> CEVO Is Hiring New Staff For Counter-Strike: Source > eSC (eSports Chat): Interview with TsN's Corey "dunN" Dunn > Article: The Changing Prestige of Online Gaming > eSports Modded: A Look At Team Fortress Forever
As we begin preparations for our second season of Source league play, CEVO is looking to hire new CS Source officials for General Customer Support, Cheat Investigation and Event Coverage. Ideal applicants must be mature, professional and dedicated to provide the highest quality customer service. Preference will be given to those with strong communication, organizational, and conflict-resolution skills. No past experience in tournament or league administration is required. General Customer Support staff are responsible for helping on Ventrilo and IRC with customer questions, resolving conflicts within and between teams, ensuring that matches are played in accordance with league regulations, and other administrative duties. Cheat Investigation staff are responsible for the review of demos arising from match disputes, and therefore must be highly detail-oriented and experienced at a high caliber of play. Event Coverage staff will be responsible for highlighting matches and players throughout the season, including but not limited to: previews, interviews, predictions and match analysis. Event Coverage staff must have exceptional writing and communication skill; past experience as an eSports journalist is considered a major asset. All staff are required to work a minimum average of 15 hours per week over the course of the event. All positions are volunteer. To apply please complete the application form at: https://cevolved.com/misc/cevo-application.php We appreciate all those who apply, but due to time and resource constraints only successful applicants will be contacted back by e-mail to arrange an interview.
In a continuation of our interview series with those building the community, in all other ways than in-game combat, this latest edition of the eSports Chat talks with Team Sportscast Network's Corey "dunN" Dunn. Among his duties at TsN, dunN is a regular caster of the CEVO-Professional Match of the Week, and co-host of the weekly show called Game Point. Along with special guests, Game Point discusses issues current trends and issues in eSports for all of Counter-Strike (1.6 and Source). Read below for our exclusive interview with dunN to find out more about the man behind the voice and his thoughts on the future of eSports. -- Hi dunN, thank you so much for taking the time out to do this interview. In traditional form to start off, who is Corey Dunn? I'm 19 years old from Dallas, Texas. I have been playing Counter-Strike for more than 7 years. I played varsity baseball in high school, and I'm now working on my masters in Sports Broadcasting, and Mass Communications. Like anyone else I hang out with groups of friends each week, and spend excessive amounts of time playing Counter-Strike. My position in the Team Sportscast Network is a Counter-Strike Broadcaster for both Counter-Strike 1.6 as well as Source. In your very first casts for TsN, you were thrown to the sharks so to speak, as you casted to tens of thousands at CPL Winter 2004. How did you end up in that circumstance? What is your story on how you ended up working for TsN? Well, a good story has come from it all. Before I was actually in TsN, I was driving back and forth from my home to the event during that time period. My first broadcast ever was at 10 in the morning. I was extremely nervous and tired, but the talents that I have practiced on for months had taken over. Although, it wasn.t one of my greatest broadcast I still did decent for my first time. Over the past year and few months, I have progressed my way through TsN to become one of the top quality broadcasters by broadcasting CPL Summer 2005 and Winter 2005, as well as GeForce LAN 2.0. Now the actual story behind how I became a TsN broadcaster. Just like any other person in the community, I was listening to TsN with my favorite casters like Boomerman, and Violator. They had made a comment stating, "Do you think you can do what we can do, then fill out an application, and short demo." From that point I thought I would practice for at least a month, and then send in a demo. I did exactly that, and the rest is history. What advice do you have for all those aspiring casters out there, hoping to make it big in this community as you have? This is going to be corny, but practice and take heart into what you are doing. I