As I returned home from Enschede, I had seen a whole weekend of Enemy Territory that was near perfection. It triggered the urge to play again after I had not seriously touched Enemy Territory for quite some time. After getting raped badly in a 6on6, I decided I would try a public server first. Quickly leaving Telenet behind because I didn't hit a thing, I eventually joined the GMC Todeszone since past experience told me it would be a good place if I needed cheering up. It didn't work out either. I got some frags but mainly I got shot as if I had just started playing ET and the four years before had meant nothing.
Now I have never been what you would call a high skilled player. The only time I was allowed to join the server during a EuroCup match was when I was lending my voice to the shoutcast. But what I experienced this week was just far from what should have been the case. Had I become so much worse in such a short amount of time? I played the first Counter-Strike betas, I was on the battle.net playing StarCraft long before most of today's players even knew what a computer is. How was it possible that I was suddenly being schooled like that?
I am surely not alone with this question. Without a doubt teams like iNfensus or most recently Knö I Horn have asked themselves how their once seemingly invincible skills could have vanished so easily. Alright, they used to be good in a different game, but let's be honest, RTCW and ET are not that different. The players that used to spawnrape the hell out of their opponents didn't achieve a single victory in the three ET matches they played at CPC 2. Oldschool players are getting their ass handed to them by players like perfo, mAus or gifty - and none of those is 16 years old yet.
A phenomenon of that kind is not exclusive to Enemy Territory. Just take the recent i30, where players like stermy or Cooller had to cave in to the mighty performance of a Polish player that started his rise to the top at the age of 13 and now, with only 15 years has beaten the player that some consider the number two in current Quake 4. There are other examples to be found in German Counter-Strike player tixo, who is one of the youngest player in the ESL Pro Series yet one of the best.
Professional gaming turns everything upside down that we've grown accustomed to in sports like football. Players start practising at a very young age yet they're not capable of competing with adults until they're about 17 or 18 years old. Only then have they reached the physical and mental state that they need to perform well in regular competitions. Before that, there are special tournaments and leagues that are exclusive to players of a certain age. They play until they're about 30, then their bodies start showing signs of of exhaustion and their abilites begin to lessen.
In gaming, few who play at the top level are older than 20. Those who do have to put in an extra effort every time, the perfect example being Fatal1ty who used to win tournaments with relative ease but who's having a harder time each year he continues playing. Johnny R and his comeback? A failure. Zacard and his recent performance? Led him to retire. Young players owning oldies happens in both RTS and FPS games, but it is more dominant where you need good reflexes. Physical strength is of little to no importance when it comes to aim, it's mainly a matter of practise and talent. Talent can favour old and young players equally, practise pays off much better in 15 year olds than in 25 year olds - it is common knowledge that the earlier you start learning a certain thing, the easier it is and the better you'll get compared to someone with the same amount of practise who is twice your age.
It is quite natural to get frustrated when you see that someone who seemed to come out of nowhere is suddenly way better than you can ever hope to be. With the ET community being one that has a slightly bigger problem with cheaters than other games, people tend to label others cheaters just because what they do seems impossible. I know I do, I know others do. Anyone who specced mAus at the CPC 2 will tell you that it is not impossible. It's simply a matter of not wanting to accept that you are just too old to do certain things that others can do.
So there we stand, the players who are too old, left with nothing to do but admiring the skills of relo4d and the likes. We have the few ones who fight and show that even with 22 years you can still make it to the final of a major LAN event (Thank you for that, Tiigeri!), but we can't avoid a certain point at which we have to accept that the times of old school have gone by and that the new school has taken over. Everybody can be a gamer, but only the young ones are going to push the limit of what's possible further and further. We can remember the glorious old days all we want, it's not going to help. Leave professional gaming to the young ones.
Now I have never been what you would call a high skilled player. The only time I was allowed to join the server during a EuroCup match was when I was lending my voice to the shoutcast. But what I experienced this week was just far from what should have been the case. Had I become so much worse in such a short amount of time? I played the first Counter-Strike betas, I was on the battle.net playing StarCraft long before most of today's players even knew what a computer is. How was it possible that I was suddenly being schooled like that?
