With the recent announcement of AEF going live with prize pots, signup dates/deadline, fees etc all announced it is surely a great period for Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory. Or at least you would like to think so.

May i add that first of all this is not a dig at the tournament or the people involved (i.e. Krosan) its just a few points that id like to raise. At this present time there doesnt seem to be much support in terms of orgs willing to invest big money into ET. I know myself having written out around 30 applications to orgs asking for their support in return for us (lineup TBA) to represent them and arguably having a great chance of at least bringing home some money and some great advertisement. This does then raise a problem for ET competing for signups against COD4 and CSS both known worldwide and having some big financial backing from orgs.

So Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory will be competing against both games mentioned above for the amount of signups which will then influence the prize pot. We all know how ET has been crying out for some sort of recognition and mainly thanks to the recent CiC7 lan it looks like we have. Ideally you would like to think that with this announcement comes great interest from orgs looking to take an ET team under their wings. However, by the looks of it this has not happened (yet?). So what does this actually mean for ET in terms of competing at big tournaments such as AEF.

If you look at the signups and teams competing at CiC7 and include the orgs backing these teams financially you would see names such as Dignitas/Blight, YoYoTech, Rockit, tMoe, myr, Phantoms, nOu. I could probably list a few other orgs/mgcs but my point is this. Why with the recent announcement of AEF, the announcement of a lan likely to take place in Aalborg in October and possibly another Crossfire Lan in the near future have we seen these orgs drop their support/interest for ET? I know first hand that after CiC7 YoYoTech told me that they didnt want to back ET at another lan. Surely after the recent lan announcements and another great tournament ran by crossfire, orgs would be crying out to take ET teams in with the potential of winning tournaments or even giving the org some form of advertisement and other benefits in the long run.

With ET now running alongside top games such as COD4, CSS, Quakelive - surely it has to start getting the recognition and support it deserves. So finally it is our chance to prove to other games and eSports in general that we are a game that should be noticed, recognised and appreciated for the skill and the effort that we have put in to keep making a game which many saw dying years ago a success. A game which in my opinion takes just as much effort and skill and is probably (on a good day not playing vs idle) a great game to watch. So why isnt ET getting the support it deserves?

Many people can argue that teams and players havent gone about the right way in applying to organisations. Of course some teams and players probably havent gone the right way about applying and sending a professional proposal through to orgs, but what about the people that have gone about the right way but still have been turned down? Is there actually much chance of these players and teams being able to compete against COD4 and CSS for signups when ET players and teams are basically being told you will have to pay most if not all the costs yourself. I know that currently my team without the right backing or support would not be able to attend AEF due to financial diffficulties.

In an ideal world everyone would be able to pay for themselves, but unfortunately this isnt the case with most games and gamers. If you take the average age of players competing at Lan then it is probably around 18 or 19. Some, if not most people at this age are still studying and cant really afford to pay the trip to attend 2/3 lans a year. Some if not most arent even able to afford to pay for themselves to attend 1 lan per year. If you take the 2 teams that previously fought it out in the grand final of CiC7 you would find 2 estonians, 1 finnish player, 1 spannish player, 1 italian player, 1 latvian player and 1 swedish player - these (if not financially backed from an org) would find a trip to either Belgium or Holland a costly 1 (which doesnt mean the setting is a bad 1). Ofc i have left out a belgian, a german and an englishman - where costs wouldnt be so bad.

So without this support will we really see the best of the best competing at AEF or will these teams and players find that without support the cost is too much. Or will some orgs come to ET and rescue it from what could possibly be a let down in terms of signups. Will teams like idle and fintastic 5 attend a lan without support, seeing as they are likely to finnish top 3 and still make a profit even after all of the costs to attend such a lan. Or is this too much of a risk? Do they simply not have enough money to even pay for all of the costs? (They might have already found an org, but due to no announcement im using them as an example).

This column isnt written as an excuse for teams not attending or signing up and it isnt supposed to sound like us ET players are victims (although you could argue that it sounds like it). I just hope with or without new orgs entering ET we will have a fantastic amount of signups and 1 of if not the best ET lan there has ever been.

Krosan and all of the team that have worked to provide such a tournament have done a great job and it should be a great tournament for everyone involved.