practiced hours and hours, and even had fun broadcasting in public servers. If you don't believe me that I broadcasted in public servers go to Google Videos and search for "Counter-Strike Broadcaster." I think you might recognize the voice. Again for those who want to become a part of this broadcasting scene, practice until you feel it sounds good. You are your best critic. Alongside Scott "Coltrane" Cole, you host a weekly eSports talk show called Game Point. The show brings up very interesting issues in eSports and I think it is great. I tune in to the show every opportunity I get. Unlike others who have been increasingly segregating the communities, Game Point is blended to include both Counter-Strike and CS: Source. What is the reasoning behind this? The idea has been brought to my mind many times by our past broadcasters that use to be apart of the segregation of the two games. First you have to understand the concepts of the two games are the same, but the game play is extremely different. I wanted to bring this point out to the community full scale. I would like to take this time period and apologize for the show not airing each week, but I want to resolve some past issues and continue the show with quality content. The show should continue Thursday May 11th at 7pm EDT. What do you think is the reason that gaming, despite its huge popularity with a key marketing demographic, has had so much difficulty acquiring "non-traditional", non-gaming sponsors, such as Coke or General Motors? After all, most of us are soda drinkers and in the market for vehicles. At this point in time, the teams that exist right now usually do not maintain their players. One of the main things that will need to happen before gaming becomes "main stream" is consistency. Just as CEVO is doing, the matches need to be at set times and set dates. Also, another move that I believe will be great for gaming is blending console gaming and PC gaming together. This idea is kind of like choosing your weapon for battle within the gaming scene. If console gaming is not much different then PC gaming then why can they not play against each other on the same server. One thing I would love to see is watching a five person roster that has two console users and three PC users. Maybe describing it like the X-games would make more sense, say for instance we are talking about BMX racing, and one biker is using a "Mongoose" with chrome petals and another is using a "Huffy" with a light weight frame. Now they are still both racing in the same track, but different utensils. Those are just a few of my ideas for pushing the gaming scene. Do you think that we are on the verge of a huge breakout for eSports? If mainstream popularity does finally come, do you think it will be come about from a sudden event, or that it will continue to develop only slowly step by step? Well, I can't predict exactly what is going to happen, but I believe that if gaming blows up here in the near future it will die as quick as it started. My dad, who works for AT&T, brought up a very huge point though. There are two things that drive the internet, one is gaming, and two is something you could probably guess. Gaming has a chance, but if we want to make it mainstream then we will have to take these baby steps, and then blow up. Again, I will use the X-Games analogy. X-Games, and aggressive sports has always been around then blew up into something big, but is starting to die away in the viewers eyes. Are you hoping to pursue a long-term career in broadcasting, be it mainstream media or (if things develop) eSports, or some other career path? If a career outside of eSports, do you see yourself staying involved with the community in some capacity? There was a time period where I wanted to become an architect, but that phase has passed. I will one day be doing sports casting for either video games, or athletic events. The future of eSports will be the one that decides my fate. I believe this is just the beginning of me in this community, and I will be around as long as eSports community is around. Thanks again for your time. Do you have any last comments or shout-outs? I would like to thank CEVO for giving me the opportunity to be able to express my views and ideas in the interview. Finally, I would like to make sure everyone checks out www.tsncentral.com, for eSports coverage. Also, for those who are involved in the Counter-Strike scene be on the look out for Game Point on Thursdays on the Team Sportscast Network. Thanks again.
