for DTU (Technical university of Denmark) and hopefully by the end of next year I’ll be studying as an electronic design engineer. CS:S-wise I don’t know, one thing is for sure though: I don’t want to quit because of other priorities, I want to quit because I don’t care for it anymore.
Q. Sounds promising, so throughout your illustrious CSS career what has been your best moment?
Purity:
*There have been so many good times I'll remember for the rest of my life, but if I was to pick ONE it would be our trip to Outpost On Fire 3. From our 11 hour train ride, to Wantz realising he had spend 200€ in the mini bar, to 3k2 and wantz kissing (!). Never think we'll ever lose touch of each other, and I'm so happy playing with such good teammates.
Q. What things do you get up to when you’re not playing css or working towards your qualification?
Purity:
I got a job as a driver for a catering company, other than that I love partying of cause and hanging out with my friends. But with CS:S five evenings a week and school plus homework , it’s quite a puzzle to make time for it all.
Q. The team has already played 2 LANs under The Imperial, what LANs next year are you most looking forward to and do you think the Xmas break will have an effect on your performances?
Purity:
*I’m really looking forward to LAN79, where I know VeryGames and Roccat will be attending so we’ll have a chance of beating them. We’ve only played the current VeryGames once officially and lost due to us not showing our A-game. The Christmas break is out of need and not cause of us losing our motivation or anything. Gravity and I had some exams to attend so we decided that we would take a minor break and only practice the day our officials were being played. We haven’t lost a game in DEL, EMS or ESEA yet, I don’t think it will effect, nor has affected us. We’ll just come back wanting to win even more now!
Q. Last question now, who do you believe are Europe’s current Top5 CS:S teams?
Purity:
*Reason, VeryGames, Roccat, Power Gaming and us, in any order depending on map and side.
Q. Finally, any shout outs?
Purity: *I want to thank The Imperial and all of our sponsors for making this dream come true. I want to thank my teammates, without them I probably wouldn’t play this game and I’m hoping 2010 will be the year The Imperial will have the best counter-strike: source team in Europe! |
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| Mellowing Out: My 2009 in Gaming |
As part of one of my regular articles over at Decerto.net I decided to write a blog on the years events. Happy reading.
Mellowing Out: My 2009 in Gaming wrote:
Having been a part of competitive gaming now for around 7 years. Every year gaming seems to be getting bigger, and I seem to be getting more and more involved. So to mark the turn of the year, I thought I'd try and recount the trials and tribulations of the year that has almost passed. I think I should warn you in advance that this is 5,500 words, enjoy.
2008 concluded with a bang. In November I attended the World Cyber Games grand finals as part of the UK team along with two other member of The Imperial, Dan 'Rayne' Read and George 'Monkey' Boothby who went on to become World Champion. A few weeks afterwards, we, The Imperial, were approached by an organisation called Mousetek who wished to become our PC team. We accepted and that's where 2008 ended.
January
The new year launched with an real element of excitement in the air. Firstly, there was beginning to be a real buzz around The Imperial. We had kind of arrived. On console, many were looking at us as a real force in the European community. Which, considering we had only formed about six months before, was a real achievement and something that we hoped to build on. With eSports in general, in the UK scene was looking up as a new league was looking to revolutionise the competitive scene by delivering everything people was looking for. The organisation was operating under the name UKeSA and was headed by a number of big names from various eSports website, and even TV channels.
People were quickly moving back to CoD 4 in favour of the newer release, World at War which had received a fairly disappointing reception for the fleets of hopeful fans. Near the end of the month the championship titles were released for UKeSA which gave great hope to the UK console scene and even though GoW was missing off the list, CoD 4 and Halo 3 made an appearance and anticipation began to build in what was touted as the biggest league in 2009 and the answer to many people's prayers.
In The Imperial, things were also moving quickly, especially on the PC side of things. We added a new CoD 4 line up and along with our highly rated Team Fortress 2 team, we were beginning to receive some coverage on the bigger PC sites including Cadred and Tek-9. Although initial community response was fairly dire, replies to news topics were often along the lines of, "Who?" or "**** org." On the console side of things, we added our Gears of War team to our line up, Romance.