I am surely not alone with this question. Without a doubt teams like iNfensus or most recently Knö I Horn have asked themselves how their once seemingly invincible skills could have vanished so easily. Alright, they used to be good in a different game, but let's be honest, RTCW and ET are not that different. The players that used to spawnrape the hell out of their opponents didn't achieve a single victory in the three ET matches they played at CPC 2. Oldschool players are getting their ass handed to them by players like perfo, mAus or gifty - and none of those is 16 years old yet.
A phenomenon of that kind is not exclusive to Enemy Territory. Just take the recent i30, where players like stermy or Cooller had to cave in to the mighty performance of a Polish player that started his rise to the top at the age of 13 and now, with only 15 years has beaten the player that some consider the number two in current Quake 4. There are other examples to be found in German Counter-Strike player tixo, who is one of the youngest player in the ESL Pro Series yet one of the best.
Professional gaming turns everything upside down that we've grown accustomed to in sports like football. Players start practising at a very young age yet they're not capable of competing with adults until they're about 17 or 18 years old. Only then have they reached the physical and mental state that they need to perform well in regular competitions. Before that, there are special tournaments and leagues that are exclusive to players of a certain age. They play until they're about 30, then their bodies start showing signs of of exhaustion and their abilites begin to lessen.
In gaming, few who play at the top level are older than 20. Those who do have to put in an extra effort every time, the perfect example being Fatal1ty who used to win tournaments with relative ease but who's having a harder time each year he continues playing. Johnny R and his comeback? A failure. Zacard and his recent performance? Led him to retire. Young players owning oldies happens in both RTS and FPS games, but it is more dominant where you need good reflexes. Physical strength is of little to no importance when it comes to aim, it's mainly a matter of practise and talent. Talent can favour old and young players equally, practise pays off much better in 15 year olds than in 25 year olds - it is common knowledge that the earlier you start learning a certain thing, the easier it is and the better you'll get compared to someone with the same amount of practise who is twice your age.
It is quite natural to get frustrated when you see that someone who seemed to come out of nowhere is suddenly way better than you can ever hope to be. With the ET community being one that has a slightly bigger problem with cheaters than other games, people tend to label others cheaters just because what they do seems impossible. I know I do, I know others do. Anyone who specced mAus at the CPC 2 will tell you that it is not impossible. It's simply a matter of not wanting to accept that you are just too old to do certain things that others can do.
So there we stand, the players who are too old, left with nothing to do but admiring the skills of relo4d and the likes. We have the few ones who fight and show that even with 22 years you can still make it to the final of a major LAN event (Thank you for that, Tiigeri!), but we can't avoid a certain point at which we have to accept that the times of old school have gone by and that the new school has taken over. Everybody can be a gamer, but only the young ones are going to push the limit of what's possible further and further. We can remember the glorious old days all we want, it's not going to help. Leave professional gaming to the young ones.
Best aimer in the world 22 years old.
Lol? Okay, agree with mAus, he was sublime at LAN, but the other two are kids and prove it pretty much all the time. To be fair in ET, you can check virtually all the previous EC winners and there usually always older than the general competition, I mean with the exception of reload/night all the dignitas guys are either 19 or 20.
basically I'm saying, your opinion about perfo and gifty couldn't be more wrong.
Most utterly pointless comment ive read today, it wasn't a bot and for it being childish is pure nonsense, virtually every person who pays for something like that knows full well the consequences of what they are doing, and tbh most of them dont use it to gain any competitive edge like most will have you believing. Its personally on the same par as someone taking drugs or drinking underage, yes its bad but 99% of people who do it consider it only a means of fun. You can debate whether or not i was right to do it as much as you want, since at the end of the day its only really a case of right and wrong.
more seriously you are totaly uber right and i have to agree with you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not all games are like this, though, which is where this article is a bit flawed. Only games where reflexes and such outweigh experience and, to an extent, thinking.
die ollandse teejve? :o
You specifically say it's my girlfriend. Why wouldn't I know much about her?
Btw it's kinda obvious that I was being sarcastic when I replied to him ;-)
"i'm already 20, i can't help it!"
but seriously, in some way it's true, in another way it's mostly the young players that have more free time, friends who also play games and indeed better reflexes. And even though youngsters mostly learn quicker, they also have a tendency to blame other things than themselves for not being as good as they want, therefore stalling their own progression.. The few players that actually get to the top are the players analyzing their own game instead of whining about the way other people play.
oh noez, 6:30 and levz @ english no workz :o
Their parent give them all they want, they can waste all their time on computer.
