Nice article Evan.

no its horrible

hahaha decided to skip college and persue gaming AFTER this whole esport thing failed miserably. epic.

:)

so this is what the major news looks like on esr nowdays

MAJOR NEWS???

Major. News o>

Haha, good one.

He'll always be that idiot admin who abused his power's and kicked walter out of that 2v2 tourney to me.

a little teaser for the next article...

"Why I tried to screw a team out of prizes for no reason whatsoever"

Very good article, kudos Evan!

"I am a cyberathlete" -- fail

pics of elin?

ps article too long..skimmed a lot

Anyone got any pics of his gf?

google is all you need

http://blog.razerzone.com/images/howies/3.JPG

Thats Wimps ex or?

"...is a well written first person article..."

I didn't think it was that well written. Reminded me of CPL winter 04 though, which was a fantastic event.

jeez, can anyone really think being cyberathlete as a career choice?

where? europe? us? korea? :D

yeah, my progaming career is just something to fall back on should uni not work out. Its always good to have an insurance choice.

Nice read.

Great writing!

sup nomadic?

my fav part was where he fucked me out of hundreds of dollars because of his hurt ego

elaborate

the frag dominant people straight up sold the prizes on craigslist for that 2v2 tournament he won I believe!

o you're walter lol

if your last name was retlaw it would be epic tbh. but is isn't. so you fail.

shouldn't have cheated brah

BUT HE WAS FRAMED DAMN IT! FRAMED!

OH SNAP

You guys didn't get those prizes? That's karma for you..

read a short bit, my god, stop talking about this supposedly hot girl that would for what reason be interested in you, its fucking pathetic

great article :)

wtf is that :Sda

Good article, too bad it's about a douchebag.

lol :D

details

Weird that even after I read the entire article, I was still unsure about its message.

there is kinda little or no point to it. just seems like a story, pretty good though. was surprised nomadic wrote this, doesnt seem like the type to have much humility

i was also surprised when paris hilton wrote her autobiography

i wish to find myself a swedish goddess, and i would treat her as such
any tips?

Get really good at golf?

then bang a bunch of random hos and have your wife suck your bank accounts dry? great idea!

suck your what dry?

Whoa whoa whoa. He only asked for tips to "find a swedish goddess", not "find one, be faithful to her and love her unconditionally forever." :P

hahaha true! I was just kidding tho :D

i actually feel sorry for the whole tiger woods scandal now, it seems to get worse every day :(

Why, what did you feel before?

nothing really :(

i just want to find a nice girl, really
swedish is a plus!
ive seen what image.google.com can provide when i search "swedish girls"
im VERY impressed :>

"and i would treat her as such"

with that mentality you go nowhere!

agree. if she is a ho, treat her like a princess and vice versa. that's how you get women

what
the
FUCK

you asked for tips. you got some. now go get 'em boy!

goddamnit

^
|
swedish god good enough?

you're not lukrek

..yet

D:! don't hurt my swedish prince!

I kind of liked it :)

what a pityful guy... let this all be an example to all those who want to become a progamer, if you don't have the talent, don't try... this guy seemed to have practiced like hell and yet reached nothing with it, what a wnb... real pros don't need prac

why let this guy write articles in magazines?

plussing you sure does seem strange.

x-mass love

stop it, now

i think it is a pretty decent essay about progaming and it's potential flaws, where the risk to have nothing to show up after the progaming dream is over weighs still in more heavily than the potential success you might gain

sad that his gaming career had to go like this, but I guess he just didn't have the skills for it. I really was a fan of him in the early q4 days. Of course back then I didn't know yet he would turn into such a frustrated fuck.
Good thing he found love though =)

If you guys haven't realized it yet. almost no 'pros' have ever made any money. If you look at the most recent tournaments since CPL WT 05, only a few have won anything at all. The ones whom have, still fit into the poverty scale. Top 3 is how it usually is. In tourneys that hold far more. Just because he was no Cooller, Fatal1ty, or Zero4, Toxic, or Rapha, doesn't mean he wasn't close or that he wasted his life playing. That was his choice. Alot of really good players have good stories that have come from their attempt at gaming. And I love reading them and this magazine thought the same it seems. And he isn't a journalist for this magazine, they picked his article to be published in the normal submitted way some magazines do such a thing.

