Speedlink vs Dignitas, Fatal1ty vs Vo0, Chelsea vs Barcelona sport and entertainment is built on creating characters and pitting them against one another, the world needs to be able to relate, support and take sides.
The SpeedLink vs Dignitas rivalry in CoD is getting hot, since the release of CoD2, Speedlink have lost just a handful of games one of those to Dignitas. At the TeK-9 lan, we saw the first signs of Dignitas poking their head up and coming close to the Germans. A final round loss, made all take note that the German's dominance was going to be challenged. Sure enough, in Rotterdam at the Crossfire PrizeFight Challenge we saw the Germans challenged and beaten.
I talked to Trigger, infamous player of Speedlink to catch his views on the rivalry between the two sides.
The reign of the Germans was over, and we eagerly anticipated the Eurocup finals to see what their response was. It was...surprising to say the least. A team that had lost just 2 games ever, suddenly lost 2 more bowing out to Check6 and TeK-9 and not even given the chance for revenge on Dignitas. Suddenly questions are being asked of the champions, but the pretenders to the thrown also had questions asked of them...Enter the new character.
The new character is called the Underdog, a team with a realistic chance of success but nobody can believe it when they actually achieve it. They come in the shape of Check6, suddenly interests are split. Not only between supporting one of the two champions, but now a new team to support enters the frey. New players, new tactics and new motivation.
Spectating is all about relationship to what you're viewing and building a character out of what the viewer is seeing. Look at football as the example you have many characters, which you love or hate for whatever reason. Arjen Robben, skilled but weak and loves to dive. Ronaldiniho, gifted with talent, but not with teeth. Roy Keane, the badboy in the midfield. Television producers spend hours on creating scenarios to stereotype their subject matter. It is those stereotypes that get the audience involved, gaming dosent perhaps have that level of coverage media. Who do you want to win when Speedlink play Dignitas? Dignitas because of their ET history? Speedlink because of the German - English rivalry (or vica versa), or because of the flair of an individual player? There are many reasons and motives to like one team over another, you've just got to give your audience a reason to chose one.
When they come along by chance, as is easy with 1on1 games, as their personalities can often be easily extracted by their actions on server. However, in team games its very difficult and when they don't come along by chance, achieving empathy from your audience is very difficult.
ET is the prime example of this. So many individual talents and skillsets generated from the nature of the game, but never a rivalry, never a reason to get interested other than for admiring skill.
So rarely in ET history has there ever been a rivalry, great teams have come and gone but they rarely do battle. The allstar lineups do not often match one another. Dignitas didnt play Saevus, Saevus didn't play Parodia. There were meetings along the way of some of these sides, but you have to take into account the hunger of the sides. DSky weren't truly active or caring when they lost to Saevus, Gunslingers went out of EC X again because they'd lost the love. Now these names are relics to a lost cause, a cause that is great teams and players but so little to remember.
The Kreaturen vs mysod Eurocup 8 final in RTCW was more a battle holland vs belgium than it was actually a game of Wolfenstein. National rivalries spilled into every comment, with a Dutch head admin who was also on mysod management, with the match left unfinished at 3-3, people took any reason they could to find something to either agree or disagree with. Nationality, decision, players, newschool vs oldschool, you name it, this match and this cup had it and you couldnt help but get involved. What was there to get involved in when idle demolished Northern Darkness?
We need another hero, we need someone to believe in. A David to our Goliath, a Chelsea to our Barcelona. After the Crossfire lan I remember reading many comments about the excitement of the finals of the matches, and there was excitement that Dignitas had finally beaten Speedlink, but there was no excitement that someone came close to beating idle, competition is a good thing, its time ET actually had some!
The SpeedLink vs Dignitas rivalry in CoD is getting hot, since the release of CoD2, Speedlink have lost just a handful of games one of those to Dignitas. At the TeK-9 lan, we saw the first signs of Dignitas poking their head up and coming close to the Germans. A final round loss, made all take note that the German's dominance was going to be challenged. Sure enough, in Rotterdam at the Crossfire PrizeFight Challenge we saw the Germans challenged and beaten.
I talked to Trigger, infamous player of Speedlink to catch his views on the rivalry between the two sides.
The reign of the Germans was over, and we eagerly anticipated the Eurocup finals to see what their response was. It was...surprising to say the least. A team that had lost just 2 games ever, suddenly lost 2 more bowing out to Check6 and TeK-9 and not even given the chance for revenge on Dignitas. Suddenly questions are being asked of the champions, but the pretenders to the thrown also had questions asked of them...Enter the new character.
The new character is called the Underdog, a team with a realistic chance of success but nobody can believe it when they actually achieve it. They come in the shape of Check6, suddenly interests are split. Not only between supporting one of the two champions, but now a new team to support enters the frey. New players, new tactics and new motivation.
Spectating is all about relationship to what you're viewing and building a character out of what the viewer is seeing. Look at football as the example you have many characters, which you love or hate for whatever reason. Arjen Robben, skilled but weak and loves to dive. Ronaldiniho, gifted with talent, but not with teeth. Roy Keane, the badboy in the midfield. Television producers spend hours on creating scenarios to stereotype their subject matter. It is those stereotypes that get the audience involved, gaming dosent perhaps have that level of coverage media. Who do you want to win when Speedlink play Dignitas? Dignitas because of their ET history? Speedlink because of the German - English rivalry (or vica versa), or because of the flair of an individual player? There are many reasons and motives to like one team over another, you've just got to give your audience a reason to chose one.
When they come along by chance, as is easy with 1on1 games, as their personalities can often be easily extracted by their actions on server. However, in team games its very difficult and when they don't come along by chance, achieving empathy from your audience is very difficult.
ET is the prime example of this. So many individual talents and skillsets generated from the nature of the game, but never a rivalry, never a reason to get interested other than for admiring skill.
So rarely in ET history has there ever been a rivalry, great teams have come and gone but they rarely do battle. The allstar lineups do not often match one another. Dignitas didnt play Saevus, Saevus didn't play Parodia. There were meetings along the way of some of these sides, but you have to take into account the hunger of the sides. DSky weren't truly active or caring when they lost to Saevus, Gunslingers went out of EC X again because they'd lost the love. Now these names are relics to a lost cause, a cause that is great teams and players but so little to remember.
The Kreaturen vs mysod Eurocup 8 final in RTCW was more a battle holland vs belgium than it was actually a game of Wolfenstein. National rivalries spilled into every comment, with a Dutch head admin who was also on mysod management, with the match left unfinished at 3-3, people took any reason they could to find something to either agree or disagree with. Nationality, decision, players, newschool vs oldschool, you name it, this match and this cup had it and you couldnt help but get involved. What was there to get involved in when idle demolished Northern Darkness?
We need another hero, we need someone to believe in. A David to our Goliath, a Chelsea to our Barcelona. After the Crossfire lan I remember reading many comments about the excitement of the finals of the matches, and there was excitement that Dignitas had finally beaten Speedlink, but there was no excitement that someone came close to beating idle, competition is a good thing, its time ET actually had some!
