Revelation 7:11

By: biatch0

Before you read the rest
of this, please be notified that this is a walk down memory lane of sorts for
me, not to mention somewhere that I poured out whatever little there is in that
twisted mind of mine. It is a long article. Moving on now.

This a "war" of sorts has been going on for ages. Since the very day that
the HL mod of CS was created, there has been large amounts of flaming from both
sides on numerous forums, not to mention fist fights too. One says CS is
better, the other says CS is for ghey fags. One says CS is skillful, the other
says CS is for the reflex impaired. What do I say? Well, it?s a long story.

Once upon a time, I played Quake (Quake 1 mind you). I
thought I was pretty leet using the keyboard only. One day, me and another 2
friends of mine made a trip down to a local cybercafe (LAN shops to some),
where we proceeded to create a Q1 server. Although one of my friends wasn?t too
bad, I was still owning them both. Then, someone else joined the server, "Mind
if I join in?". I agreed, hoping that he would see my leet score and ph33r me.
Too bad, he kinda owned all 3 of us. Together. Yes, he kicked our collective
asses. That was the end of my FPS career at that time.

When I moved to college, I picked HL and made a normal
progression (birds of feather flock to CS) to CS. Eventually, after numerous
hours spent per day (skipped classes included), I became of a higher standard
than other and was invited to join a clan. Sooner or later, blablabla,
yadayadayada, CS = boring. That was when I started to play Q3A. No, I haven?t
looked back since.

The nice
aspect of the CS scene is that it has a lot of clans, finding wars and
competitive ladders is not a problem. When I moved to Q3 I did lack that, the
ability to play on ladders and such.

The bad aspects of the CS scene is also that it has a lot of clans (and
therefore players). The CS scene is so to say, pretty immature. The reason (as
well imho), is because the game is pretty limited skill-wise, a kickass CS
player can be killed by newbies pretty easy. Play 2-3 times and you are good,
of course that is fun for the average gamer, but for ppl who want more, it isnt
enough.

The main idea of CS was to be to semi-realistic, but now the mod turns out to
be more and more realisitic, limited movement-speed, animated crosshairs,
random bullets etc. The game is almost skilless compared to the early betas
(and I know what some l33t non-CS players say, the game never had skill).

What used to be fun with CS was the totalskill thing, aimskill + tactics. Now
that skill is almost only tactics (read camping).

We used to play games for fun, for competition, for personal
pride. And then money got involved. Business organizations like the CPL,
not content of having one foot jammed in the door of money-centric
"pro-gaming" in its infancy, is forcing it to grow up, to get real,
by kicking the door off its hinges.

At first it all looked good. It was a symbiosis. The CPL
got their recognition and the profits, and the gamers got theirs. But something
insidious was happening. From setting new standards in competitive play, the CPL,
unwittingly or not, was slowly dictating the entire scene. As things
snowballed, power shifted to the mega-tourney organizers. Games got dropped,
and entire communities found themselves alienated.

Of course, one cannot really blame Angel Munoz and his merry
men - they are, obviously, running a business, and a business must cater to
popular demand in order to continue reaping the profits. When a game like Quake
3, no matter how incredible, starts losing out in sheer number of players to
something as shamefully inferior (competitive-wise) as Counter-Strike,
the statistics must surely have meant something to the CPL.
Why continue to serve a small group of gamers when the rest of the world is
waiting out there, and the tolling cash registers are echoing in the distance?
Who cares about a bunch of whiny, elitist gamers when you could easily make a
popular, newbie-friendly game look like a professional sport?

I mulled over this for a while, but no matter how you try to
put things in a logical perspective, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Maybe it's the way things are being done. It's been a constant criticism lately,
that the CPL has nothing professional to it except
for the word "professional" somewhere in its title. They announce
events that people gear up for and train and discuss and dream about, and at
the very last minute, pulls the carpet from under their feet, and changes the
event - not the way it is run, or even the rules, but the game to be played,
entirely. It's like excitedly waiting four years for the World Cup only to find
one month before that football has been unceremoniously scratched off the list,
no, you can all watch or play the wonderful game of rugby or don't, but that's
the way it is.

