didnt know fire_bot was playing ql :o nice

GoHLinK < annihiluzz
x1t > deji
MJ < kronic
serak > grF
Ryfje > assign
dazator < fire_bot
odium < reaper_by
Sl1p > Insan3
Hadrian < calipt
burnedd > Makie
Krysa > pr1de
baksteen < cdv

what is so nice about it? that he gonna be raped again by his >IDOL< LOLOLOL :DDDDDDDDDDD

i always enjoyed watching him
and seeing a good player again who i though to be inactive, is always nice

also u watch 2/3nd liga football games too then.. much time u have there for nothing

shut the fuck up

plussed by Jesus!

praise the lord.

haha, you're back!

i never left

GoHLinK > annihiluzz
dazator > fire_bot

x1t > deji depends if I can be arsed to prac :P

havent seen much from GoHLinK lately, so your probably right
andi dont know dazator tbh ;)

Anni doesn't stand a chance against Gohlink, tbh :/

didnt he win quite a few polish cups?

Nope. He was decent a few months ago, but either he stopped playing or he cba to try to get better. Since then he's more of a community sites troll than a serious player.

lol u know u will rape him :D x1t is too poor for you

edit: stop hiding with fakes m8 :D

okay :D

Why do you have a Spider-Man avatar titled Inuyasha oh god my head

idk really =)

gl hf :D

may the best inactiveish dueller win :)

it should be baksteen vs cdv, spartaz0rd is already in qr2 winning italian qualifier

they played the match shortly before i wrote this news, i already updated it on the esl website and will edit it in here in a second

tks for having so much confidence in me :(

hehe, well i think sl1p is better, but gl anyway, prove me wrong

wish i could, but i haven't been practicing one bit, due to not having a mouse (bought a 3.0 yesterday!)

D A Z A T O R
A
Z
A
T
O
R

x))

lol

quality qualifier

It's funny that makie has to play burnedd (one of the only ones out there who i actually see compete with calipt at the top) when makie prolly beats most of these people.

Oh well :(

Disagreed. He knows only ztn and dm6 and maybe little of t4, but that is not enough. ;)

Kronic, Gohlink, slip, baksteen, calipt, krysa, deji, burned are muchhhh better then he is. :)

you're totally wrong.

Opinions ;-)

But still this season's iem is ridiculous compared to last, atleast that's one thing everyone shall agree on...

wtf with players?

burnedd didn't play ql for 2 months now, so makie has a chance :) oh and why is burnedd even allowed to participate, he's still 15. good thing there are rules that forbid everyone under 16 to be able to compete at IEM.

u r fucking funny CAREEM : )))) we will see... i have no problem playing burned. kkthx

There is a reply button.

No there isn't.

sure, hope u know anything else than ztn, gl

Well you don't seem very informed anyway since you said makie might 'know a little bit of t4' whilst it's probably his best map...

oO

careem probably has mistaken esr for one of his pedo boards he frequents, and tbh he's not really qualified to talk about quake, only pedophilia. XD watch out careem or police might knock on your door again :D

Here u have more or lets say full info about esr pedo: http://q2scene.net/bdl/index.php?op=com&id=1818

ye np, btw lethe says hi, he's waiting for you to come to split finally, after all those years : ))))))))))))))))))))))))))

that was pretty much funneh :S

good luck hadrian and moutas :)

Ey F*ck im gonna lose, ryfje is just insane!!

I can take your spot ;)

The ';)' is great ;)

I don't think so .D

Haha, we'll see i suppose.

it's a trap

why am i not on the QR2 on the esl site !?!

http://www.esl-world.net/masters/season5/euro...r2/results

you are, the other page apparently does not show the 12th match

ok thank u :D

no av3k,cypher,spartie,noctis,strenx,cooller and so on?

cypher, noctis, strenx, cooller are already in main round, they don't need to qualify.
Where is av3k and spart1e is more interesting question.

exactly, av3k and various other known polish players missed the sign-up for the polish qualifier and therefore the chance to qualify.
spartie explained his absence here already.
stermy was abroad the entire week when his national qualifier took place.

info about polish qualifications was published day after signups was closed :) it is suprise that 8 players took part in this cup :)

it was announced on the 21st i believe, first matches on the 27th
the cup does not have a sign up time limit set on it at all, you can actually still sign yourself up right now. it think says 20th as deadline in the news (i don't know polish), but I doubt that is a correct number.

youre fucking with my head having - name [flag]

blame xou for that

Do I understand correctly that a player has only one chance to qualify unlike the previous season or american championship?
So that if av3k didn't participate in polish qualifier, he cannot enter the european championship anymore?

Looks like it. I even pracced 3-4 days for my qualifier. But then I had a missed flight and there were an accident in sweden delaying all the transports so I didnt get home in time. :'(

Bad luck :/

That's fucked up.

shouldnt have been out on the piss then

how can you be retarded enough to miss a flight...

I missed one just four weeks ago becuase I did not expect a 16km traffic jam at 5 in the morning.
And I won't start going to airports 2 hours before the flight for some business trips, so it might just happen again.

own fault for being retarded...arrived 3 & 2 hours before my last flights

theres no train/tram to your airport?

your business trips are just around germany?

how many flights do you take in a year? Three? Four?