Good job Nomadic.

"or that he wasted his life playing"

he did

"Just because he was no Cooller, Fatal1ty, or Zero4, Toxic, or Rapha.."

could've just wrote anybody and be done with it.

Doubt cooller fits into the poverty scale of Russia :)

good...

please post this on one non-international site then..

i have no clue what san diego reader is and i care even less...

Maybe that's because your a recognized retard.

Fuck this made my day :D

bitch

And I love reading them and this magazine thought the same it seems. And he isn't a journalist for this magazine, they picked his article to be published in the normal submitted way some magazines do such a thing.

so he freelanced an article, which anyone can do, and then got it published.
it's an uncommon thing, progaming, so they decided to run with it, doesn't mean they thought he wrote an awesome bestest turbo mega great article. it's actually not THAT hard to get published, so long as your story is good enough and your writings not shit.

just saying, don't build yet another way too high pedestal for nomadic.

They make plenty in real esports, well the only real esport, Starcraft.

doing pills and powders on a night out usually produces lots of good stories while some will tell you you're actively wasting your life away. whatever one's take is on this it beats 'pro-gaming' by a mile.

i have no idea why 'good stories' is relevant when evaluating if geeking it out the max is a good choice in life or not. :)

This reads like most erotic literature, only missing parts of interest.

not gaining money = not proggresing in life.

yup.

Feeling a bit bad about my comment earlier, actually its fantastic to get anything about pro-gaming published in a magazine and if Nomadic works on it, he could be a great writer, especially ficton. Its always easy to draw your own conclusions from what you think someone is trying to say rather than what they actually are saying.

Congrats on the article being published, u should be proud and good on u for admitting that u fucked up but realized ur mistake and went back to school. Work hard and gl with getting the degree.

+ agree with majoring -- highly visible feature article in a non-trade publication about a quake-based gamer.

+ decently written: I used to be a Features Editor of a +10,000 weekly, and I would print it. I liked that he built the story around a particular match that embodies the article's theme.
+ he used few adjectives and kept his sentences short, without trying to use any stilted or excessively descriptive language, i.e., he knows his limitations.
+ interesting blend of personal/public essay style

- last half drags a bit, little jarring with skipping over time periods, maybe some tighter editing from the San Diego Reader.

the only thing that that says sadly enough is that people have no standards when it comes to what they read. the theme had possibilities but its a fairly bad execution. and that tiger woods reference. i mean come the fuck on.

haha yea that "Tiger Woods" sentence just protruded without any context. I read it meaning that his brother was just exaggerating his gaming ambitions to ridiculous, comical proportions by choosing a sports megademigod figure.
Most of the article struck a more humble tone; so I read his brother's comment as more ironic and self-deprecating.

+I mostly agree though about his execution...but interesting that the article has an "aspiring but still amateur" polish much like the player's gaming career. Happy thematic coincidence that works here.

i wouldn't necessarily call his gaming career amateurish since he narrowly lost to those who "succeeded"

agreed...trying for an "almost but not quite good enough" word...like when you watch a pro play and see those familiar movement, shotmaking and reaction traits...as opposed to an excellent second-tier player who can pull out one or two of those traits consistently, but not all three at once and particularly WHEN it counts.

"In 2005, at Quakecon, where money is only paid out to the top three finishers, I lost in the final seconds by one point, landing me a fourth-place finish."

Hmm hmmmm hmmmmmmm maybe i played the wrong LB Final at Quakecon 2k5! You never lead at a second of the game :) And the Final Score distance wasn't one "point" Sry dude

so you dropped out of school to pursue gaming, and failed..you fail at life suck a dick

"The powerhouse at this event would be a Chinese player known as Rocketboy. He had just won $150,000 from a Doom 3 tournament in China."

Since everyone else is doing it.... it was actually 125k

Wasn't it just one match vs fatal? I remember hearing about that and being astonished by the total pay out. It was strange that he got paid so much for a match nobody knew anything about prior.

Not half as strange as both players being sponsored by Abit who put up the money :)

That's an expensive publicity stunt, but I suppose it could have been part of their contracts. The Rocketboy pay out is a very interesting point in pc deathmatch history. He received a ridiculous amount of money for a marginal effort and some how the whole ordeal went relatively unnoticed.

