ESEA: The Blame Game
Originally welcomed as a godsend to the competitive calendar, by the end of the second season of ESEA's European League for CS:S teams were left with little good to say. This piece explores why.
When the ESEA announced it’s second invite league for CS:S the competition was a more than welcome addition to the calendar. It came at a time between LANs, a long lay-off in competition that was typically remarkable only for the usual flurry of roster changes and teams folding due to “real life commitments”.
All levels of the scene praised the introduction of the event. The aspirational players had their own tier to compete in and of course for the enthusiasts there would be some top games to watch. For the top teams it was an opportunity to keep active and to earn some money for online play, something that there is too little of outside of the ESL Pro Series. You would have thought that little could go wrong. The ESEA has been a godsend for the American scene, pretty much providing the sole reason to compete for our friends across the Atlantic. Yet by the end of the season the competition was widely regarded as a failure by the European community with fans and competitors of all levels criticising the way it was run. Although many pointed the fingers in a variety of directions one question was asked almost in unison – how had it come to this?
Real Life & Origami
What certainly didn’t help initially was the fact that teams who signed up were no longer interested in meeting those commitments. In the first instance the fnatic CS:S team retired from competitive play and were so highly thought of were largely excused from taking a spot away from another potential team. What then followed turned the group stage, comprised of eight fixtures per team, into a shambles with more default results being meted out than games actually being played.
The Team Dignitas line-up were also going through a transitional period and made alterations to their roster. Although this was clearly a factor in the decision to forfeit their games it was declared that they couldn’t compete because of people having to focus on their studies and not being available, something that could have perhaps been established prior to the competition beginning. However their roster changes involved taking a player from another team competing in the event, Blight Gaming, who then decided to forfeit their games given the trouble involved in finding a fifth and other matters besides. Power Gaming were the next ones to fall by the wayside, deciding not to play out the remainder of their games even though a strong start would still see them qualify for the knockouts.
The gallery especially didn’t like it, most people wondering why the matter of $2,000 seemed to be of little interest to teams that had been crying out for more online competitions with cash prizes. At this stage the blame was being placed squarely on the shoulders of some teams for any perceived failures, although many of the teams simply saw some of the competition dropping out early as simply improving their chances. As the competition progressed and LANs started to loom large again it seemed that those teams still plugging away in the league would also run into some difficulties.
Gremlins
Players had already been complaining about the set-up under which the games were being played and not without just cause. The servers did not have the essential competitive play plug-in Zblock enabled, which had recently banished both the “bunnyhop” and “crouchbug” exploits from the game. These were still present and were being used by players much to everyone’s chagrin. The overall quality of the servers also had aspersions cast on them with players reporting poor registry issues and random moments of lag.
In addition to this the STV set-up meant that there was a limit of 155 spectators, meaning that the top games were only watched by a limited number. Even these watched in virtual slow motion, as the lag made the viewing experience very poor and on occasion dozens of spectators would simply be kicked from the relay. It was a criminal oversight that greatly impacted on people’s enjoyment of following the competition, leaving those interested to talk about what happened on forums as opposed to witnessing it themselves.
“Inexperienced, Inflexible and Inexplicably Bad”
These were the words given to me by one player who had paid to compete in the invite league when describing his experiences. Teams that had tried to make reschedules found that there was no means of doing this through a simple agreement or through a function on the website. It all had to be agreed by an admin, which would be a good system if there were any available. The general consensus was that trying to contact an admin was a near impossible task. This was something refuted by the admin team for the European ESEA but often the players felt they had to make contact with the American admins to simply have their issues heard, even though the American admins were then powerless to assist.
Just prior to the competition reaching the knockout stages VeryGames and Reason, both among the favourites for the competition when it began, tried to reschedule their fixture. As Reason Gaming had players experiencing some technical problems and having to play in LAN centres, it wasn’t always convenient to play to the schedule. With admins having already awarded default losses against them Reason Gaming were in a position where they needed to win every game. VeryGames had some issues too, however when they had to play against Reason Gaming they tried to find an admin to agree to a rematch. When one wasn’t forthcoming the admins entered the result as a 15 – 15 draw, based on the fact that both teams had supposedly been as to blame as each other. To blame for what the players weren’t exactly sure.