February
February pretty much began as January ended, with everyone gearing up towards the highly anticipated launch of UKeSA. As our PC team continued to grow, we picked up teams for Counter Strike Source and Warcraft III. Midway through the month, we saw our first real disappointment in the PC scene with our CoD 4 team opting to leave us and join Team Infused. I have had many experiences with players leaving and normally it's easy to take on the chin, but this time it was a particularly bitter pill to swallow as we were so new to the PC scene and worse still, I had just recommended Infused to our sponsor, LIME. Still, teams have to go where is best for them, and with this, we just had to move on. And move on we did, quickly, perhaps to quickly, in what started a saga within CoD 4 PC I would much prefer to regret. We moved quickly to pick up another hotly rated UK CoD roster that brought with it more baggage than a Boeing 757. A team riddled with past cheaters and instability. In brighter news, with the release of the UKeSA premiership titles came the announcement that The Imperial's Team Fortress 2 team had been included as a Premiership team, and so had our FIFA player TI Sensation. We also added fellow premiership FIFA player, Klash to our roster, as well as picking up three time XL Pro Evo winner, NeoKubrick.
At the end of the month, UKeSA opened its doors and the competition got underway. Exciting times all round.
March
March started with making the decision to run for UKeSA council. The positions were advertised as a means to find community members who will help push UKeSA and the related games forward. A role I felt I could fill quite well so I decided to run despite facing impossible competition and blatant defeat before I'd even begun. During the process I was required to fill in a number of Q&A questions before finally participating in a Live Debate held on QuadV. I’m not entirely sure how many people tuned into this but it most definitely went badly for me as I choked and stuttered through each question that was thrown at me. Needless to say, I wasn’t voted into the position. In other news, after a month of struggling with our Call of Duty 4 PC team, we decided to release them. March also saw the launch of the new season of the UK ESL EPS where our CSS team were competing. The month ended on a high as we achieved our first podium finish in Warcraft III ESL EPS Benelux. We also added our first Trackmania player and once again recruited a new Call of Duty 4 PC team, this time in the form of the much more stable zeroPoint!
April
April began with the shock recruitment of dignitas Leader and Manager, Rumsey. Meanwhile our TF2 team were ranked 8th in Europe in the regular European Ranking series on Cadred.
Nine days into the month saw my first LAN of the year in the form of i36. In attendance were our CSS, CoD 4 (PC) and Halo 3 team. This was my 3rd I-series event and also the 3rd time I was going to be camping. Bad times. The highlight of the event was undoubtedly Shinjuku’s impressive afro which Phaz got a big kick from patting. We rocked to the event with press passes which was also pretty good. Sitting among our “fellow” journalists made it far easier to produce Decerto content for the event. The Imperial’s CSS, CoD 4 (PC) and Halo 3 teams finished top 16, top 12 and 3rd respectively with our Halo 3 team taking 3rd for the second consecutive Halo 3 event held at I-series. A pleasing result on paper but highly disappointing for the players involved, with some of them clearly unable to hide their disappointment.
No sooner had I-series finished, we were onto the next LAN of the month; Gadget Show Live. This was an invite only CSS event in which four of Europe’s top CSS were featured, Team dignitas, CrackClan, VeryGames and Team Coolermaster. The star of the show though, was the Imperial’s World Champion Guitar Hero III player, Monkey, who attracted huge crowds to witness him perform exhibition songs or participate with fans in various give aways. This was undoubtedly one of my favourite events of 2009 with the trip being all expenses paid, as well as being put up in a top notch hotel. It was a great weekend, the highlight of which was skipping the 4,000 people in the queue with our pass which allowed us instant access.
At the end of April, we signed a new FIFA player, two new PES players, a host of new Trackmania players and of course, we began the Sublime saga by allowing a merger with newly formed Sublime, fronted by manager, Acid.
May
The month began with a renewed optimism as the pace once again increased in The Imperial. One of our FIFA players, AdamW was competing in the FIFA Inactive World Cup in Barcelona where he placed 5th-8th after losing to the eventual runner up in the quarter final. Our FIFA team were in fine form at this time with Sensation and Klash finishing 1st and 2nd respectively in the UKeSA FIFA Premiership, with AdamW qualifying for the PS3 UKeSA Championship LAN finals, and Sensation winning the ShopTo FIFA tournament. Things were far less rosey on other titles with our Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 (360) teams leaving to join CrackClan and TCM with the UKeSA LAN finals being the last event that each would play under The Imperial, while our Call of Duty 4 (PC) team decided to disband after their rather disappointing placement at i36.