Last minute cancellation of Quake 3 events, to be replaced by
Counter-Strike, forced extinction of Unreal
Tournament and Tribes 2 before they have a chance to breathe - they're just
some examples. Maybe the CPL doesn't realize (or more likely,
doesn't care) is that they now have almost absolute power over gaming
lifestyles and the way the gaming communities are structured and built - and
their actions seem to simply chuck aside entire communities of gamers - leaving
them out to wither and die. I don't think it's an exaggeration - the new money
culture the CPL has cultivated is watering the many
blooming, growing games - take that away and entire groups of gamers wilt and
dwindle into obscurity. Quake 3 dying? Maybe true - all games come with a
life-cycle - but did you see the advanced acceleration of its decline after a
few heartless decisions and announcements?

Recently, it seemed the CPL, or Angel, tried to
reclaim the faith and support of a hotly critical and volatile Quake community,
by announcing a QuakeWorld tourney as the focal point of its fourth anniversary
celebrations.

"As other organizations who previously were not for cash
prizes move towards that direction, we'd like to take the opportunity to go
back to our roots," said Munoz.

Although the prizes were ridiculously small and it looked
very much a thinly veiled attempt at pacifying the very group of gamers who
made the CPL what it is today, his statement won
many hearts over, sounding open, understanding and generous all at once without
actually giving away too much information.

However, if you read one of the latest threads in a related XSR
newspost, you'd find that in response to a musing, "It certainly seems
that the CPL are trying to appease the various Quake
communities," all Angel had to say (and that'd be enough, really) was:

"How did you conclude that? All we did was circulate a
press release from the Face/Off staff. We are not involved at all with these
finals, we are just hosting it in our BYOC area, their staff will be running
the tourney.

"Our staff's feelings towards using Counter-Strike
versus Quake 3 at our events has only gotten stronger. The CPL
organizers (Tim, Jerry, Mike, Monte and Frank) are all constantly playing CS
and are sure that the league should be primarily supporting CS. If nothing else
the migration of top players and clans to CS is indicative that the game
deserves our full attention."

To further aggravate the situation, Angel commented on the
game of choice for FRAG 5 (currently set as Q3A TDM):

"The tournament game for FRAG 5 is currently being
reviewed by Mike Wardwell and will be put to a final vote next week."

I don't think the result of that "vote" will not be
obvious.

Ethically, I do not see the CPL as having wronged
any party. This is how the world works. This is how money talks. I can't put my
finger on it though, as ultimately, something does seem wrong. Is it the
approach? Is it the number of occasions where Angel seems to contradict
himself? Maybe it's just the way some forsaken communities are dying, their
imminent expiry directly or indirectly influenced by some seemingly trivial
business decisions?

So some CPL staff are enjoying CS? Could it be that
common newbie-attracting factor present in CS? So if I were an influence, and I
decided Diablo II had great professional gaming potential, would it make a
difference? I didn't think so, that was a lame shot. Hot shot players moving
over from Quake to CS? Can you smell the money? Do believers in your pro-gaming
religion have a choice, if they were to survive by solely playing games? Did
you ask the heretic Polosatiy why he keeps on at Quake then, without ever
mentioning that dirty word?

If you grew up with a simple comic like Spider-Man, you'd
know this - with great power comes great responsibility. Whether you believe it
or not, Angel, your decisions are making and breaking gaming communities - they
are influencing and changing the landscape of pro-gaming and further
strengthening the foundations for the future. I hope you do realize that
teamplay isn't the future - that's pretty filmsy - the future is what we see in
real sports today - a stable platform (like the Quake series) of staple
(co-existing) games, duels (tennis, badminton), and teamplay (football,
basketball). Please don't alienate your supporters, and please make it look as
if you do care after all, because the rest of us do. It was a bad call, the
Latin event, ridding it of Quake 3 at the last minute after the hype we lived
through. Have you felt the torture of being at the receiving end?

At the core of all the greatest business organizations, I
believe, are the greatest people. And in them there lie, besides focus,
inspiration, integrity, understanding, judgement and compassion. It's not
always about the business after all - it boils down to the people behind it.
Please bring back the faith.

biatch0

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