If I started to arrive at the airport 2 hours before a flight to another city in Europe and of course write hours for that time, my company would ask me what the fuck I was doing wasting my hours like that.
20 of my hours are way more expensive than any flight inside Europe.
Train takes almost 2 hours versus 45 minutes by car on 98% of all mornings. So that doesn't make sense.

Last week I took another flight together with my superior at the exact same time, he picked me up at home and was even 10 minutes later than the time I left, when I missed my flight.

Needless to say, everyone in my company said "Shit happens" instead of "God you are retarded".


Oh and for the record, with intercontinental flights I will of course arrive earlier as those often only leave once in a day and are more expensive.


/edit

Jsut saw your edit. Yes, mostly to Munich, twice to Vienna an donce to America. Really depends one where we get our next project.

and yet you spend a lot of your precious time during work on esr :P this seems sooo familiar to me :)

:D

everyone needs a break sometimes :P

sif fly within the same country unless youre in china/america/russia

Vienna is not German












currently :P

referring to the 'mostly Munich' kankernoob

yeye :P

also, how the fuck am I supposed to do good work or represent myself well at a meeting, when I have to get up at 3:30? ;P

Fox is qualified \o/. Guess he wont show up tough :/

tox said he'll go to IEM, did he change his mind?

<3 fox
:'-( avek, tox

In Poland nobody gives a fuck, even I could win it with a bit of luck. Whaat thaa fak is going on.

Go GoHLinK !!!!

GL to Insane from Portugal too.

No Avek is sad.

ty lol

so no avek, no spartie and no stermy...

GL Insan3 :)

:D

Drop some of the randoms and get Spart1e, av3k and stermy in there.

ffs esl

I don't understand how with almost perfect last season, ESL suddenly decided to change to this crap system :/

We didn't suddenly change to this, it was meant to be like this ever since. The first season was an exception as a nations ranking can't be made without a preceding season.

so the problem is that you refuse to acknowledge that your system doesn't work as well as it could.

Poland got his slot mainly because of av3k, av3k can't make the only qualifier for some reason, suddenly there is no av3k and player directly qualified who (most likely) won't stand a chance. As a result Poland might just lose some of their slots.

Hardly perfect.

BUT BUT THEY USE IT IN THEIR OTHER CUPS

so looks like iem europe is messed up with player selection system i take it?

maplist and rules? :)

American system this season was solid, just like last year's...

Next up: Europeans decided that the dark ages weren't really all that bad.

Fuck , Missed LTU qual o_O

Looks like ESL is trying really hard to make this tournament less good than it could be.


The main function of a systematic approach should be to ensure a understandable and replicable way of getting the currently best players to enter a tournament, possibly with a few minor restrictions to help with a more multinational playerbase.

The current system does obviously not fulfill the purpose it was designed for as well as it could.
So, I don't see a single reason against optimizing the system.


Maybe pride has got something to do with it, but in reality, identifying flaws in an existing system and trying to optimize them should be in everyone's best interest.
On the other hand, thinking one's system is perfect despite delivering less than satisfactory results seems a weird ...



Also, having just one national qualifier is pretty much asking for a less strong lineup than it could be.
Disregarding technical problems that can arise with online qualifiers, there is one more important thing:
Playing quakelive is not a career choice, nor does it pay well enough to sacrifice other things for it. So, there are lots of things that players should favor instead of playing some qualifier, e.g. preparing for an important test at uni, etc. Therefore, a comparison to a system such as the CL makes no sense, as that system is made for professionals.
For those reasons have wildcards, invites or some other means to at least guarantes spots to players like av3k can participate and make it a more entertaining tournament.

Honestly, I am really curious how the ESL would explain their decisions to sponsors if they asked why they are not getting the best players for their investment.




Almost a column, I guess

I agree. The systems works fine if:

a) There is a huge scene and it's difficult to tell who the best players are
b) Players are 100% motivated to not miss _the only day_ possible to qualify, and know beforehand that an EPS will count as a qualifier

Neither of those are fulfilled in QL's case. So maybe it works for CS and SC. But everyone on ESR can tell there are top players (who deserve to be there) missing and several players are misseeded with the current system.

The top players in the qualifiers I ran knew it was their only chance because I informed them. As for the national qualifiers run by our partner companies that responsibility is with those partner companies.

so, what if there was a job interview or an important test on that day?

Sure you can demand that all the top players should make time for your qualifier. But in reality, you are hurting your own tournament and in extension the ESL as much as your hurt them.

on a Sunday? or at 8 in the evening?
do you think we wouldn't have acted on it if a top player told us that he cant play on a specific day? we are in fact *very* open to feedback from players if they have problems.
just take the current american group stage as an example, czm's pc fried and we allowed him to move his match vs sparks to a different date...

yes, job interviews interviews in another town, where you have to leave early or preparing for exams on the next day do happen sometimes, believe it or not. So does mom's 50th birthday.