With this brought a number of changes as we brought in a whole PS3 division, a new PC manager called Term and we took on our first contracted team, a Call of Duty 4 (PC) team based in the Netherlands.
May was also a huge mile stone for the Call of Duty 4 (360) community with the release of the Decerto v2 rules. The month ended with the news that our Team Fortress 2 team had moved up to ranked 7th in Europe in Cadred’s European ranking for May. The Imperial also registered as a Limited Company, Imperial Esports LTD.
June
June began as another very volatile month for our organisation. It was clear that the relationship between The Imperial and Sublime wasn’t going to work and with this came a split which I won’t go into too much detail about. Needless to say, we were far from happy. Elsewhere things were looking more optimistic; one of our Trackmania players qualified for the UK ESL EPS Finals. The Imperial announced our second sponsor, PW Computers. Our Playstation 3 team also won their first tournament on Killzone 2.
The main event of June was the UKeSA LAN Finals. The event, originally intended to be held as part of a huge consumer event, was now going to be held in the Xleague studio. Never-the-less, we headed down to London with optimistic hopes of a great weekend. Millo made his first appearance as the official TI driver, picking me up from Leicester which was nice of him. The Imperial attended the event in force competing in six different tournaments taking three 1st places, two 2nd places, and one 3rd place. Although a resounding success for our team, the cracks were beginning to show in a less than flawless UKeSA setup which saw sponsors disappearing and logos being covered up by masking tape with the entire event taking place in a room that doubled as the Babestation studio. Despite all the furniture being covered in velvet and the room having one seat which all the participants had to share; the event was enjoyable and with the help of QuadV and a number of budding volunteers, the whole thing ended on a semi decent level.
The month ended with the official departure of our Halo 3 and Call of Duty (360) teams, and with the addition of our new French Halo 3 roster.
July
July got off to a bang as we announced another sponsor, this time, PCO Group. A top supplier of custom made PCs. Four days into the month was the first LAN of July; the UK ESL EPS LAN finals. I won a VIP trip to the finals with Cadred, dignitas and ESL which involved getting some of my travel paid back which was quite handy. With this, I once again headed to London, this time, with The Imperial’s Trackmania Nations player, StevieM. Despite my best effort at getting lost in London, I eventually found the venue and boy, was it worth it. The event was exactly how gaming events should be run; with free entry because of the corporate sponsorship from Intel, the setup was immaculate. StevieM eventually placed 2nd in what seemed an extremely long day of gaming. We then headed to our hotel in London which we believed would be easy to find. I don’t think we could have been more wrong. Taking the tube at 12 is surprisingly difficult enough, but then having to get off miles from the hotel in basically the Ghetto and navigate your way to a hotel is no easy task; especially when the hotel receptionist cannot even provide directions. After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived in quite possibly the worst Travelodge of all time. With a party going on on the opposite rooftop, as well as the air conditioning being broken, we were destined for the worst night sleep in recorded history, thankfully we were knackered, and I eventually fell asleep in what I would describe as soup my bed was that sweaty.
Four days later was yet another LAN, this time MILK LAN with our French Halo 3 team competing for their first and only time under The Imperial banner. Their biggest competition, our former team, CrackClan. The team eventually placed 2nd. The French invasion of The Imperial continued as we also announced our new Rainbow Six squad comprised of three French and one Belgian player. Our promising Halo 3 team’s reign under The Imperial banner was unfortunately cut short though as they made a decision to miss I-series because of the possibility of catching swine flu. This news soon became widespread and quickly became considered as one of the greatest LAN dodging excuses of all time, cropping up on both PC and Console forums.
July also played host to two of the biggest PC events for CSS and CoD 4 (PC) of the Summer LAN season, Outpost On Fire and The eXperience. The latter of which was voted as THE PC event of the year in 2008. Our CoD 4 (PC) team attended both events, at OOF the team managed a draw in the groups against high flying Fnatic and eventually placed top 12. While at TeX the team managed a draw in the groups against purEsports, the only team at the event hailing from outside Europe. Sadly, a mix up of flight times meant that the team had to forfeit their Lower Bracket second round fixture against mTw.