Ofc it helps the younger one starts his gaming career, but as fdj mentions many of the older gamers today have started gaming in their youth (no matter which game).
I think it's more like the younger ones spend more time on gaming and the older ones got more important real life issues and they can't concentrate so much on gaming and therefore get fewer practise.
I could easily imagine a 50-60 year old pro-gamer, because one really doesn't need physical abilities so necessarily when it comes to gaming
Hardcore.
but today gmc server > me :'/
And I thought the mental and physcal summit is reached at age 23 :<
I peaked with ALIS back in 2004, the same year I turned 23.
but im not even 20 now :/ I think its a hint to stop playing !
evtl bist du experience mäßig schlechter aber aimmäßig ziehst du mich warscheinlich
The fact that fatal1ty has a harder competition, is probably coz there are more better players out there nowadays who also spend more time on their games.
I don't know if it is true, but I think I heard of a Counter Strike 21+ league some time ago. I wonder what happend to them.
most oldskoolers began playing at a young age. There they created the feel for the game and gaming in general.
We all know, practice makes perfect. The more free time you have, the more you can practice. I remember mAus from years ago when he played for kreaturen and stazi. He was already good there, especially for a boy his age, but only practice made him better and better.
The true part about this would be, if for example RTCW2 comes out, oldskoolers will have little chance of playing at the top. Unless they can make enough free time to play hardcore, and can be bothered to, the youngsters will take over for sure.
Anyway, there are so many other factors. Children starting to play games at younger and younger ages. PC hardware and gear improving. Gaming becoming more and more "general" so more people try it and more talented people pick it up.
good read nonetheless, but dont make age a factor as if your body cannot cope with gaming anymore :p
The younger you start playing something, the better you get later.
It's the same with learning languages.
When a children is educated bilingual, it wont have problems speaking both languages fluently later.
If you start learning a language when you're 20 - you will hardly speak it after 3-4 fluently and like a native speaker.
But so do children.
The younger you are, the more learning ability you have.
imo its also a factor why younger people get better in shorter time than older people do.
Not commenting to disagree btw =)
we old skoolers are just getting a bit bored of ET we dont play public that mutch anemore.
sry :D eens gezien ergens
en ook geen hond nog een kat
recruiting high skilled player -16 years old
In e-sports every 2 or 3 years a new game with different rules and general gameplay emerges. Since older gamers generally loose their learning capability they are slower to pick this up, while their experiance level is the same as the new gamers.
Besides this the time you can spend on gaming obviously decrease while you are getting older which certainly doesn't help if you try to keep up.
Another thing, about old players, is that they just dont have the motivation anymore to give out their 100% in every single game, but when the time comes(important game), they will surely step up to the task!
well,i think i was allrdy "old" as i began to play et now for over 1year.
i will never become as good as all the youngish also if i would play every day and nite..
although im 25 now, i love this game and thats why i spend a lot of time on this game, maybe more time as some of the younger one.
u can be ambitious and motivated too if u r older then 16. it is a question what u want to achieve when u play et. if u take it more serious or just for fun. i know enough ppl who r in my age, but they only want to play et just for fun.
the guys in my team r 15/16years old, they r good in understanding the game in parts i dont think about and not only good in aiming.
so finally i can say, its nice to see how they increase their aiming after playing et for a short time and i'd like to play with the youngish, also they will be always be better then me. but who cares?!
while with older ppl it is getting boring and play more for the fun since they realise the top aint for them
gg young ones
Edit: Nice article FDJ
And tbh I can't be arsed to go prac more, got other things to do.
If futball player does not practise he become "lowskilled" ... even if he has talent
More about external factors (rl etc) rather than being past it at 20 IMHO.
At 20 your priorities are more likely to exclude hardcore gaming than when you're 15 or whatever.
I don't agree with most of the assertions re: ability to learn new games as a 20+ (FPS is still shooting, and most skills are transferrable) or physical capabilities.
I was bonging alot throughout that year, i figured that might ave somthing to do with my reactions being shit till i read about all the toking that was going on at cpc2 by all the high skill fellas.
I remember a fella in my rtcw clan who was a top shot in kingpin, wireplay finals bank raiding and all that. He lost his aim over time and told me i would too, I dident believe him then at 16 but he was right in the end.
