[JiNxXx]

Originally Posted by NemaR

the tournament was REALLY poorly organised, power kept going out, it was about 4 hours until they played something on screen, players could very easily stream cheat, games kept on disconnecting, I was very dissapoint.

I just have to laugh at comments like this.

you have no idea what it actually takes to run a tournament / event of this size...

to be honest, I really don't have to sit here and type this out, but I will because I want everyone to know exactly what happened and how the team and I solved these issues.

first off, I was pulled in as the entire E-Sports director at the last minute, and I mean 2 days before the event went live. saying that, I did the best I could with the resources that were available to get everything going.

addressing the major issues.

Internet: internet was one of the biggest issues, during bump in on Thursday I was on the phone for a good 3+ hours trying to get net sorted out for the venue, to no avail. (ball was dropped prior to my activation on this project and nobody had organized a net connection).

Friday rolled along and myself and the ACL (Damien and crew) were at the venue at 730am setting up and trying to get things rolling. After 1.5 hours on the phone and running between the event hall and the main offices at Olympic Park I was able to get a net connection set up for the venue. Unfortunately it was only a 5mbit connection as the main 2 100/100's were being used.

We immediately noticed the issue and moved to create a solution. I approached my boss at TLS, yes, the company that you all seem to hate so much, and he immediately and unhesitatingly dropped $1,000 in cash to get a internet solution in place. We were able to send a runner out to purchase additional 4G dongles in order to provide you all with the tournament that you wanted. Eventually we had the internet up and running and everyone was able to play the game.

Power: Again another issue here that needed to be addressed before hand, but again slipped through the net. Power was not set up correctly by the contractors of the venue as they were not made aware during bump-in about the number of devices that we were going to have on the circuit. 20+ Asus computers, 10+ for shootmania and over 40 consoles total. The first power outage was caused by a untagged and untested distribution box for the 3 phase power. Power was restored when someone replaced the faulty distribution box with a 3 phase connector to a 3 port daisy chain thing of utter idiocy.

I was not made aware of this change, if I was, I would of literally taken the person responsible and cut their balls off...

Luckily one of my helpers during the weekend inquired to me about the power scheme we had in place and I told him to check it out. When he showed me the set up we could literally feel the heat radiating off the cables, they were getting that hot! If we had not immediately shut down the power there would of been either; a. a fire from the cables melting / igniting or b. someone / everyone around the 3 phase would of been electrocuted.

It was a OH&S issue that we were not going to ignore and that is why the power was off for so long. We needed to find a solution to the problem in order to make sure that everyone in the venue was safe.

Of course we were able to solve this issue with help from the Olympic Park sparky team and SGL's Casualty who graciously ran back to Epping in order to bring in his own 3 phase distributors so that we could continue the event.

Streaming and 'games' on the main projectors:

All of the streaming was being done through 4G dongles and the reason that we did not have a stream up was because we were using the only 4G stick that we had at the time to provide everyone there with stable internet. Would you all have rather to play with the game stuttering every 5 seconds with a stream going? Or sacrifice the stream for half the day, so that you weren't all sitting there playing an unplayable game because of the lag?

Regarding stream cheating, you're just a moron for even suggesting that. I'm tired and stressed and a lot of what I'm saying here in this post will come across as being quite forward. But I want to make it clear that you suggesting that people would stream cheat implies that you think their all cheaters / exploiters which is just pure disrespectful.

In the end, we were able to get everything running to the best of our abilities. I acknowledge that we could of done things a lot better, but at the same time for the time frame, staff numbers and such that we had, I'm just happy that the tournament went ahead and finished.

My thoughts:

Overall I had a fantastic weekend, it was stressful, full on and tiring, but in the end I feel that the overall Esports Tournaments (not just SC2) went fantastically smooth and everyone enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately the SC2 boys (and girl, looking at you livi) were the guinea pigs. You guys were the first to test the power, the internet and more and of course there are going to be problems. There always are, you are delusional if you think that we can set events like this up and everything will be perfect from the get-go.

Saying that, I was really glad to see everyone enjoying themselves in the later parts of Day 1 and through out Day 2.

Also again a massive shout out is in order for Norksman, he did one hell of a job adming / running the SC2 comp. But an equal one is also due to ACL, with out whom this tournament would not have gone ahead.

If you guys do have any constructive feedback, please feel free to post it here, or if you feel more comfortable emailing it to me, you can reach me at Zee.Kotwal@Gmail.com.

Thanks guys.