Loic “RegnaM” Peron, the VeryGames captain, had followed the process in trying to get their game rescheduled by taking out a support ticket. It took close to a week to get any contact and then it was with an American admin who said he couldn’t help. The conversation went like this:
16:08 VG|RegnaM • hello, finally i can reach an admin :(
16:08 VG|RegnaM • http://esportsea.eu/index.php?s=support&id=74087
16:08 VG|RegnaM • obv it's a bit late now
16:08 VG|RegnaM • since we (verygames) and reason got forfeated and now we both don't go through playoffs
16:09 VG|RegnaM • you can also see others teams disagree with ESEA moves here in comments : http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/93549/
16:11 VG|RegnaM • now decide what you want but if you want to be sucessfull in Europe, listen to top teams and don't screw us like you did (Reason is n°1 euro team and we are 3)
16:11 ESEABot • ESEA|sKz: I'm sorry but we don't handle the Europe league here on gamesurge
16:11 VG|RegnaM • well who do i have to talk with then
16:13 ESEABot • ESEA|sKz: Hold on
16:13 ESEABot • ESEA|sKz: You'll need to submit a website ticket
16:19 ESEABot • Your ticket has been closed
VeryGames and Reason really didn’t go through to the play-offs, which was another strange decision as not only had Power Gaming publicly stated they wouldn not be taking any further part in the competition despite qualifying but TLR had also said they didn’t want to take the default win against Reason. All such protests were ignored, even though the players were in a moment of rare agreement about the best course of action.
After it was too late to do anything one of the ESEA admins, Simon “bidy” Bidwell, contacted the French player and conceded that mistakes had been made by all parties. He said:
“At the end of the day, all that I can do now is apologise for the bad experience you've had. I understand this seasons been crap, we've made plenty of mistakes, but all we can do is try and take this experiences to improve next season. Nothing can be changed this season, but I hope you accept my genuine apology and consider playing next season when we'll have better, clearer rules, better servers and a better season.”
For some that felt they had been cheated though, these platitudes were not enough. Marek “.PhP” Kadek, captain of Reason Gaming, is one player most definitely not in a forgiving mood.
"ESEA was a huge letdown for our team when we played all our games and at the end of the day it didn't matter. ESEA were trying to act as they are all so super professional but instead of going forward to help players they just wanted to get it over with, lacking total common sense when making any judgements. I personally believed they may come to see sense but as I heard it was fiasco even after we were out the competition. Leagues are here for players, so what's the point of insisting on forfeiting games and being a general pain in the ass? They fucked it badly and I don’t even mean on a personal judgement level, but on technical side as well (limited or no SourceTVs, no zblock... ). At the end of the day it was league we PAID to play in and it was a fucking joke."
The Final Countdown
Once the knockouts had been decided, a spell that saw even more forfeits, the final was to be contested by two teams that had stuck completely to the schedule throughout the tournament. These were the Danish team of The Imperial and the Germans from Alternate Attax. With both teams attending the Copenhagen Games 2010 event they had agreed to play the ESEA final after that LAN. This was for the obvious reason of not wanting to give away any more tactics ahead of the offline tournament than was absolutely necessary. Of course, both teams were already no strangers having encountered each other in a variety of competitions before this, however so close to LAN both teams agreed that this was the best course of action.
Copenhagen Games 2010 went off without any hitches, a great event on the European calendar, with contrasting fortunes for both teams. The Imperial won the event overall and beat the best that Europe had to offer in doing so. Alternate Attax finished 4th after losing to The Imperial and then Reason Gaming. The teams now could play out the final upon their return with a bit of time to modify their respective strategies based on their most recent encounter.
After returning from the Copenhagen tournament both teams found that the league had been shut down, the final awarded to Alternate Attax – who didn’t even know they had won the event – and there was no means to actually play the fixture. This had all been done even though both sets of players had informed the admin team of their decision to play after Copenhagen Games. It took over nine days to get any form of formal response from ESEA despite many efforts from Henrik “fetish” Christensen to clear it up. He had many questions, not least of all what criteria had been used in making the decision to award the victory to a team they had just beaten at another event. More important than that though was just the desire to find out why their mutual agreement had been ignored. It was especially infuriating for the Danes as they insisted that it was Alternate Attax that had requested the date be pushed back in the first instance, yet they had benefited from the admins decision.
An exchange of e-mails occurred where the head of ESEA, Craig “Torbull” Levine, concluded:
“Just because attax wanted dates moved doesn’t mean you should have or needed to. We try to accommodate teams’ schedules for other LANs, but at some point our season has to get done and be finished. This is pretty clear on all of the posts.”
While players from The imperial were relatively vocal in their anger at the decision, stating that any chance of future participation in ESEA leagues were slim to none, the captain of Alternate Attax, Olli “hossa” Keller, was a bit more pragmatic in his assessment of the league:
“In truth we found The tournament organisation was pretty good but the servers weren’t the best. There might be a bit of improvement to be done for the next season. i don’t know why we got the default win at the grand final but it sure gives the tournament a bad taste. i mean who wants the grandf inal to end in a default win? Maybe the way admins communicate with the teams should be improved for next season. if those points are taking care of i am really looking forward to the next season.”
When asked how he felt about the default victory being awarded their way he continued in a similar tone:
“its a shame because it would have been like the fourth final match between us and imperial in less then fiveweeks and the past has told us that those games are a classic to be seen so I would have loved to play our friend from Denmark. I don’t get why there should ever be a default win in the grand final. That’s why we all played that tournament for weeks to stand in the final and give the spectators a great match and a time to enjoy.”