Now i just realise how much of a waste of time it is, all them hours you and your clan need spend night after night scrimming, for what? I earnt a bit of cash for it, but thinking about the £ per hour on rtcw doing tactics over and over, tis a poor pay.
Wish i hadnt botherd and just spent more time on my guitar and other shit you could be doing at that age whilst you have little responsibilities.
Ever heard about a thing called "having fun"? :)
I for one think like that, but on the other hand I've met so many nice people over the internet of which some of them I've even met in reallife :P I can't imagine all the fun I would;ve missed out on if I hadn't start gaming :)
Priorities shift over the years, when you realize it's no longer your top goal to become the best aimer in ET, things only go downhill from there (gamingwise, of course). Which is a perfectly healthy situation, IMHO.
-i am 30yo
-we got a 44yo
-a 38yo
-a 34yo
-an another 30yo
-and a kido 27yo
TRUST ME : you can NOT improve after 30!!!1
:C
There are simply some factors that make it impossible for older players to reach the same potential as younger players. The most likely candidates of reasons are indeed time and reflexes that grow worse by time. Another thing to keep in mind is that the games we played at a younger age (the age where you pick up abilities a lot easier) are in no comparison to the current games we play. I bet I could kick your ass in montezuma's revenger or on a good old fussball table for instance, whereas most of you dont even know what montezuma's revenge is.
That being said, I don't agree that this counts for ALL older players. There are some oldies out there (let's say 25+) that still have the skill and I myself (35 almost) aint a bad player, but I'll never have the skill of a maus a gifty or a reload. Doesn't mean I can't still strife for it by praccing as much as i can.
Oh well, as long as we're having fun!
anyways omfg if you are 22-24 you should stop and concentrate on founding a family etc i would suggest. If you dont want to okay but you will be what they call some 40 year old jerk playing games because he didnt find a wife himself he could spend his time with. anyways bb :D
lol???!! today there is no need to found a family at this young age.
i think it's better to first finish everything you want to finish about school, then get a good job, a good income, a nice wife and a nice house and start thinking about kids after being married for a few years.
"I've got to convince people I'm very good. if I can't do it through skills, I'll do it by attitude"
Nowadays, when you connect to a random server, all you get is whine, voting for no reason, handicapped behaviour and of course 2 or 3 guys blatantly cheating.
example of the great attitude nowadays:
*goes spec*
Jin: don't kick pls, back in 1 minute
random calls a vote: kick Jin
F1, F1 , F1, F1, F1
How cool!
Let's put it bluntly for once. Great, you get to shoot us, you get to act "cool" on the net. We get the pussy. Fair deal.
i play for fun. not as good as i was 2-3 years ago but not very bad either.
sometimes mix games and public fun - still not a trouble . seems like those who were bad 2 years ago - still are
and last thing i care about is if some kiddy starts to blow bullshit out of his mouth "im better than u blalbalba".
there are more important things than pc games :)
... ofcourse sometimes i disconnect after 5x panzer shot in a row :P
beating people(at any age) bragging they are better is still a pleasure.
so i think thats what happed to the old players i think they think they don't need to practice like that again and think maybe i only need to do 3 hours, i am willing to bet if you put the old guys back playing and getting to start loving the game liek they once did you would see a diffrance.
for me i know if i even take a week of from p,aying my skill of what i do have lol, drops off it takes me a day of alot of hours to get it back i cant think if i took 4 months off :) but thats what i think.
Ppl who are older just cba with being fanatical. Imo thats the true reason players like iN, KiH are wiping right now. If they wanted to and had the time they could easily rise up again and throw your theory out the window, imo.
When I was 17 I started playing games, it was fun and so easy to learn ... Then i found ET.
After only 1 week I got a descent skill to be at the top of all skynetservers.
Now I just feel like a big noob, even my nephew with the age of 9 and a sens of 27 ( @ 800 dpi ) owns me.
I think it mainly not the age, but the thing you do when your not gaming ...
People who are at the top, or nearly at the top have a free mind.
They don't have to think about there job, wife or even making food.
Even when I prac 10 hours a day, I would still suck @ ET.
Thats why i'm not trying to improve anymore ... just trying to have some fun ...
Sorry for my bad english, but i'm just tired .... I worked from 10 PM till 7 am and now i just woke up :D
peace out