July had more up its sleeve as the PES rankings UK Nationals were also held at Old Trafford this month. This was the first time I’d had any real interaction with the PES community and I was extremely impressed. The event was of the highest quality and could definitely rival the UK ESL EPS Finals for the best event so far of the year. With a free buffet lunch and free stadium tour, which I turned down being a Leeds fan. The Imperial had three players competing at the event, NeoKubrick, Azy and Footimaster, with Footimaster currently sitting rank one on PES rankings. The winner of the event would win the PESRankings 2009 title and represent the UK in the European Finals held in France. All three players qualified through the group stages and the first to be knocked out was NeoKubrick against last year’s champion, Wallace. Azy then got knocked out in the next round in a rather unfortunate game which saw him hitting the woodwork more times than a lumberjack. The event looked to be throwing up the final everyone was expecting, The Imperial’s Footimaster against Leng Jay. However, there was a spanner in the works, and in the semi final, in a game that Footimaster looked to be edging, the referee awarded a red card to one of Footimaster’s players and with 10 men, he was eliminated from the tournament in the semi finals. This meant that Footimaster had to settle for 2nd place in the PES Rankings and fortunately, the second UK spot for the European Championships.
The month ended as we added a new Halo 3 team ahead of i37 and also recruited a new Call of Duty 4 (360) team after a lengthy absence from the scene. The team quickly scooped 5th place in the Decerto European Rankings.
August
Three days into August we announced our forth sponsor, Games Basement. Games Basement is an online retailer of Video Games. Then a few days later came the biggest I-series of the year, i37 which also played host to the M-Festival, FIFA Meet Your Match LAN Finals and also the World Cyber Games 2009 UK Nationals. This was The Imperial’s biggest event of the year, with three of us defending our UK titles in the World Cyber Games official games, three of our FIFA players competing in the MYM LAN finals, while our Halo 3 and Counter Strike: Source competed in the M-Festival tournaments. The event had the makings of an epic. The Meet Your Match tournament kicked off first, and things didn’t go as hoped, two of our players losing in the first round and the other losing in the quarter finals. When things seemed like they couldn’t get worse for our FIFA players, two of our players were ejected from the event without being able to compete in the FIFA WCG event; one for stealing and the other for being too drunk. Both players were also removed from The Imperial organisation as a result of their behaviour.
The event picked up again as both our Halo 3 and CSS were putting in some decent results while Monkey was doing what he does best by dominating the competition. A slightly apprehensive and Rayne surprised even himself by completely blowing the Virtua Fighter 5 competition away and being the first member of The Imperial to book his place in the grand final in Chengdu. Monkey wasn’t far behind after an emphatic final victory which once again looked all too easy. I qualified for the knock out stages of both the mobile phone titles, and after losing in the first round of Wise Star 2, I began to make my way through the knock out stages of Asphalt 4 until I once again found myself in the finals on main stage. I say I made my way through the knock out stages, I narrowly won one game and got a default win for the other. Anyway, I found myself on stage against now tournament favourite, Lethal. The winner would get a trip to Chengdu in China for the World Cyber Games final as well as win a cheap bottle of Champagne which some ****head stole anyway. I don’t know why but I get uncontrollable shaky when I’m competing and despite looking like I was operating a pneumatic drill and almost blowing a 2-0 lead, I managed to once again retain my UK title.
I37 concluded with our CSS team taking a 7th/8th place final, their highest ever I-series finish and a placement to be proud of. Our Halo 3 team once again placed 3rd at an i-series Halo 3 event, for the 3rd time in a row. All in all a successful event, except for the fact that I had slept in the boot of TrevVv’s car each night we were there, one of the nights we also witnessed some kid take a slash on Shinjuku’s car which was both amusing and annoying, especially for him. He was fuming in the end.
August concluded with The Imperial picking up one of the best racers in the world, WCG 2008 Project Gotham Silver Medalist, Live. Monkey also won a Guitar Hero tournament at the Bloodstock Music Festival. Sensation once again won a ShopTo FIFA tournament.