Apparantly that didn't work out to well for the Polish qualifier and now it's "too late".


Bottom line is this:

You don't want to make sure that you get the best players to your tournament. Fine, that is your choice since it is your tournament.
Just don't go around telling us that it is impossible to do achieve it.

You also need to understand that you are providing a service.
If I were a sponsor who is giving money money the ESL for this tourmament I would be calling your superior right now.

As I pointed out in another post: The Polish qualifier was run while I was on vacation after working 10 days straight without having a day off, I did not see that the top players were missing until after they had started and several matches had been played. We tried hard to find a way to enable an unrestricted last chance qualifier but no other country gave up their slots (like it happened in the CS qualifiers for example). We can't just take slots from already qualified players or a different country because we see fit.

You have the wrong impression of how we do things, we always try to work things out within the boundaries set by our rules but we won't bend them or fuck over people who have rightfully earned their qualification.

maybe I do not see your approach correctly, but afair this is the first post where you actually hint that you are not entirely pleased with the lineup your system has given you.
However, I am sure you don't understand completely what I am asking, either.

I am not telling you to cancel or restructure the qualification process now, as you said, it is too late for that.
I want you to realize that the current system is far from perfect and improve it for the next season.

Because up until this last post you were giving the impression that you are very happy with the result of your system and intend to keep it forever.

I never stated that we were satisfied with the outcome. If I were I'd specifically state that.
We are fully aware that some people may fail to qualify like this, but from experience we can also say that the same amount of players you expect to qualify may actually fail in an unrestricted environment as well.

You also have to keep in mind that there is a multitude of parties involved in this qualification process. It's not just us, but also more than a dozen local partners who have a contract with us that guarantees them various things, including the right to run their own national qualifiers. For them it is an important source of activity and income in some cases. If we take the national qualifiers away from them we're fucking them over (I'm also pretty sure that due to the contract we can't do that anyway).
We tell our partners the time frame in which the qualifier(s) have to take place and how many slots they are able to give out. They are not allowed to give anyone a free-ride. Other than that they are free to pick their mode and schedule as long as it fits into the predetermined time frame. It's also largely their responsibility (and in their best interest) to make sure that the competition has the best participants possible. Sadly if that doesn't work out prefectly it will also fall back on us and we'll be the ones trying to figure out a solution - which isn't always possible.

I never stated that we were satisfied with the outcome. If I were I'd specifically state that.

And I didn't say that stated that, only that you gave the impression. Would have been a bad idea to state that even if you were satisfied, cause you would have just added fuel to the fire.

However, you had enough opportunities to state that you aren't happy with the outcome, which would have most likely caled some people, but you chose not to. Instead you vehemently defended the system, itself. Hence, the impression that you weren't unhappy.


as for that last part of your statement, I think that clearly indentifies a possiblity for improvement.
For example you could do this:
The national admins have to provide a concept for their qualifier to you (doesn't need to be more than a few sentences), including dates and how they intend to make sure most/all top players from that country participate. Should be send at least two months before the deadline. Then you can approve that concept or ask for improvements.

There are various options we're discussing. But we won't change the system with the QRs and the Nations Ranking.

not even eliminating the tdm influence from the duel rankings? O.o

I don't think there will be a reason to include TDM in the rankings next season. It was just done this time around because in order to allow more of our partner countries to have their own qualifiers I guess.

so, there is a change for the better ;P

Not including TDM would not have changed much for the people who were complaining about it the most. Germany and Iceland or Italy might have had a slot more, Netherlands and UK one less. The rest would have probably stayed the same

that actually changed a lot then. :/

Isn't that pretty much most of what people are complaining about? :D

it would not have changed dem0n's situation

well if euro finals are screwed better have some way for av3k, stermy et all to qualify/play in the world finals

if there are no eps leagues for a country, there should be real qualifier round like last year imho

with groupstage

and the champions league system doesn't work for QLas the top 16 players do not come from the best 4 countries like in football, but from 12-14 different countries


look at AC qualifier: 2 stages and pretty much the top 8 qualified for the finals

why not do a real 2stage one for europe too? single elim isn't too favorable for deciding the top 32 or w/e slots in euroland

I don't think you get this right.
This qualifier phase is for the group stage that you are talking about.

It works like this:

EPS/National Qualifier -> players qualify for QR1, QR2 or the group stage of the Euro Championship
QR1 = 24 players, 12 winners -> QR2
QR2 = 24 players, 12 winners -> Online Group Stage
Euro Championship Online Group Stage = 6 groups of 4 players, Top2 of each group qualify for the Euro Championship Finals
Euro Championship Finals (on LAN, 2 groups of 6) = x Players advance to the World Finals

The American qualifiers were simpler because there are just 2 (active) countries in that region.
Means their qualification path is:

Qualifier -> 16 players advance to American Championship Group Stage (4 groups of 4)
Group Stage -> 8 players advance to American Championship Finals
American Championship Finals (LAN, 2 groups of 4) -> x Players advance to the World Finals

We can't make the Euro Group Stage or Finals as big as we like, the numbers have to be relatively small. Therefore we have to run the system with the qualifier rounds.

