Would you think it was cool if Enemy Territory was played at ESWC, WCG, CPL or WEG? Would you think it would be nice to watch Four Kings vs. Schroet Komandos in ET? If you answered yes to these questions, you might want to read this column.
I think that all who followed QuakeCon this summer will agree with me on the fact that it was one of the greatest things ever happened to ET, except for the fact that only two European teams attended. But to have a rather big LAN tournament with ET as the main team competition, or just as a part of a major LAN event, is something we might have to wait a long time before we can experience again, probably not until Qcon 2006.
But how do we, as players, get ET to be played at bigger events and competitions and not just CB EC with 500 euro in price poule? Well in my opinion there is only one way, and that is to make ET more famous and this can be done in several ways.
Through news sites
At the moment I am only aware of two eSports sites in Europe that, together with other games, writes about ET and those are eSports.pl and Played.dk (esreality to some extend). My personal opinion is that, if you write news on sites which already has a big user-group in other eSports games, the knowledge about ET in eSports will rise.
Through big multi gaming clans
When QuakeCon was announced and big clans like check6, united5 and team9 (notice the popular use of numbers) brought in ET clans as a part of their organization, I was hoping this was the beginning of a trend that would make ET become more known in eSports; it had a small effect, but not big enough. When ET came out there were two big German clans which had ET clans, OCRANA and mTw ALTERNATE, but these teams were later closed and this brings me back to the news site part. If big multi gaming clans like SK Gaming, Against All Authority, fnatic, mousesports, a-Loosers, Four Kings etc. was having an ET-team under their protective wings, it would somehow for the all the other (stupid) eSport-players be easier to relate to. Another thing that made me a bit disappointed was when Parodia announced that they joined up with uQ-Gaming (no offense to any of the involved of course); I mean I would rather see Parodia join up with one of the big clans mentioned above.
Through the tournaments
Trying to influence the big tournaments like CPL has already been tried by people in the ET-community, and also failed. I do think though that if the right persons with the right information, attitude and so forth, was to contact some of the big events, it might come out right.
My predictions
When RtCW was at it's high point, clans like EYEballers, GamePoint, Four Kings etc. had clans playing for them, however I do not think we will experience this in ET's lifespan. The rise of our sub-culture (which is RtCW and ET) will not happen before ET:QW or RtCW2 is released.
I think that all who followed QuakeCon this summer will agree with me on the fact that it was one of the greatest things ever happened to ET, except for the fact that only two European teams attended. But to have a rather big LAN tournament with ET as the main team competition, or just as a part of a major LAN event, is something we might have to wait a long time before we can experience again, probably not until Qcon 2006.
But how do we, as players, get ET to be played at bigger events and competitions and not just CB EC with 500 euro in price poule? Well in my opinion there is only one way, and that is to make ET more famous and this can be done in several ways.
Through news sites
At the moment I am only aware of two eSports sites in Europe that, together with other games, writes about ET and those are eSports.pl and Played.dk (esreality to some extend). My personal opinion is that, if you write news on sites which already has a big user-group in other eSports games, the knowledge about ET in eSports will rise.
Through big multi gaming clans
When QuakeCon was announced and big clans like check6, united5 and team9 (notice the popular use of numbers) brought in ET clans as a part of their organization, I was hoping this was the beginning of a trend that would make ET become more known in eSports; it had a small effect, but not big enough. When ET came out there were two big German clans which had ET clans, OCRANA and mTw ALTERNATE, but these teams were later closed and this brings me back to the news site part. If big multi gaming clans like SK Gaming, Against All Authority, fnatic, mousesports, a-Loosers, Four Kings etc. was having an ET-team under their protective wings, it would somehow for the all the other (stupid) eSport-players be easier to relate to. Another thing that made me a bit disappointed was when Parodia announced that they joined up with uQ-Gaming (no offense to any of the involved of course); I mean I would rather see Parodia join up with one of the big clans mentioned above.
Through the tournaments
Trying to influence the big tournaments like CPL has already been tried by people in the ET-community, and also failed. I do think though that if the right persons with the right information, attitude and so forth, was to contact some of the big events, it might come out right.
My predictions
When RtCW was at it's high point, clans like EYEballers, GamePoint, Four Kings etc. had clans playing for them, however I do not think we will experience this in ET's lifespan. The rise of our sub-culture (which is RtCW and ET) will not happen before ET:QW or RtCW2 is released.