Staff Article by: CEVO|Ferguson Technology has drastically changed the development of online competitive gaming. The invention of the Internet has brought about social change and also the birth of our online communities. Over the past few years, advantages of LAN play have made it the predominant form for world class events and online gaming has been degraded to a mere insult among many. However, new changes in technology will once again bring huge change. Online gaming is on a rebound and may soon, to your surprise, arise again among the most prestigious venues in gaming. I [The Past]: The Internet Gives Birth To A Competitive Community The Internet has revolutionized society, bringing among other changes, an unprecedented way to interact with one another. In the shadows of the dot.com boom, competitive gaming boomed in popularity as well. Before the Internet, competition in gaming rarely extended beyond ones city, let alone ones neighborhood. Primarily on consoles, but also on primitive computers, gamers competed with their local friends. This limited range of competition also severely limited the skill of players. Usually a few gamers in the local group would be better than the rest, often by spamming a lame tactic. The more casual players would continue to get beat, not interested in taking it more seriously. Meanwhile the serious players would continue to win without much effort, giving them no drive to get any better either. Other than the few lame tricks published in video game magazines, local groups of gamers were left to discover all the advanced tactics of the game on their own. Naturally, it could, and often did, take a very long time for a few friends to find the subtle elements of the game. All the intensity of winning may have existed, but the extent of skill and competition in this era was very limited. The connectivity of the Internet resolved the factors that were holding back gaming. Although speed and stability were poor in retrospect, serious gamers from across the nation could compete and interact with one another. This brought about huge improvements in the quality of competitive play and the very rise of online gaming. The best players form teams, developed new tactics and began forming large-scale tournaments. Too came eSports media and coverage, which led to fans and the beginnings of gaming as a sport. In this era, online gaming was gaming. Very few tournaments offered prize winnings, and those that did offered only very little. The top players played for pride and joy. Only because of the major improvements and developments in the community, brought by the Internet, did world-class competition arise. And then, the groundwork was set for LAN to take over. II [The Recent Past]: The Rise of LAN As in the generation before it, online gaming too was fraught with issues holding back its further development. In particular, the quality and limitation of connections and beginning of hacking deteriorated online play, as compared to LAN. The most serious issue was the speed and stability of connections, particularly as compared to LAN. This remains an issue for many in undeveloped countries, and even rural areas of North America. Without reliable and responsive connections, serious online gaming is hampered. What good is a highlight match full of lag and disconnections? On the other hand, LAN play offers near instant reaction and near certainty of connection. Hacking also started to develop. Hacking is the plague of online gaming. Since players are at home, it has been often impossible to tell if they have been playing legitimately or using alternations to gain an unfair advantage. The mere potential of hacking leads to countless accusations in everyday play. However, at a LAN, a player can be monitored in-person and forced to play on issued systems, making cheating practically impossible. Finally, and also still an issue to this day, the Internet infrastructure does not connect quickly enough overseas. This has resulting in a segregation of communities by continent. In America, a group of pro gamers arise, and in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, entirely different isolated groups. Online play is too delayed to allow them to play against one another in a reasonable setting. As a result of these factors, over the past 5 years, LAN has arisen as the gaming venue of choice. Thanks to the continuing rise of fans through online community, world tournaments, such as ESWC, WCG and CPL, have been able to host LAN events with enough prize money to justify the international travel expenses. Meanwhile, online play had been discredited for fair and reliable competition. The top players had made it clear that they practiced hard and long for LAN tournaments, but were casual about their online performances. With money on the line for LAN events, why try in the uncertain environment online with nothing more than bragging rights to gain. III [Near Future]: The Rebirth of Online Gaming We are slowly starting to see a re-emergence of prestige in online gaming. As technology has changed the community so drastically twice before, so it will again. The two factors, hacking and quality of connections, that led to the rise of LAN are increasingly resolvable online. For many years, anti-cheat software has failed miserably. From community made programs such as Cheating-Death, to corporately made VAC, cheaters far and wide easily by-passed the systems. A simple search engine query would bring a player a multitude of undetectable cheating options. That has changed