Like I said, I would be VERY surprised if RB got that money.
I reckon it was just a hush hush inner PR job so that they could talk about the payments after the event, knowing they had no risk of losing it.

Its good PR afterall as money talks.
But I'm convinced a this is was an inside job and that money was never leaving china. Ever.

"But I'm convinced a this is was an inside job and that money was never leaving china. Ever. "

this is why I love this site. where else would I learn such intricacies but from insiders with vast experience in pro gaming?

I was very involved with the d3 scene at that time, I knew a lot of the players, so I found it strange that me and many of the players only knew about this event when it had finished.

It just doesn't add up. The whole idea of that sort of money is to generate pre tourney hype.

Unless of course the money was never intended to be paid and was instead used as PR after the event.

Therefore getting the positive PR assocaited with putting up a lot of money without ever actually standing a chance of losing it.

I dunno, either this was the worse PR ever, or something deeply suspect went on. Either way its not good.

The situation doesn't make sense. Why would you hold a tournament for essentially two people, for an ass ton of money, and not tell anybody about it until it was finished? Obviously there is something they're not telling us. To speculate that RB never got the money might be a little far fetched. Unfortunately, the only people who really know what went down are RB, fatal, and ABIT. However, I'm sure the answer to our question is über juicy :).

Because its still postive PR during and afterwards and correct me if I'm wrong, but that tourney was a good 5 years ago and here we are talking about it and using the name A-bit.

So why didn't Abit just hold a major tourney in NYC and actually tell people about it before hand? Wouldn't that create even more exposure? Were they afraid their sponsored players wouldn't win? Ahhhh this is like a splinter in my mind lol :)

Nah, Jamerio is uninformed, and just plain stupid.

The event was a shootout that was well documented on Fatal1ty's site before the event, just like all his events. You go, you play 1 game vs fatal1ty, and he has some absurdly big prize if you beat him. Even getting frags usually has some small prize.

The only difference here is that he was expecting (like usual) to just plow over newbs, so there was a huge payout that they didn't expect anyone to actually get. Rocketboy practiced like crazy, participated in the shootout, and ended up dominating fat by a huge margin.

edit: To participate in a shootout, he does it with a raffle ticket system (at least he did at Quakecon).. I doubt there was a whole lot of people there in China waiting to play, so Rocketboy was pretty much 100% going to get to play him.

Also, Rocketboy wasn't sponsored by Abit until he beat Fatal1ty, as it was part of his prize.

Ah, i see. The prize money is still quite astonishing. I'm surprised RocketBoy was the only player to beat fatal at one of his shootouts. If I was a top player at the time I would have played 24/7 and flew to each of the shootouts trying to win big.

Daler beat him at his shootout during Quakecon when D3 was first released. The prize was a Geforce 6800.

I vaguely remember that. I wonder why the prize money was so large for the China shootout. I guess they didn't expect a guy the caliber of RB to show.

Yea, cos you didn't hit google and start researching it the second I said I think. OMG I got an opportunity!!!!!

If I say I think something its hardly stupidity, its been six years and I was under the impression RB was with Abit before the tourney, I guess not.

Now to sleep of christmas dinner.

You continue to prove me correct.

I remember knowing about it before it happened, if I recall correctly it took place on the Great Wall?

It was basically just a show match to "announce" the RocketBoy sponsorship by ABIT (I reckon the $125k was just part of the contract) and it was probably somewhat arranged that Fatal1ty would lose.

It is rather suspicious but it wasn't as hush hush as you make it sound.

The basic point I made was the whole thing was probab;y setup.
If he wasn't an Abit player at the time, he was going to be anyway because fat was already sponsored by them from what I recall.

PLus RB was the only known skilled FPS player, so its not surprising.

Anyway I don't care. Chritmas sales!

I know for a fact it wasn't a setup. Fatal1ty does not ever EVER try to lose EVER. The most you could get from him is a kid on one of his shootouts that he gives a frag or 2 to.