Therefore we have to run the system with the qualifier rounds.

wrong.

You have to run a system with qualifier rounds.
And the one you are using is certainly not the one that produces the highest quality finals/group stages..

It would if players werent missing the qualifiers. Imho only the national esl admins are really to blame, announcing their qualifiers 2 days prior to them happening or not explaining it properly to their countries players that its the only chance they have (none of the top5 polish players played in their qualifier?!) and not really the system itself. I think its even up to the national admins on how to determine their top players afaik (unless there is an EPS).

the point remains the same.

A good system should not only work when everything goes according to plan. After all it is in the best interest of the organizer to get the best tournament possible. Not to punish participants for their mistakes / problems.
So a good system should also compensate for foreseeable problems, which also extend to mistakes the players may make or problems the encounter (ISP down for the national qualifier, etc.).

This system does not do that.

mhm, true i guess, tho i still think its mainly the national admins in every country that are to blame for that
(unless im wrong and they were forced to only do one cup to determine who gets their countries slots)

yes. But I would consider the national admins to be part of the ESL system, no?

and if they weren't then supervising their decisions must be at the very least.



If I imagined one of our customer got a piece of rusty equipment* from one of our supplier and I told them that our system is really good cause I tell the supplier what he should do and then don't bother to check up on him. I would also not bother to set things right, cause it was our supplier's decision. And we don't intend to ever change that system.
Then my company would be very lucky to keep that customer and probably only because I wouldn't have my job anymore.





* just for the example's sake, don't mean to say lower ranked players are 'rusty' or anything like that.

well i'd switch the product producer/supplier then

oh snap :/

dno how you can take EPS into account for deciding slot # when half of the countries don't even have EPS. Same goes for tdm enc.

fair system is fair.

i have no idea if they considered EPS in the slot distribution (but don't think so considering germany only got 2)

edit: maybe you misunderstood me

Having an EPS automatically guarantees your country 1 QR1 slot even if the country is not on the nations ranking. That is the only effect an EPS can have on the slot distribution.

so why not spread EPS on to more countries then a selected few?

Have you ever tried to take in account that your qualifiers are online, with all the related problems? And that your job as organizer is first of all to help players rather than build obstacles in their way?

no top player failed to qualify because qualifiers are done online.

Online means: announced like in 2 weeks and therefore some players won't be able to change their plans, in case of missed flight sponsors won't help you get there ASAP, plus random ping/internet problems or just bad luck, etc. Also the format of the qualifiers where some of them are SE bo1 at early rounds. And with so many random factors and just things players can't have influence on, they get only one chance. You seriously consider this a good system?

it is the only viable system. it is not possible to run LAN qualifiers in every country. and even then the same things can still happen. a player gets stuck in traffic, misses a flight, has technical problems with his equipment, ...

it is the only viable system. it is not possible to run LAN qualifiers in every country. and even then the same things can still happen. a player gets stuck in traffic, misses a flight, has technical problems with his equipment, ...

So between one 1-day LAN and one 1-day online single elimination cup you don't see any other ways to run a qualifier?

the layout of the national qualifiers is up to the local partner company that runs it.
The qualifiers I set up personally were single elim, bo3.
various partners had double elim, bo1. some had double elim, bo3.

It's a matter of how much manpower and time you have to run it.

So, in your view, the best way to determine nation's best players is to arrange a quick cup (no matter the format) at short notice?

Most cups were announced well ahead of the actual schedule. The only cups that had less than a week prior notice on the ESL website or ESR were the French and Italian cups as the local partners took a longer time to arrange the manpower to run and announce them.

Hmm, how much well ahead?
For example, for Russian qualifier I see that it was announced on 27.08 with cup start at 05.09, which is certainly not "well ahead".
And anyway still I don't see any reason why a "quick cup" format was chosen instead of longer leagues lasting for weeks and with ability to reschedule matches, etc.

Because long cups have proven inefficient for QL duel in the past. The matches are short and it's much easier to handle if it is all on the same day or consecutive days. Players are also used to this because the quick-cup system is the prevailing system in on-line duel.
For the same reason the American group stages were played on just 2 days each for each of the 3 games.

What is in your opinion the purpose of qualifiers?

reducing the number of participants if there are more people interested in participation than there is space

Why not just kick random people out?

are you serious? :D

he wants you to write a better definition of a qualifier, cause kicking random people out certainly fulfills your last definition ;)

from a spectator point of view i just wait for finals because i really cba to understand how this works nor runs.

then you are really lazy or just stupid... there is even a shiny graphic explaining it on the esl site afaik, but you prolly never bothered to look there

EPS/National Qualifier -> players qualify for QR1, QR2 or the group stage of the Euro Championship
QR1 = 24 players, 12 winners -> QR2
QR2 = 24 players, 12 winners -> Online Group Stage
Euro Championship Online Group Stage = 6 groups of 4 players, Top2 of each group qualify for the Euro Championship Finals
Euro Championship Finals (on LAN, 3 groups of 6) = x Players advance to the World Finals

can people from the same nation meet in the qualifiers, yes or no?