September
September started rather negatively with players going off to university and such, both our Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike: Source teams decided to call it a day and split. We also parted company with our Playstation 3 division after it was decided that the relationship was not working out. We once again welcomed back our former Call of Duty 4 (360) line up consisting of Hocka, Arsenal, Apache and Wardy.
The first LAN of the month was Frag-o-Matic taking place in Belgium where our Call of Duty 4 (PC) team would be in attendance; this time with the correct flights booked. After a bad game early on in the winner bracket, the fought their way through the lower bracket before eventually winning the event. A great result for the team who were slowly establishing themselves as a force to be reckoned with in Europe. But, less than a week after they returned, it was decided that we would cancel their contracts after a length feud between one of their members and our PC management team.
The month ended with LIVE competing in the Need for Speed: Shift UK LAN Final. For the winner... a Nissan 360z sports car! After qualifying in a regional event, LIVE looked like the favourite for the title after consistently setting solid lap times, until the final where he squared off against Stune of Team dignitas. I was not at the event to report the events which took place in the final, but from reports, the whole thing ended in fairly controversial fashion with LIVE losing after a cameo from Tinchy Stryder caused the crowd the erupt abruptly surprising LIVE and causing him to drive off the track on the corner. Quite unlucky given the prize and the circumstances.
October
October began with Footimaster representing the UK in the Pro Evolution Soccer European championships, an event that he’ll be hoping to forget and after a slow start, was unable to make it out of the group stages.
Four days later we made a huge decision to take on one of the top European CSS teams. Formally known as MoD. Financially, this was the most expensive team we had ever taken on. The team were soon competing at SLAP!, an event held in their home country, Denmark. They were seeded 5th for the event behind Dignitas , Vitrolic , mTw , and 4Kings. The weekend of the LAN was to be a big weekend for The Imperial with our teams competing at three different events in three different countries. Our CSS team at Slap!, our Vegas 2 team at The Ferry LAN and our Gears of War team competing at EGL.
EGL had risen out of the ashes of ESGN and was an event that we had had in the pipe line for quite some time; something that was suddenly rushed out with little time to prepare for. Unfortunately, I had just moved into a new house in Leeds and with being busy over the days leading up to EGL, I took a back seat in the logistics of the event which were handled by Loco and Rumsey. EGL quickly rolled around and thanks to the hard work from Loco, Rumsey and of course Chris from LIME, everything was set up to be a great event. There was still quite a lot to be worked out and it was fair to say over the weekend we winged it somewhat. We were especially unlucky with the unfortunate circumstances which surrounded Rumsey’s son who thankfully was OK. Despite broken arms and unexpected power cuts, everyone chipped in, with people who hadn’t even given a thought to refereeing during the event all pitching in to make sure the event ran smoothly and despite the schedule being long out the window, we pulled off what I would consider to be a pretty successful event. There is no doubt a lot that can be improved for next time around, an event that will be announced before the end of the month, but I believe there is a lot of good to be drawn on too. I was extremely proud of what we had pulled off and I for one had worked my tits off. I think overall I had had less than thirty minutes break over entire weekend despite being the first in and last out. And I wasn’t the only one. A select few had really given their all to make sure the event was as successful as it was. These people know who they are and without naming names they can pat themselves on the back. I will give a shout out though to Loco’s Dad who bought me a subway.
As for the results, well, our Gears of War team placed 2nd at EGL and gave the undisputed European champions, Team dignitas their tightest game since XL3 from a European team. Our Rainbow Six Vegas 2 team over came sea sickness (I’m not even joking, don’t hold LANs on a boat) to place top 2 with the final placement pending the result of an online game after the schedule over ran. Finally, our CSS team performed well above expectations, placing 3rd at SLAP! LAN and achieving a podium finish at the first time of asking. A very successful weekend all round.
The month was rounded off with The Imperial having a short lived stint with a Modern Warfare (PC) team, picking up a highly rated Battlefield 2 team and also acquiring a new sponsor, VeryGames. VeryGames are one of the leading providers of European Game servers. The Imperial.CSS were finally ranked 7th in October in the Cadred European Rankings.