The Great Wall Shootout was not something Fat lost on purpose. I was supposed to actually be there during it. I know that it wasn't a raffle. I know that the best D3 players in China all were ready and trained before hand and John knew it. I know that Fat was freezing outside and had alot of waiting while they had performers dancing among other entertainment, even in between matches. It was made a spectacle. But that still didn't matter.

I also know that Fatal1ty played Rocketboy in 1 AND A HALF games. It's probable ABIT wanted RB to win as this event made him a celebrity in China, which can only help sales with little loss in comparison (the prize money). Now when I say that Fat played 1.5 games, well, they were playing a game where Fat had quite a lead. Then they restarted it with some reason that didn't make sense to John. The second complete game obviously didn't go as well. Was on DM2 I believe, RB got a fast lead and as the game was slow, Fat was aggro to try and get back in it, ending up losing by alot. Really no different than his Q4 WSVG Finals final game against Toxic on Phrantic. Nonetheless, that was how it went.

Fatal1ty did not lose anything by losing, and if anything, it probably helped his fame in China by him being marketed as the best ever and than losing to RB is great press for anyone, believe it or not because it gives the media a huge story and backstory of Fat's fame.

But if you know anything about Fatal1ty, it is that he will not give anything in a competition, even for media and $. And if that was a tourney, there would have been some major retaliation on Fat's end.

Following, RB was made quite the celebrity in China. He already was really good at Quake 3, so it was and is awesome. I'd love to see him back in action now days really. Of course, there was also a rematch that was gonna be made for the media between the 2 players a year later in Painkiller. From what I have heard, RB was pulled out of it by his agent or sponsors, not sure, but he did not play. It was understandable though. They did a warmup the day before and Fat won by a HUGE number.

It wasn't a tournament - it was a shootout. He's been doing them forever.

i'm convinced he got some of it based on the amount and denomination of US dollars he was throwing around when he would come to USA for tournies.

i love conspiracy theories as much as the next, but i think this is total speculation here.

-bodes

I never said it was a fact, just my opinon based on how I see it.

look at it this way...

If you were putting up an event for 125k and hardly anyone knew it was going on and the last two people in the event were both abit sponsored players, isn't that a little strange to you?

One of whom got owned by RB, when there were plenty of people of people who were capable of beating him and were not even at the event, don't you think its a little strange????

I think you've connected some interesting dots here, I just think you are leaving out RocketBoy and Fatal1ty's opinions from this whole thing.... they went on to be sponsored by ABIT for a long while.... and at some point I think they probably would have leaked the truth about that tourney if ABIT had in fact bamboozled RocketBoy....You don't usually stay loyal to a company that lies and screws you over.... unless it was all some sort of backroom deal, in which case RocketBoy still got paid just not as much as advertised to the public....

As for all this supposed talent in China I wouldn't be so sure. The culture is different, and Doom3 was a very spec heavy game at a time where I imagine most PC's couldn't run it...that is actually what does make RocketBoy's accomplishment more impressive is he beat Fatal1ty while mostly being isolated from the scene at large.

Rocketboy got the Abit sponsorship by BEATING Fatal1ty.

You really have no clue.

From what I remember of what I heard, wasn't the payout supposed to be ~$1000000 US, but was then changed at the last minute to 1000000 CN? And apparently RocketBoy spent a few good weeks/months solely training for this with next to no competition in China? Comparable to what an average pro spends training before a big tourney, sure, but give him some credit for effort.

You're right, but I just felt like adding that in there.

Beating fatal back in the day wasn't easy so you have to give RB props for that. But he didn't have to break through a string of the worlds best players to get to him. Certainly not an effort worthy of $125k. Something is missing...

Quite a good read, thanks!

everything i know about this guy is that he beat fatal1ty at one of those shootouts which you play on shit mouse shit keyboard and no config, besides that he did nothing.

ah yeah, and also dedicated his life to tirelessly talk shit about walter on internet forums which labeled him as a complete nolife asshole.

also pics or elin didn't happen.

good to see that you have followed nomadic's "dedication to tirelessly talk shit about walter on internet forums". be careful throwing around the insult nolife eh

just cause of opening 20 topics about flaming another guy, not gaming-related.

I live in San Diego and I just read this Article, decided to look it up on the interweb and then I found this thread. Didn't know he was so internationally hated :P Was a very good read, will read again.