now. Innovations in anti-cheat by community leaders has made cheating extremely difficult to do, under the right circumstance, in the carefully controlled environment of professional leagues and tournaments. Unprecedented, CEVO's CMN revolutionized cheat-detection, and its accomplishments have been imitated successfully by ESEA here in America, and by others overseas. Meanwhile, we have seen the very beginning of cheating on LAN. A remarkable story has recently arisen out of the Counter-Strike scene in Norway. A player cheated, in plain sight of everyone, to finish 1st place in a LAN event (http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/32221/). The sanctity of LAN play has been tarnished, while online gaming has succeeded wildly in curbing cheating. The second issue, quality of connections, is also being resolved slowly. It is now commonplace in America to have high-speed Internet, with very reliable stability and uptime. Better yet, we are about to see a complete revolution in Internet technology. Referred to loosely as Web 2.0, changes will soon allow lightning fast connections across to the globe and to houses in increasingly rural areas. This will truly integrate the world of competitive gamers. With these issues resolved, online gaming is bound to arise as an increasingly popular form yet again, thanks to some its advantages over LAN. First of all, online gaming requires no travel or any of the associated planning and costs. Even many pro teams simply cannot afford to travel to LAN events. It can cost upwards of $3,000 for an American team to compete at a national LAN and many times more for those overseas. Fans may not realize it, but this has been a major issue for the professional teams. Tekn1kal of DeadZone said in an interview with GotFrag, "we can't just drop thousands of dollars to compete an international event that probably doesn't even pay out as much as we spend to get there." (cs/story/31835) In another interview, iOnZ of team zEx remarked, "we can't even afford to fly in the US." (cs/story/31260) There are other advantages to online play as well, most notably the comfort and ease of it all. Players can play in matches from the comfort of their homes and without making drastic changes to their personal schedules. In online gaming players do not need to take time off school to play in a world-class event. The future is almost here. In its third season, CEVO is now offering $20,000 in prize money to the professional division alone. Compare this amount with the Winter CPL 2005, widely considered the top event of that year, which only had $30,000 in total prize money for Counter-Strike. Further, traveling expenses and lost wages from work had to come out of those winnings. The teams are already responding and changing their focus. They see value and prestige in online gaming again, and are playing at a level of seriousness and intensity unlike ever before. Following the announcement that top-team Pandemic was dropping CAL-Invite to focus on CEVO, manager Mark Dolven said, "we are going to spend every second we can preparing for these matches..." (http://www.team3d.net/index.php?s=forums&d=topic&id=45001) It is only a matter of a few years and a little more improvement in Internet connections, and we may be able to see an international showdown online for as much prize money as the greatest LAN event to date. Online gaming is on a comeback. Conclusion For the past few years, online gaming has been ridiculed in the circles of professional gamers and their fans. Many would say, rightfully so. Due to changes in technology over time, LAN events replaced online gaming as the predominant form for top-tier competitive play. However, technology is bringing around a rebirth. Online gaming, the mother of our very community, will recapture the prestige and glory it once had. CEVO will be here to deliver it to you, from the comfort of your home, through the power of the Internet.
Guest Article by: Gary "Nezumi" Simmons eSports Modded is a continuing series looking at upcoming mods in the Half-Life community. In this brief article, guest writer Gary "Nezumi" Simmons shares his thoughts on the upcoming mod Team Fortress Forever. -- Now it may seem that bringing up a fortress mod to a bunch of Counter-Strike players would be like bringing a cat to a dog show, but I suspect that there are a lot of you out there that played Team Fortress Classic, or even Quake Team Fortress or Enemy Territory Fortress. Those of you who remember the team-colored days of rocket jumping and bunny hopping should be glad to hear, if you haven't already, that an independent team of talented developers is bringing the fortress theme to the Source engine with Fortress Forever. Those of you who haven't played any of the previous Fortress games may be happy to learn of a new game featuring fast, class based action, goal-oriented team play, and an astoundingly wide variety of skills to master. Fortress Forever, which is being built from scratch, aims to recreate the fast paced feel of TFC, while including many new ideas, tweaks, balances and the like to benefit both pub players and the competitive scene. All of this will be rolled up in a package of tightly wound awesome. Here we have screenshots of the rocket launcher, the sniper, and the map ff_well.
So if your interest was piqued and you want to know more, you can find their handsome webpage here:http://www.fortress-forever.com. And if you want to come to the boards and raise a ruckus, you'll find them here:http://forums.fortress-forever.com |