November
November began like many other months, extremely hectic, firstly with a PES Rankings LAN where Footimaster placed 2nd. The Imperial CSS team were crowned champions of Denmark by winning the Danish Esports League season one. More success online followed with our Vegas 2 team winning the XS Semi Pro Ladder.
Meanwhile, WCG was getting nearer and nearer and we were beginning to sweat. The reason: we didn’t even have visas yet to get into China. The day drew ever nearer and it finally came to crunch time. If we didn’t have an invite from the Chinese government by the next day we were unable to attend the event. Luckily, we did receive the invite and a day in Manchester and £107.50 later, I was ready to go to China.
The UK team was 1/4 of the size that it had been one year ago which meant we were a much tighter group. Three flights later and a sprint through Amsterdam airport, we arrived in Chengdu. It’s fair to say we were quite tired but we were soon greeted by hyper WCG representatives who were keen for our autographs believe it or not. After signing a number of t-shirts, hats and notepads, as well as having a picture with everyone there, we boarded our bus to our hotel.
Our hotel was great, top notch. I saw Holiday Inn in the itinerary and thought it would be bog standard but it was one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed in. Upon arriving in our hotel we did some product placement with a Chinese brand of pot noodle; a video which to our horror showed up in the WCG 2009 summary video. Day two began with a tour of the Chengdu Panda reserve. All the players boarded buses and with the support of a police escort, we made our way across Chengdu to see one of their hottest tourist attractions.
The day was rounded off with a once again questionable opening ceremony and then quite possibly the worst meal of my life. I thought that bread dipped in Asda’s own Pot Noodle was an all time low but the offerings of stewed turtle, deer tongue and roasted chicken, served in its’ entirety including the roasted head, were too much for me and I decided to go hungry.
The event itself was amazing. The venue was the second best I’ve been to with the best being WCG 2008 in Germany. However, the crowd was absolutely amazing. At times, it was absolutely packed with tens of thousands of screaming fans packed in to see their favourite esports stars compete. Over the course of the five days I continued to sign autographs and have pictures taken with me. My competition didn’t exactly go to plan. I walked the group stages and going into the second day, I felt that I had what it would take to go one better than my 4th place the previous year, but once again I was humbled at the hands of a German competitor who overcame me in the presence of what seemed like the entire German team. I placed 5th-8th overall. I wasn’t the only one feeling the disappointment though. Rayne was knocked out in the group stages, and Money was beaten for the first time ever in a competitive tournament and ended up with the same placement as me. This was definitely a cue to let off some steam, and after visiting a decent bar the night before, we decided to go to a Chinese club this time. The club was an experience. Firstly, I’ve never been anywhere that busy, I’ve been too busy clubs in the UK but you can still move in areas, but not here. There was no dance floor and the club was mostly tables dotted around the room. Drinks were generally purchased in bulk or as entire bottles of spirits to mix yourself. The club even had a number of acts on including some strippers and a pretty talented singer. As well a kid who rapped along to a fairly cringe worthy rendition of Jay-Z’s Encore. Surprisingly, we were the weirdest people in there, especially myself and Chris Bullard. I am 6ft3 and Chris is two inches taller and needless to say, we were at least half a foot taller than the next tallest people in there until a few of the Italian players rocked in. Meanwhile the Kenyan national team were hitting the dance podiums and the US Virtua Fighter was so smooth he had wheels trying to slime with every girl in the venue.
The rest of the event was spent soaking in some of the culture or trying to find some food that we could trust. A very memorable event which finished with a very lengthy return journey.
As usual, the month was far from over. After some more online success in ESL and other tournaments, we welcomed our Modern Warfare 2 (360) team, Wonderbabes ahead of the GameStop $10K tournament. Footimaster also competed in a PES event which was also attended by a host of Premiership stars which he went on to win.