in qr2 you mean? i dont know and i dont care, read the rules if u wanna know

read the rulebook, can't find it in there.

if you don't care that's one thing, but you were the one saying the whole system is explained ;)
And it can have quite an impact on that nations ranking. Just imagine calipt and k1llsen meet next round.

not normally, it won't happen unless there is a *large* number of players from the same country in each of the of the 2 pools (in this case that would mean 7 of 12 in one, 6 of 12 in the other - for example)

considering there seems a maximum of six players per country (Sweden's slots + defending champion) I think we are pretty safe in that regard :P

yes, it's not going to happen in this case

last part should be '2 groups of 6', i typoed in my post :D

you cant expect much from an average joe that just wants to follow few matches. if even we dont get it easily then we cant expect fans from other gaming scenes to follow their local quakelive players.

why would the average joes care about the qualification process, he wants to watch the lan final

" We didn't suddenly change to this, it was meant to be like this ever since. The first season was an exception as a nations ranking can't be made without a preceding season. "

Yeah like a fair nation rating could be made after one!!!!! season. Usually I support the esl and agree with some steps but this one is just retarded. There is a reason why the UEFA coefficient in soccer is about a period of 5 years and not only one season.
In addition it is retarded to add the tdm results and let them influence the valuation. Tdm has nothing to do with dueling and it is unfair for countries with lesser good tdmers. I don't get it why duel players like stermy have to suffer from this :x
There is no good reason to justify this imo.

Another point which is just rediculous and retarded is that an eps winner should always be in the 2nd qlr and not the guy who placed 2nd. I mean how can you justify such a move? They both played in the SAME eps. I don't care about the nation ranking because for me it is common sense that the winner should be in ql2 and not the 2nd place. If I were the benelux eps winner I would think I got pranked :/

Usually I support the esl and like your way of handling things but in this case you did a huge mistake, but as we all know you won't change it in this season. In the end it is your loss if good players are missing :(

What player exactly are you missing because his country got 'too few' slots in your opinion? You have to keep in mind that slots can only come from the top, not from the bottom. You'd have to take from Sweden, Russia, France, Poland, ...

stermy did not suffer because of this, he just was not able to participate because he was in the United States throughout the qualification period and to my knowledge is only to return to Europe this week.

As for the regional EPS issue:
If those countries had separate EPS the players would still get the same slots they got now. They wouldn't be going to a different stage of the tournament.

Just invite av3k/stermy/spart1e/fox/tox

alright? I mean shit, you and me and even the dog in my room that is licking his nuts knows that they would have qualified easy as shit if they could have shown up for it.

c'mon....

We're not going to invite anyone other than the defending champion. All games will be handled the same and there will be no "golden parachute" for Quake Live players.

boring nubs = no1 watching your tournament... ?

The QRs will eliminate the "less skilled" players anyway. keep in mind that we have already reduced the number of slots compared to last year. there will be at least 2 top players in each of the groups - just like last year.

There are huge gaps between:

newb: myself
scrub: serak,kronic,s1ip (etc, nearly all of your list)
good player: guard, burnedd,agent
middle pro: madix, fazz,
top pro: k1llsen,dahang,[spart1e,fox,tox,stermy]
star pro: Rapha,cooller,cypher, [av3k]


You are denying 1 star pro / and 4 top pros (if fox/tox want to even play) for scrubs...

fuck man they arent what people want

We are not denying anyone, they denied themselves by not qualifying while they had the chance.
If a player is not able to participate or does not sign-up it's not our job to save their asses by bending rules. We've been clear to them that it is their only chance, if they miss it for whatever personal reason it is not our fault.

The polish qualifier is a different situation because it happened while I was on vacation and they had already started the cup without av3k & co when I got back.



fox is qualified, he played in the Swedish qualifier... get your facts right

We are not denying anyone, they denied themselves by not qualifying while they had the chance.
If a player is not able to participate or does not sign-up it's not our job to save their asses by bending rules. We've been clear to them that it is their only chance, if they miss it for whatever personal reason it is not our fault.

and that point of view is exactly why this season is gonna suck compared to last one.

GG.


/edit

To clarify:
When cooller couln't come to Dubai that was also not the ESL's fault. Yet, carmac still did everything he could to get him there to make it a better tournament.
According to you, carmac should not have done a thing about it?

sometimes i wonder if you even think about what you write

Firstly, look at the time of the post.

At the point I wrote that sput was still busy defending ESL's system as a whole and hadn't even so much as hinted that he was unhappy with the outcome.

Secondly, he basically said in that that it's av3k's and stermy's own fault for not making the qualifiers regardless of the time of the announcement.
While in reality the ESL's job should be to make sure that players actually get reasonable time to sign up and prepare.

Letting one of your 'suppliers' announce a qualifer that late and then claiming it's not your fault is unproffessional at best.



Or maybe I misunderstood you and you only don't agree that a tournament without stermy and av3k is worse than the last one?

Or maybe I misunderstood you and you only don't agree that a tournament without stermy and av3k is worse than the last one?

no, i agree and SpUt probably does aswell. the way i read it, he was only defending the idea of the qualification process (in the beginning) but by now i have found both sites to be ridiculous on opposing positions

well, as I said, sput only mentioned that he isn't happy with the outcome, that they did check if there is a way to resolve and that they are discussing changes after I wrote that post above.

So naturally my post makes less sense now.
Before then it looked a whole lot like he couldn't be bothered because it was someone else's mistake.

I don't got time to read shit, fox is in is alright, but still

What are tournaments for? Isn't it to draw spectators and interest in the group holding the tournament + the game being played?

How can you not invite the superstars of the 'sport'.. its just stupid.

They draw the crowd... (1000 ppl rofl) but still they draw them, who wants to watch a bunch of scrubs screw around then get straight up mollywhopped by cooller/cypher/k1llsen or whatever pro is left without any challenge.

It would be anticlimatic and just zzzzzz.

We are not denying anyone, they denied themselves by not qualifying while they had the chance.
If a player is not able to participate or does not sign-up it's not our job to save their asses by bending rules. We've been clear to them that it is their only chance, if they miss it for whatever personal reason it is not our fault.

So you made up the rules that screw players and then say it's not your problem that players got screwed.
Well, nice attitude, what can I say more.

why do you choose to ignore the part "we made it clear to them that it is their only chance"? ;)

"We made up rules that will screw the players and made it clear to them that they will be screwed, so it's not our problem that they screwed".
And you see no problems with that?

it never said "one qualify only".

Hello Sebastian,

the only qualifier for the Extreme Masters European Championship will be held next Sunday.
http://www.esl.eu/nordic/quakelive/1on1/iem_se_cup/signup/ is the link to sign up.

Best Regards,

that's original text from the mail I sent you ;)

Yes. 3-4 days before the qualifier :p. But I never read it online somewhere, where I SHOULD have read it.

Considering how many top players missed out, I find this highly unlikely to be true.

If those countries had separate EPS the players would still get the same slots they got now. They wouldn't be going to a different stage of the tournament.

That's because in that case they wouldn't have been proved that they are better than some players from other countries. But when you have direct result between two players and put better player in a lower qualifier round, that's just stupid.

I'm not gonna change my opionion about the tdm influence and you probably won't agree with me in public but if you think about it you'll have the same conclusion. I mean there are plenty of tdmers who suck at dueling compared to their tdm level. Seriously I don't give a shit whether the influence is only a minor one because there is no explainable reason for this and yet we have to wait for a explanation for this decision :/
I never said that you have to take away spots from sweden or any other country just focus on dueling and don't give a shit about tdm.

If those countries had separate EPS the players would still get the same slots they got now. They wouldn't be going to a different stage of the tournament.

Yeah but there aren't separated EPS and therefore it is stupid. Some countries don't even have any eps at all and players have to qualify at one specific day. So if you have important things to do (university, work etc) at that day you are fucked. Correct me if I am wrong.

In theory the system might be a good one but eSport is still small and you can't implement it after one season. I would like to have something like the american season for those countries who don't have an EPS but well ain't gonna happen.

Btw. it isn't your fault if some of the players like demon don't give a shit about the finals and then cry about the result.

tdm was a small influence and it wont be there next season

god i dont feel like defending the esl for this far from perfect system but the way they get criticized here (not specifically by you) is kinda ridiculous

yeah I didnt give a shit.

I had a choice to make between going to a lan that I was told was worth nothing more than winning 100~ euro (so none ever told me the EPS had any influence in the IEM which I always intended to play) or to go to my music festival which I go to for 7 years now with a bunch of friends for which I had already bought the 155€ combiticket. I had only been told by Rondrian (think its him) that I would get my direct invite in the next BENELUX EPS anyway for beeing top4, even if I didn't go to the lan.


So yeah I didnt give a shit you say...But tell me really what would you have done in my place ? Drop the 155€ investment of my yearly amusement weekend to spend 50€ to go to a LAN where I _might_ win something ? Be honest with me...

you're right demon. i'd go to lan too... oh wait

Depends. I know it from 1.6 so I probably would have attended but 155€ is quite some money so to be honest I don't know what I have done in your position and I can't really blame you for that.
But if eSports wants to be taken seriously sometimes you as a player have to sacrifice and bring some effort in order to demand higher prize money. You can't expect companies to invest into events if players don't take it seriously, don't even attend or behave like children [Hi@guard, agent the russian pussy and so on).
Carmack once explained it quite well in an interview where he said that you have to do something for nothing to get to a point where you can either charge money or win it.

dude I'm the only reason the EPS in benelux even happended, I pushed many players into signing up and promoted and spammed people to play their games for 2 months.

If it wasn't for me there wouldnt have been an EPS at all because it hadn't been chosen but thanks to my efforts they decided to have a quakelive lan eps aswell.

Are you still blaming me now ?

haha what a joke :))

shut up.

edit: noob.

why not just zotac style qualifications? 4 weekends, 4 events, best 4 players gets qualified. no nations, not complications ... cant get any easier.

when did you germans lost your notorious common sense?