-emptycL1pz NA CS:S player

nah man, he isn't internationally hated.

since you are new to this site i'll fill you in: esreality is full of flaming losers who would never say any of this stuff in real life.

the only respectable player names in this thread have positive or neutral comments for nomadic with the lone exception of vo0.

seriously this is the worst possible example of a site if you're wanting to read comments about the article.

p.s. for the trolls, i am not nomadic

Truth.

Anonymous american to the rescue ROFL!

hi nomadic

don't listen to the anonymous cunt that talked below you

ESR is one of the most hardcore gaming sites and likes to say things like they are. If you want to be praised, without disserving it, then you are on the wrong site. Nomadic talked shit about other players and he was obsessed that they were cheating. He allowed them to participate in a tourney, but when they did good, he disqualified them in the suspicion of cheating and didn’t give them their price money. I didn’t see any pro-player that likes him.

Nice read though, but he had acted like a nomacunt countless times.

PS: He is only known about his hate vs walter, other than that he is rather unknown to the quake community, at least outside NA

That's a pretty dumb reason to dislike someone.

Walter did nothing to help his cause, often writing journals about not being able to trust him and that he's a liar.

I don't care to trawl through it again and maybe he was like that because he was accused of cheating when might not have been, but you can't make out it was a clear cut case.

The mistake nomadic meant was lettinmg him play.
If he belived he was a cheater then you can't let the guy play and then disqualify.

It just ends up looking bad on you.

Saying that, if that's the only reason to dislike someone then I think some of you have problems.

I don’t dislike anyone, but I surely don’t like ppl that dislike or even hate others especially for insignificant reasons. If I have a problem, it probably is that I like many of your posts and that u don’t mind going against everybody. Sometimes though you over do it and you disagree just for the sake of it, like now.

the mistake nomadic made was being a pain in the ass and flame a billion topics with cheap and questionable cheat material.

and that coming from someone who tried to make a name for himself in esports is just sad.

no need to even mention the tournament where he was the admin and kicked walter/kgb from the tournament AFTER the tournament ended. thats basically a selfbitchslap.

Nice job Evan! I was fortunate enough to lan with Evan, Ben (plague) and megablaz0r prior to quakecon 05'. Damn good times! You forgot to mention how spending time in Cedar City, Utah really took your game to a new level!!! jokes jokes! ;)

The few times I did lan with Evan he always struck me as being very ambitious and extremely smart. Always good stimulating conversation with that guy. Good luck with getting that degree bro, you'll be done before you know it.

-Mike

erm ditching college for an e-sport career, clearly a very ambitious and exxxxtremely smart move. lols.

probably parents came up for most of his gamerlifestyle

try they had the awards, i had the admin powah next time

A lot of effort to go through to prove you have a girlfriend... almost reads like it was written by voo :P

This article was not written to prove he has a girlfriend. The article was not even intended to be posted on ESR.

.

nice, no wonder nomadic tried to screw you out of prizes.

nomadic for president

You know that your IP shows when you post anon, right?

gg nomadic

no shit idiot. i already said in another post i'm not nomadic.

i guess everyone that lives in california is nomadic.

Oh, you said you weren't nomadic in another post? Golly, that changes everything! I apologize for my mistake.

yes, and you also said "hi nomadic" in response to that post.
so clearly you are a fucking retard.

hint: it's because you are nomadic.

i guess everyone that lives in california *and likess nomadic is nomadic.

ftfy ;)

I find it funny that nomadic is getting so much flack about that 2v2 tournament. If you guys would remember correctly, it wasn't walter that was accused of cheating, it was kgb who was accused of wall hacking. And it wasn't nomadic that came to the decision to remove them on his own, it was a bunch of the admins + some outside sources that knew kgb was wall hacking.

For those of you doubters, I suggest you go watch the demo's again carefully, because I guarantee 95% of you haven't. It's pretty damn obvious. And what makes it even more believable that kgb was cheating is the fact that his ex-teammate walter admits that he not only cheated in that 2v2 tournament, but he most likely cheats in quakelive as well.

And yes, I'm posting rouge because I know all of these people and I don't want to upset anyone, I just want the truth to be told. Thanks and have a great day.