Dreamhack was the final port of call of the CSS scene for 2009, as some of the top team descended on Sweden for the winter leg of the largest Bring Your Own Computer LAN in the world. Ironically, our CSS team were attending a Turn Up and Play event, and therefore attended without a computer. The event itself was of a very weird format, and our team had to go through a qualifying event first; with the top 2 advancing to the semi finals of the overall tournament. After a horrendous start in the group stages, the team were back on track and managed a draw against the ever impressive Reason Gaming line up. The team managed to place 4th in the groups and advance to the knock out stages. The weird format meant that we eventually faced Power Gaming, the winning team advancing to the semi finals to take on Reason Gaming with the losers going home. We’d already lost to Power twice in the tournament but managed to pull the game out of the bag, defeating Power and setting up a game against Reason in the semis the next day. The semi final match didn’t go as well and an extremely strong Reason team proved their European dominance by bagging the win and going on to take the tournament. Our team had to settle for a 3rd place finish for the second even in a row.
December
And this brings us to now. In what is always a quiet month for gaming, little has happened this month. Online tournament are the order of the day with our teams continuing to perform in their various tournaments. Our CSS team are among the nominees for the Heaven’s Media CSS team of 2009 while wantz is a nominee for the Heaven’s Media Break Out Player of 2009.
A great year for myself and The Imperial which hasn’t even finished yet. Over the course of the year, we have achieved over 100 podium finishes in the many online and LAN events we have taken part in. We have competed in six invite only International tournaments; eleven invite only national tournaments, and attended many LANs throughout the UK, European and Asia competing in France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and China. With all things considered, it is my belief that we are the most successful team hailing from Console Gaming not only in 2009, but ever!
So this seems like the type of place to wrap this whole thing up. Thanks for reading and I’d finally like to give a shout out to each of our sponsors, LIME Interactive, Games Basement, PW Computers, PCO Computers and VeryGames. Also a big mention to the other managers of The Imperial, Phaz, oLi, and Term, as well as everyone else that has helped The Imperial achieve what they have this year. Finally to the other people who have made this such a memorable year in eSports and hopefully 2010 will be even more memorable.
Chris ‘Mellow’ Marsh |
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| Imperial.Fetish talks about the past few months |
Imperial.FeTiSh. on his time in The Imperial so far!
We’ve been playing quite a lot since we started our preparation for Slap Live #19, haven’t had a break from gaming until now. We’re really pleased with our performances at the last two LANs we’ve attended. Before and after TeX 09’ we struggled to beat an international top team and lost a really close game on de_dust2 versus the strong German side mTw.MindFactory. They played really well, especially nooky who won a 1on2(vs. gravity and purity) in the last round of the second half with us leading 15-14.
Then came the changes, Victor came in to replace Steffen “3k2” Markussen. We didn’t want to change a player since 3k2 is a really nice person and an extraordinary team player. But with his commitments at university playing simply became impossible, bet he still misses playing!
Victors performance at Slap Live #19 was crazy, surprised all of us. Before we decided to go for Victor as our new fifth we had two others we wanted to bring in and especially one of them, he then turned down our offer. Victor came from a period of inactivity so he was fairly bad in the beginning so we had to look for someone else to replace 3k2. But luckily for Victor we took him in!
Slap Live #19 was our breakthrough as a team. Finally we beat a top team and who better than mTw.MindFactory who knocked us out of TeX 09’ after overtime!! We won quite big both times and managed to beat the other Danish top team, ROCCAT in the process. We finished 3rd after losing to both former Vitriolic side (Blight) and Dignitas.
In the time gap between Slap Live #19 and Dream Hack IOL Qualifier we won the Danish E-sports League (DEL) and are currently 4-0 in our EMS group beating hoorai.Xilence 22-8 on De_tuscan.
Both Dream Hack and the Qualifier were ****. I’ve been to Dream Hack twice prior to this 09’ event and they’ve never invested time or money into setting up the tournament. Assigned to these tournaments was a French admin named “RaF”. Let’s just say that we hope he’ll never be in charge of anything else again!
We played a few good games and two horrible games; again we found ourselves finishing 3rd. We beat PG to proceed to the finals and in our group we drew with Reason-Gaming after being down 15-7 De_nuke being T. Damn shame there’s no demos of that game, could have made a whole movie out of that game alone. I won a 1on2 with 1HP and wantz finished the game with a 1on2 win aswel, could mention several things from this game but I’ll just stop now: D!
Right now we’ll go on a “break” and only play our remaining officials for December and start playing sometime in January.
Henze out!
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Power Gaming
