"It was strange how people almost got wistful and nostalgic when a champion was crowned."
Curiously, the ESWC 2008 Grand Final did not serve quite the same dose of nostalgia as all the others did. Even though the game is five years older than at the time of "the first last Quake 3 tournament." The event in San Jose most certainly did not feel like a closure.What kind of an event was it, then?
The champions of old were present. Players with medals from every edition of the Quake 3 ESWC were there. Strangely, not to win it one last time. This time they came there to keep up.
John "ZeRo4" Hill had less game time under his belt than now when he got a second place at the ESWC in 2003. He got close, but not enough to make it to the top four. On the same amount of practice as this year Anton "Cooller" Singov won the ESWC a mere three years ago. This year he did not make the second stage of the event.
Who were they fighting to keep up with? Not the players that "became good" because the kings of old retired or stopped caring. Not Magnus "fox" Olsson or Fan "jibo" Zhibo who always get paralysed when it counts most. It was not the same old gentlemen's club meeting gathered to split the cake one more time.The ESWC belonged to new faces. The whole year in Quake did. While we were busy mourning the death of the game over and over and over, it brought us youngsters playing a new brand of Quake. Like a breath of fresh air came kids that dared to take what they dreamed of without looking at who was up against them.
Nothing could stop them. Not the jetlag, not the horrible monitors at the ESWC, not anyone's experience and an intimidating trophy cabinet.
"It will be fascinating to watch the youngsters fight the same battle their spiritual fathers fought."
Alexei "Cypher" Yanushevsky dominated the competition, Shane "rapha" Hendrisxon took third place and was the only one to beat Cypher all year. Between them sits Marcel "k1llsen" Paul, the dark horse that has the ability to take what is given to him on a platter. It sounds so easy, but tell it to the usual suspects in the competition who are always favourites but never win.Cypher and rapha, and the ESWC absentee Maciej "av3k" Krzykowski are the reason why the tournament in San Jose did not feel like a funeral. They are the reason why I, as a fan, will no longer fear that the past champions might choose to never return. There is someone that has come to replace them.
How fascinating this concept can be is epitomised by what ZeRo4 said to Cypher before they played in the QuakeCon final this year: "When I was beating LeXeR in the WCG final, you were ten years old."
If there is any lesson to be learned here, then it is that a game is only dead when it has stopped delivering new stars.
Cypher, rapha and av3k are the descendants of ZeRo4 and Cooller, trained by them and prepared to surpass them and shine an even brighter light. It will be fascinating to watch the youngsters fight the same battle their spiritual fathers fought.This is why, unlike the previous majors, the 2008 ESWC Grand Final did not feel like the last chapter of a long story. It felt like the beginning of a new one.
I think and I hope it will be.
--
photo #1, #2: readmore.de
"When I was beating LeXeR in the WCG final, you were ten years old." probaby the best quake quote in history!
Also don't forget the likes of Lakerman, Fatal1ty and Polosatiy, Slinger and so on those were the real old school guys :)
Looks like Wc3 will be dying for another 5 years then, Mr. scene expert.
Wc3 lost one of it's tournaments and is dead.
Simple.
And I'm obviously also not just talking about this column. Duh. Putting one of your articles in context with another makes me not get the point?
If you can bring this in relation to this article and its outcome, be my guest to explain how it matches your comment.
Ofc you can now say again I didn't really understand those articles either. Just like 95% of the readers who said Carmac writes too negative about Wc3 and too positive about other games.
But it's only natural for the Sk columnists to blame their readers for "not getting it" when they are confronted with critique.
Now I see what direction you are coming from and it makes sense to some extent. Though still, your comparison does not stand 100% here. Michal is explaining the progress of Quake since it's "birth" 1999 and the ongoing thought of losing this beautiful FPS. Now with these youngsters showing up and entertaining all of us at a very high level, he does not fear Quake to die, but to carry on.
For WC3 he sees a development in another direction and I think he is quite right on it. There are no tournaments in northern America, less in Europe than before and it will more or less focus on Korea and China.
Maybe new rising stars from NA or Europe would change that, but I think we can all agree that this won't happen in the near future...
So all in all I still think Michal is right with what he says about WC3 and Quake after all.
What annoyed me here was basically "If there is any lesson to be learned here, then it is that a game is only dead when it has stopped delivering new stars."
A line that could have been copypasted from the comments to any of his Wc3 related articles. "Stars" can stand for a player or a clan in that case. *coughAlternateWhofnaticwickedvioletth000cough*
Naturally I'm biased towards Wc3 here, Carmac has every right to be biased towards his Quake, but you shouldn't mix it if you write about multiple games.