Because IEM is the top tier of a tiered system, not an open cup.

You know what? No one gives a fuck about your tiered system. We want a great show with best Quake players. And you're doing everything to prevent this.
Damn it, is Carmac not in charge of IEM anymore? What happened to his ideas...

specs and sponsors want best games from best players. anything else is not even an option. its just not acceptable. name it how ever fancy you want, if open cup sounds too mediocre, just deliver it the right way. you are not fooling anyone.

really, its very simple and basic.

we're not going to make special exceptions for a single game just because some top players fail to qualify. normally you would not expect any of those players to fail to qualify, this time around they just managed to do it.
it could easily be the same situation with an unrestricted open qualifier, you can always get stuck in traffic or be away at the time it is being played.

What about just make 1 more qualifier for all who wants to try to qualify? It was just not announced in time for THE ONLY(where I never read it was ONLY ONE) qualifier.
I thought it would be same as last seasons.

there are no open spaces to make a qualifier for

is it at least possible for players to forfeit their spots and give the chance to somebody who might have exponentially higher chances of actually going far?
let somebody forfeit and give the place to stermy e.g., stermy throws a round of free lessons and everybody's happy.

no, the moment a player forfeits his slot it will automatically go to the next player in the respective EPS or national qualifier

well that is a f*ing shame and won't benefit your organisation in any way. I've been a supporter of esl since they first started showing quake live, paying for premium and attending events, gladly putting my time and money into it. having top8 players and crowd favourites such as stermy, spartie and av3k not attending due to poorly organised/advertised qualifiers however.. sigh. do everyone, including yourselves, a favour and swallow your pride on this one.

then kick some people out. im not gonna wake up at 3 am to watch 4 good people stomp everyone in their groups and then a bunch of people i've only vaguely heard of dick around.

your system is obviously flawed and poorly implemented

however the American system worked just fine again maybe we could put them in charge of figuring out how to fix your fuck-ups

they are using the same system we are using, just that they don't have 24 (or more) different countries to take into account ;)

really thats odd i dont remeber sperate qualifiers for the united states and canada. so i cant see how its the same system .

our partner in north america handles the us and canada as a single region rather than separate countries. similar to how the nordic section, the benelux section or the uk&ireland section work in the european part.

You should have been faster with announcements and started qualifiers long time ago....

maybe you should sing something to esl, to soften em up... smth like

JUST GONNA STAND THERE AND HEAR ME CRY
BUT THATS ALRIGHT BECAUSE I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE
I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE
I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE

ahaha :D

Also. All the ESL tournaments are always for the viewers and not for the players. If a problem is not working, ok, its the players fault. fuck him and force the game anyways because the viewers are w8ing.
Its always like this in the IEM tournaments ;).

So how can you make it fun for the viewers when not even the best players(that wants to go) are allowed to go?

Wrong. Just compare it to the CL. More teams from more countries grant more viewers, interest and therefore sponsors. The system is in theory a good one just the excecution is dumb and could be better. And yeah if some of the so called pros didn't qualify because they sucked it is ok, but the current qualification system is flawed and should be changed.

I never said I am against more players from more countries.

I wanted to response to ambro's post :x

edit -> change 'reply to'

I believe normal users can do that, too. If not tell me and I'll do it.

Changed it, sry I was busy and didn't realized it on the spot

np

I'm wondering if carmac will pull some strings to get av3k in the tournament. :)

Seriously, this tournament is missing a lot of top players and thus is far less interesting than last season.
I understand that most of the missing top players have themselves to blame, but imo everyone (esl, specators, players) would be happy if you invite the ones who missed their chance (or do another international qualifier for all countries). I'm certain that nobody would complain, if you make an exception of the rule in the 2nd season, when the country ranking isn't really much worth yet.

I saw that there was a last chance cup for cs, why is there none for ql?

The last chance qualifier in CS came to be because Italy and Israel forfeited their slots in QR1. As no country forfeited a slot in QL there was no last chance qualifier.

I understand that most of the missing top players have themselves to blame

It's like building a bridge without railings and saying that someone who dropped in the water has himself to blame that he wasn't careful enough and stumbled over something and that railings are unnecessary because no normal person in right mind would go to the edge and fall in the water.
There is a reason why bridges have railings. A small mistake should not lead to dramatic consequences. If you make rules that allow it, YOU are responsible for consequences too, not just players.

Just to let everybody know, since I`m nice and everything but I don`t like to be fooled around, by quoting Sput "we're not going to make special exceptions for a single game just because some top players fail to qualify" I will add:

I didnt fail to qualify, let`s make things clear for everybody here - - You guys did not announce any qualifier for Italy, but managed to get a 8 players qualifier with a day and half advance and pretended to have me playing on it while I was in the United States. How can I possibly know you guys are organizing such a qualifier without announcing it weeks before? I could I schedule it ? I didnt fail to qualify, ESL/ESL.it failed to organize it.

With this being said, I got respect for everybody at ESL and their work, but please dont spread false informations to the community giving all the blame to us (players). Take your responsabilities.

Thank you.