Quick Comments

	NOM:	;) should of cooked something on it gurl
	JoFritzMD:	and he's serious when he talks about the ball cutting
	nirvAnA:	thanks for sharing

[Dox]

You and Linc did a sick job man. Honestly, from what I could tell, none of the players even gave a shit about the internet/power issues, cos it was like, "Oh sick, that means we can go and walk around the expo!" With two whole days to run a 16 player double elimination tournament, the stress levels seemed to be at an all-time low, and everyone I spoke to was just happy to mingle and enjoy the event. As for the lack of stream, yeah it sucks but it's not the end of the world. GESC was in the same boat a few months ago!

And I can assure you, mOOnGLaDe definitely stream cheated throughout the whole tournament, even when he was playing on the main stage. He had a mirror on the table so he could see everything on the projector screen behind him. Kid has no skills at all. Just cheats his way through tournaments.

It was really awesome to just chill the **** out and be a fan/spectator for once. Much love to Linc & Zee for the great job.

Quick Comments

	NOM:	he would use the mirror to check himself out, not stream cheat
	JiNxXx:	<3 much love
	inFeZa:	you deserve to chill out and watch for once!

[NOM]

I liked that the fact they only streamed the finals, because of internet restrictions. its better to be able to comfortably stream when only 1/2 the players are playing it rather than a choppy one with everyone sharing.
and i'm sure it can be casted after the event from replay files.(the matches that weren't shown)

everybody wins!

Quick Comments

inFeZa:

you win

[Baldie]

JiNxXx having not been there I won't comment but from the sounds of things you did an amazing job given the circumstances. Alike any job ever in the world, every project is different and unique even if it is a reoccurring event.

If you have no experience in running events, feedback is appreciated but keep it constructive. It would be like somebody who doesn't play SC2 going up to a pro player and saying you played horribly you didn't make these units and didn't engage here.. simply put you don't have the experience to make such a call.

If you have experience in running events, have compassion for the circumstances he started with being a few days out.

It is extremely important event managers and the like take on feedback so we can continuously develop and grow events to make them better and I appreciate people's frustrations when events don't go as they imagine they will. Just don't make us feel like shit because that's when people start walking away.

You live and learn! If there is any way I can support you let me know!
Keep doing what you love mate. Without people like you and the team behind it, event's wouldn't exist in the first place.

EDIT: To NemaR, although your comment wasn't malice by any means and your opinions are 100% valid it just reminded me of some less than objective posts in the past. If an event doesn't deliver on what it said it would then the people running it have to take the punches that come after.. it's part of the job. So don't take this as an attack against you!

[Dingobloo]

Originally Posted by JiNxXx

...
Regarding stream cheating, you're just a moron for even suggesting that. I'm tired and stressed and a lot of what I'm saying here in this post will come across as being quite forward. But I want to make it clear that you suggesting that people would stream cheat implies that you think their all cheaters / exploiters which is just pure disrespectful.
...

I hope this is the stress and fatigue talking because this is a troubling response, keeping in mind, I wasn't there, I don't know how difficult or easy it was to see the screen while playing, but I'll just stick to addressing the arguments:

There is a concept in journalism and in many other fields that "The appearance of impropriety is just as bad as actual impropriety". To use an example, conflict of interest: A judge might be relieved from ruling on a case due to conflict of interest, not because they think the judge is a scumbag (they don't, that's why he's a Judge), they do it because the fact that there is any risk of him swaying the outcome in his favor is enough to put the integrity of the hearing into question regardless of if he did it or did not.

I think it's okay if genuinely "it was out of our control" or "we didn't have enough space to ensure it didn't happen" but to write off his concerns by saying that he's accusing everyone of cheating is just untrue. Worse still if it was merely the decision that the exposure of having a big screen playing games was more important than the integrity (either perceived or real) of the tournament then that's that's really unfortunate. Here is Riot talking about a similar issue at their event on the weekend.

Thanks to Norksman for being a very a good admin, and yourself for your efforts and for trying to quickly fix the issues that arose, but there were genuine problems with this event even before the issues of power or internet that made it difficult to do even my pitiful contribution.

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

very niceee!!

[JiNxXx]

Originally Posted by Dingobloo

I hope this is the stress and fatigue talking because this is a troubling response

Thanks to Norksman for being a very a good admin, and yourself for your efforts and for trying to quickly fix the issues that arose, but there were genuine problems with this event even before the issues of power or internet that made it difficult to do even my pitiful contribution.

oh yeah - it was... still tired as all hell. aha.

regarding second part of quote, I completely agree - there were so many other issues that arose / were around before the event even went live.

[syfChadMann]

JiNxX, No one hates TLS - their organisational skills of who ever makes decisions about these tournaments is obviously lacklustre. You said yourself that you were only brought in to solve these glaring issues two days before the event. Also, everyone remembers last year where WCG paid for flights and accommodation and no one knew or had their flights booked until two days before the event. There is no disputing the eSports is a after-thought for these guys and their organisation for it is horrid. However, they manage to get the right people, such as yourself, Norksman, ACL and the other tournament admins involved to save their arse. So they do some things right.

All in all the tournament was very well run - I doubt anyone could really stream cheat. It was hard to get an angle on the projector screen and most of the competitors were facing the other way.

Basically, for how things were on the day - Dox summed it up perfectly. I'll add having LoL on right after was kinda annoying when Tgun was trying to play and LoL nerds were bumping into his chair and shit - I went nuts at them tho..

Quick Comments

	ROOTPetraeus:	chad smash!
	JiNxXx:	good post

[ZizLah]

I was at the EXPO on friday,

Had alot of fun at the event, despite the issues with net, power ect, i could tell that the guys that had anything to do with the tournaments and events where going manic trying to get a good show on. I was disappointed at not having some live casting and not having in game sound up on the projectors, but due to the constraints they where working with it's obvious some of these things where just out of their hands.

But something important i saw and heard though was a group of about 5 people, obviously people funding and running the event as a whole where walking into the e-sport area of the badgery pavillion and i heard the guy giving the tour say, "Now this is where people come to watch other people play games. Personally i dont understand it and think it's a waste of time but some people for some reason watch this kind of thing".
He then turned around and led them out of the pavilion.

If theres anything thats going to tell you exactly where we are in australia with e-sports it's that comment. And it's painfully obvious at the exact moment i heard that, that they really dont understand or give a shit about us. Running the ACL at the event was purely a marketing ploy to advertise on our communities websites, with little to no thought or appreciation from the guys at the top funding these events of what we even are.
In any partnership there is always a "you use me, i'll use you" underlying incentive for the partnership to be feasible in the first place and personally, i believe we got the rough end of the stick.

Side note: Shout out for ninja for being awesome to talk to during the day, and him and his mates for sharing a beer with me at the end of the first day. Made the trip worth it.

And hurry up and post the next dates for the ACL, because i'm coming.

Quick Comments

	Fenner:	Ninja is awesome!!
	nirvAnA:	omg that comment! :(((((((( Thanks for this post
	Demosthenes:	Not everyone understands the majesty of e-sports. and not everyone will... I don't understand how people can watch golf.
	JiNxXx:	:( ffs at that comment.
	NOM:	they are ******* pricks. you should never bad mouth stuff like that if you get payed to
	ToR.Arnor:	Thanks for shouting us that drink, next time you're in Sydney ill have to shout you one!

[iM tgun]

Originally Posted by ZizLah

I was at the EXPO on friday,

Had alot of fun at the event, despite the issues with net, power ect, i could tell that the guys that had anything to do with the tournaments and events where going manic trying to get a good show on. I was disappointed at not having some live casting and not having in game sound up on the projectors, but due to the constraints they where working with it's obvious some of these things where just out of their hands.

But something important i saw and heard though was a group of about 5 people, obviously people funding and running the event as a whole where walking into the e-sport area of the badgery pavillion and i heard the guy giving the tour say, "Now this is where people come to watch other people play games. Personally i dont understand it and think it's a waste of time but some people for some reason watch this kind of thing".
He then turned around and led them out of the pavilion.

If theres anything thats going to tell you exactly where we are in australia with e-sports it's that comment. And it's painfully obvious at the exact moment i heard that, that they really dont understand or give a shit about us. Running the ACL at the event was purely a marketing ploy to advertise on our communities websites, with little to no thought or appreciation from the guys at the top funding these events of what we even are.
In any partnership there is always a "you use me, i'll use you" underlying incentive for the partnership to be feasible in the first place and personally, i believe we got the rough end of the stick.

Side note: Shout out for ninja for being awesome to talk to during the day, and him and his mates for sharing a beer with me at the end of the first day. Made the trip worth it.

And hurry up and post the next dates for the ACL, because i'm coming.

Did you swiftly tell him where he could take his opinion?

[ZizLah]

Originally Posted by iM tgun

Did you swiftly tell him where he could take his opinion?

Sadly theres not alot of point unless i have a nice haircut, some good clothes and a whole bunch of fact sheets in front of me. None of which i had at the time.

If you wanna convince the oldies of the scene you have to bludgeon them with the truth and potential for profit and industry, rather then point out they're ignorant moron's out of touch with reality.
If we're going to bring these guys in, something we may be forced to do if the current climate continues, we're gunna have to work with them, and i'd rather not have them feel like i'd shat in their mouth for fear of missing future opportunity's.

TL : DR no, but i wish i could have.