The Horse’s Mouth
The players view generally seemed to be clear – even those not directly affected by the issues surrounding scheduling were disappointed with the way the tournament panned out and they backed their colleagues in the face of the ESEA assessment of the situation. Just to avoid any doubt whatsoever about the ESEA stance Craig “Torbull” Levine offered his own views and they aren’t ones likely to be welcomed by the teams that took part in the second European ESEA season. Yet, this is someone who has presided over a league that has been a resounding success Stateside, so are his views perhaps the most telling of all?
“Players didn't like the policies we had and how strictly we enforce certain rules (scheduling, etc.),” he told me “which is what leads them to say how ‘terrible’ the admins or league are. The ESEA League is setup to be THE most automated league in the world. Players use the website to schedule against one another, join the server with their name on it, benefit from protection of our anti-cheat during the match, and get automatic SourceTVs and stats for all matches. On the rules page of our site it clearly states all of our scheduling policies but in our UK and EU Source division, players just consistently didn't pay attention to things such as when matches have to be played, how to schedule matches, and so on. From what I understand, the bulk of the frustrations were about how we enforced those rules and issued forfeits where appropriate.”
When presented with the numerous claims that his admin team weren’t available for large periods of the season, a complaint raised by several players from a wide cross section of teams – Loic “RegnaM” Peron described the admins as “invisible” – Craig wasn’t so inclined to believe that this was the case.
“Anything IS possible, but we try to funnel the bulk of support through the website support tickets where we have teams of people ready and rained to help. I think a lot of players are just used to messaging an admin that they see online and expect instant feedback or help. Our admins were available during most scheduled match times.”
He also went on to talk at length about the contrast in attitudes between US and EU players, something he feels is because of the differing conditions of their respective scenes. The US, having been on the brink of extinction, appreciate the ESEA a lot more than their European counterparts, in his mind at least.
“We are doing unbelievable things here in the US. In a little over a year, we're now giving out over $50,000 a season with three to four seasons a year. The invite division playoffs are all on LAN and even the main division for CS 1.6 this season will be on LAN. I think the US has been more accepting of the policies and the league as a whole because we are a trusted company with a strong reputation of improving the accepted "norm" of online gaming. All of the scheduling rules we have are actually to help the players and fans, this way they know when matches are and don't waste times with teams not showing up, etc. In the US they have accepted us as the leader in this space, but in Europe players have other league options and seem to be less willing to try out our systems and give them a fair shot. Our goal with the league is to take out the headaches for players, fans, and administrators and all of the policies and rules that we have and strictly enforce are there to do so.”
When pushed on the matter of the final being defaulted he was also completely resolute in his opinion that the right decision had been made.
“The players had over a month to get a simple play-off bracket done and teams didn't make the commitment to get their matches played in a timely fashion. Our leagues worldwide are synchronised and I wasn't about to delay the start of the US league because some teams didn't feel it was important to follow all of our scheduling guidelines throughout the entire play-offs. It absolutely sucks to have any forfeits in a league, but if the players won't take us seriously then quite honestly, it is hard for us to make the commitment each season to them to support and grow their division as we've done in the US with all of the games we support. Most LANs take place on a weekend, there are 7 days in a week… We were more flexible than we usually are in the previous rounds, which teams took advantage of by not playing their earlier rounds on our schedule. Then they backed themselves into a corner to get them all played and there just wasn't enough time on our calendar for them to do so.”
For Craig, who was now in free flow, he saw the blame, if any was required to be apportioned, as laying solely at the feet of the European players.
“Ultimately every league is a partnership between organizers and players, but when one party doesn't fulfill that partnership, the relationship breaks down. The only people the players have to blame for the forfeit is themselves. We'll be paying out all of the advertised prize pot and I do think a lot of the issues stemmed from players lacking professionalism to abide by the rules and play their matches in a timely fashion. It's always easy to point fingers and make excuses but that’s what it comes down to.”
The withering assessment might be disheartening for the European players that all feel they have genuine complaints, if not a tad antagonistic. Craig still feels that the way they have done things is the way forward and he hopes that this will be recognised in the cold light of day when all things are considered.
“I am always very open to hear feedback and find ways to improve ESEA and the League, but after having operated five complete seasons of ESEA League and my 10+ years of experience in the competitive and professional e-sports world, I am very confident that the scheduling policies we have aren't the issue. They provide stability and planning so teams can be prepared and know what to expect, also provide consequences for people ignoring or trying to take advantage of them. I consider it tough love, but I KNOW that from and a competitor's, fan's, and organizer's perspective that when followed, the rules we have and the platform we have built works great.”
No announcements have been made as of yet about a new European ESEA season but it seems unlikely there won’t be one. The question is whether or not it will be embraced the European community or whether they will still feel that past transgressions make it a competition to avoid. Even with both sides of the story presented there are no clear cut answers as to who is in the wrong.