-Stermy

The date for the qualifier was the Italian partner's choice (with the 12th being the deadline day). They didn't have the resources to announce it earlier they told us.

Would you have stayed home to play it, rather than going to LA, if you had known a week earlier?

you're unbelievable... i genuinely can't believe how moronic you are

awww insults <3

People like you should never be allowed to manage anything. You simply don't want to sort out problems and take responsibility, all you do is set up rules and hope it all runs by itself.

are you planning to do something to assure that incompetent partners wont mess it up again next season?

We'll at least try to have a joint announcement of all qualifiers at the same time with comparable sign-up periods.

and tbh thats almost all that needs to be fixed. a clear and early announcement about the qualifiers...
are more and more countries also getting an eps over the next years btw?

Our local partners decide at their own discretion which games to have in their EPS. Limiting factors are as always community size, funding and whether they have the manpower.

oh, i thought the esl is running all the different national eps themselves
shit gets so complicated on a scale like that :(

No, we only run Germany, UK&IE and Nordic (NO, SE, DK, IS, FI) in-house currently. Though I believe there will be a new partner for the Nordic section soon that will take over.

And you won't even bother about the problems they create? Just say "it's not my trouble"?

We'll talk to them when we see that something goes wrong, but we're not their bosses. If things can be fixed, we kindly ask them to fix it - if still possible.

just remember this years european iem finals. de facto best quakelive event and coverage ever! for players as well as for spectators. esl spoiled us right there.

IEM europe:
cypher + top 11 or 15 from:

Austria and Lichtenstein 2 slots
Germany 3-4 slots
Ukraine 3-4 slots
Netherlands 2-3 slots
Sweden 4-5 slots
France 2 slots
Belgium and Luxembourg 2 slots
Italy 1-2 slots
Portugal 1 slot
Spain 2 slots
Czech Republic and Slovakia 2 slots
Poland 3-4 slots
Romania 1 slot
Lithuania 1-2 slots
Belarus 1 slot
Russia 4 slots
Bulgaria 1 slot
Hungary 1 slot
Moldova 1 slot
Albania and Montenegro 1 slot
Greece 1 slot
UK and Ireland 3-4 slots
Finnland 1-2 slots
Norway 1 slot
Denmark 1 slot
Switzerland 1 slot
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia 2-3 slots
Turkey 1 slot
Israel 1 slot
Estonia and Latvia 1 slot

right?

I can understand that it is a pretty big challenge do handle all that stuff and higher player count is harder to organize

I just want to hear from Stermy and Av3k what they're saying to all of this

yeah it is difficult, jsut from a quick glance I see a few points that make too much sense.

Ukraine 3-4 slots
Lithuania 1-2 slots
Belarus 1 slot

also stermy's statement is a few posts above yours.

where is that slot distribution from?

it differs from this:
http://www.esl-world.net/masters/#/masters/co..._season_5/

I thought he made it up by himself *shrug*

yeah i made it up myself to show what I want to see:
the big/medium names in a qualifier
and: it's showing the uselessness of uefa 5-year score

It's funny that most people finally step up and start shouting at how retarded this system is only now when I've been saying this almost 2 weeks ago already.


I'm kinda glad people like stermy, avek, spartie, guard, etc. couldnt qualify so now I wont complain alone :D

as if you would have won against burnedd.

why not ? As far as I know he hasnt been playing of the whole summer and I still hold a positive record of wins over losses in tournaments against him.

uhm, all I can see is that you lost to him three weeks before the finals and two weeks after, also that it was in the beginning of summer ;)

http://www.esl.eu/benelux/pro-series/season4/...r/4283147/

http://www.esl.eu/benelux/pro-series/season4/...cial/6174/

congratulations last win with burneed in the same tourney was 2009.

How does that compare to you losing 0-2 in the week and before and after the LAN Finals?

dno maybe that in june i'm in exams from 25th may to 18 june ?

I really dont care what you think about what could be the outcome of a game between burnedd and me, we're both freinds and all of our games are always close...

you can't expect organisers not to respect their own deadlines, certainly they shouldn't go out of their way and bend the rules for careless players. if they did that it would be at the expense of the other players, breaching equality. however it is at the responsibility of ESL to make sure event dates are announced beforehand in a reasonable time (10 days seems like a normal minimum). such an important rule should not be at the discretion of their partners, but a requirement from ESL themselves. this is obvious. but what should they do about this now? one solution is to investigate the complaints themselves and find out if their partners failed to give the players reasonable time to make arrangements. if they find this wasn't done properly, they should hold an additional qualifier for those countries. but they can't remove any players from the previous qualifiers, they'll need to up the slots. the only problem with this is that now the country quota will be skewed at the expense of the countries that did everything right. but i still think it's better for the tournament, and spectactors, than the alternative. (which is to do nothing)

idk why it's so hard to come up with invites for people that somehow missed it due to bad organization from the local ESL branch (esl.it in stermy's case)...

i hope they come up with a YOU CAME TOO LATE star qualifier, casted on lvl^

or smth

+1
but i dont see it happening

ALSO:
GL baksteen, insan3, odi, calipt, kronic!!