"Warcraft 3 is good enough on its own. It is a great game, it has stars with interesting stories and personalities playing it and it has been a part of the Extreme Masters program for two years. But that is not the issue."
Now, how on earth did you come up with a conclusion that I said WC3 was dead? Seriously, are you on drugs or are you just completely uneducated?
See a pattern?
Good job flaming by the way. Just shows that you can't handle criticism.
Not that it makes a difference. You won't even admit that you're biased or exaggerate in your articles, while it's clear you do.
Anyway Carmac, now it's you acting like the 12 year old. Like usual you don't answer the important points (the ones where I say you screwed up at) and now you hide behind a "PROVE IT!" attitude. Just cause I said 5 times you said Wc3 is dying and once that Wc3 is dead.
Okay, you got nothing to defend yourself with obviously. Have fun writing lampoons.
I am gonna go ahead and say you killed Kennedy. If you say "PROVE IT" I'll say you are stupid with your "PROVE IT" attitude. Hah, take that!
Come on, you troll.
I never said WC3 was dead. I said that StarCraft is a better game to watch than WC3. I said that WoW is more suitable for ESL's EM than WC3. I said that StarCraft 2 will most likely push WC3 out of "worldwide pro gaming."
How you conclude from this that I am calling WC3 a dying game I do not know. All you have is an impression based on what you want to see, not on what I have actually said or written.
So either prove that I called WC3 a dead game or never mention it to me again.
"Warcraft 3 is by no means a dead game, the competitions are exciting as always and the Warcraft 3 Champions League is one of the most important events in the game to have a presence in. However, WC3 teams are being dissolved rather than built. - CARMAC"
MOVING ON!
I like carmac's quake articles the best because he is(IMO) biased to quake over other games, but in a good way, because carmac just seems to LOVE quake more so then other games. So maybe a little bit extra goes into them who knows :) Keep on writing though carmac :D
"Just cause I said 5 times you said Wc3 is dying and once that Wc3 is dead."
And that's my point, you hid behind that "I never said Wc3 is dead". It took you 3 replies to actually get the dead/dying difference.
And I think I gave enough proof that you called Wc3 a dying game multiple times, even though it's obvious anyway.
You can actually reread my other posts for that.
"Of course there are true parts in his articles but it depends on how you sell it."
All you do is arguing against the fact that your Wc3 articles have a negative theme and that you use a single Quake tournament to hail it as vital.
/generic Carmacesque phrase involving education, reading comprehension and drugs
Now that was easy.
We're not even arguing about my original point anymore cause as usual Carmac doesn't accept criticism. Which is basically why we've been arguing in the previous columns before that. Because your Wc3 columns have all been negative (at least as far as I can remember) and if people reply "That's not true, you're exaggerating, you can't really say that at this point" etc. they all can't read because in some half sentence you "relativized" 5 paragraphs and a title filled with "Wc3 =("
And with the same level of information at hand you write "Quake =))" articles.
The End.
I also replied to any other point you made.
So either it's your turn to answer to MY points (you're evading arguments for 5 columns and 20 posts here now which already proves my point...) or bring this to an end.
Well, you'll reply with another "quote me" to prove you still don't get it or act dumb on purpose. So whatever.
Also, make a list of your points which you think I could answer and I gladly will.
So one last time:
You're biased, you only write negative about Wc3 and only positive about Quake cause you're a former Quake player and you can't take criticism. All proven again here. You're not even listening. You fail.
The facts are:
- I wrote a column where I the main point is that StarCraft is easier to understand than Warcraft 3 for a newbie (something you agreed with). There was nothing in there that would indicate that I think WC3 is dying.
- I wrote a column where I the main point that World of Warcraft is more suitable for the Extreme Masters purely as a business choice because it is a more popular game. There was nothing in there that would indicate that I think WC3 is dying.
Based on that you say that I am biased against Warcraft 3? That I claim WC3 is dying? No wonder you cannot quote me. There's NOTHING in there except your impressions and assumptions.
I am biased towards Quake because I was a Quake player? That is a perfect example of how your imagination draws images which are NOT REAL. Tell me, how did you know I'm a former Quake player? Where did you find that out? Who told you that?
Your points are assumptions based on something you imagine in your head. Do you realise that? You have no facts.
I've done so much work for the Warcraft 3 community that I do not think I need to prove that I am not biased against the game.
You, on the other hand, are clearly biased against World of Warcraft and I think it hurts you that this game replaced WC3 in the ESL EM. I can back it up with quotes, what do you say?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda