This article is composed of three sections.
The first is an introduction/back-story which will provide new players with an overview of the Online and LAN story in Australia.
The second is an evaluation of the current LAN situation we have.
The third is the most important, and that is a For/Against list of Online and LAN.
Introduction & Back Story
Australia’s Counter-Strike scene has always had a vibrant and active LAN scene which has flourished for many years. Whilst we have not been able to topple world-class teams internationally (yet), we have had a host of nationals run by the community thanks to a few saints in the community.
For example, ACNC (Australian Community National Championship) and the Dice Nationals (held in 2009 and 2011) have been the product of generous communal effort and organisational strive.
Therefore, community nationals are a product of our hopes to keep competition alive. I recall GoMeZ explaining to foreigners in a www.HLTV.org discussion forum that we ran tournaments with no prize money and it was graced by many well-wishes and support of our motivation to do this.
First, a little history. Many years ago (think 2002), a tournament in Australia was run online. This was pre-1.6 days (way before it, actually) and it had prizes. The prizes were computer cases or something irrelevant, but of still monetary value. This was one of a kind (before GameArena ladder offered prizes). Unfortunately, the entire community were alleging the winners were actually cheating. I am not going to throw names here, because it’s beside the point. But every single time the thought of ‘online’ was brought up, for years after this online tournament, this very same event and ‘that time’ has been resurrected. It’s been a stigma associated with online and there’s a reason for it: Some people will cheat.
Now let me bring you to 2011. In Europe, they rely on the online mechanism to play Counter-Strike. Qualifiers, leagues, tournaments, practice. It all happens. They have been doing this for many, many years. And I will be honest, every online league has its fair share of ‘onliners’ and cheaters that are caught, but this is the cost and risk you take to have a vibrant and active community.
Now, let’s look at Australia’s online community. The Western Digital CyberGamer league was a huge success. Why? Because it actually finished. In contrast, the CEVO league, which hosted a few years back, was a great stepping stone and initiative to start a league campaign but the platform it used was not Australian-friendly. It also had a buggy file you had to run, which caused many problems on many computers.
We should all be happy that it was the ‘platform’ and system of delivery which caused the failure of the CEVO online league, and not the players!
But, unfortunately, there is an elephant in the room that no-body wants to talk about. The Counter-Strike 1.6 scene has reached its plateau in Australia. Most of the user-base consistently plays IPGN and the others are “afk” until a tournament comes around.
There is no quick-fix to this. But there is a solution. The solution is the evolution of Counter-Strike 1.6 tournaments in Australia.
World A
Let’s say you live in New South Wales and run a Sydney Qualifier. 10 teams attend, and you collect $1250 altogether.
You must give up $750 to the internet café for usage, and are left with only $500. That $500 has to go to an auto-berth team (that came 1st) and acts as some sort of reimbursement for attending the national event and incentive for coming first.
World B
Now imagine we could cut the cost of the internet café down to $0. Imagine we could collect $1250 from each state, six times over (twice in Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney). After reimbursing the auto-berth teams, we are left with about $5,000.
I am going to be very conservative and say that we are only left with $3,000 assuming we pay a lot for the national event internet café hire.
This is still enough to give a prize distribution from 1st to 4th at $1500, $750, $500, $250 (total $3,000).
Open Your Eyes
What may seem as the difference between ‘prizes for the top 4’ and ‘no prizes’ is actually a world of difference. This gives ample opportunity for many sponsors to gain exposure for themselves. Imagine what you could offer to an organisation if you told them that many TEAMS from around Australia are competing for cash prizes (and hardware, too) and YOUR NAME will be represented if you choose to support it.
This will be the snowball effect. The first event will be a winner for the community because there is a large incentive to compete and get out of group stages. The second event will already have the authenticity and trust that sponsors are looking for and this is where we grow. There have already been two very successful Dice Nationals and this is a possibility!
The reality is that if we start running Online Qualifiers and saving money for community nationals, then there will be ample opportunity for us to gain exposure to more sponsors, more international teams, and we will have more competitors and competitive teams because we would have created the right incentives.
This is where we stand:
Australia is realistically looking at two online CG leagues this year, and a WCG. Imagine next year, that on top of this there was a Dice Nationals & ESAU Nationals (both run by the Community) which offered great prizes and achieved a sponsor for the tournament (which is realistic if it’s run right the first time). This is achievable and I am not talking bullocks.
Read on - Page 2
Good post sommi
Steal it.
"I wouldn’t have to spend hours in the morning doing my hair, TeddyT wouldn’t have to worry about the cologne he’s wearing, and dreamR wouldn’t have to worry about davestr1zl filming him lose a clutch against doudou to fall short of qualifying for a nationals."
These are several of the things (not specifically those things, but like all the pictures/videos/moments/bonding/etc) that are unquantifiable benefits of lan comps and building a stronger community. Going to a lan comp is fun because of the experience even if you arent playing, and taking that away would be a big blow to an already dying community.
"In my opinion, if running online qualifiers means more funds for prize money and growth, then online qualifiers is the way to go."
It wouldnt grow the community at all, if anything it would harm it. Yes ur right the prize money would be better but really - who cares. Does anyone seriously play for prize money?
I'd much rather pay my own flights and accom to attend a well-run event like ECN with 0 prizes, than get free flights and accom to the god-awful disaster that wcg has been the past few years. Maybe i'm alone in that, but my main point is prize money is irrelevant. No-one plays for it, its an added bonus nothing more, and using money as the sole reason for onliner qualifiers is dumb (lets be honest - the sole reason its even an issue is money).
I will admit, using onliner qualifiers in the VERY short term MAY be an advantage, but it doesnt address the real problem. Online qualifiers would plain and simple be a stop-gap, nothing more. Yes you get a few hundred dollars more per comp - but what happens in another 6-12 months when the number of teams and players have dropped down even further? You'll be getting the exact same amount of money from qualifiers as you are now but without the quality of lan. It doesnt actually solve anything, and once uve done it theres no going back. The real problem isnt lack of money - its what causes the lack of money (lack of players, teams, etc). Addressing the effect wont do anything to stop the cause.
"Due to travel costs, it forces teams to retain a core in a particular state."
You say thats a disadvantage? That couldnt be further from the truth. Thats a GOOD thing.
"- Arguably higher level of competitive play.
- Completely even level of play for a qualifier. All computers are the same, no internet connection, same set-up etc.
- Cannot cheat. Cannot MWHEEL bob, 16-bit or wallhack."
Those reasons alone should just end the conversation right here. We should NEVER be sacrificing the quality of an event just so we can get more money. And dont deny it - if you got the same amount of money from an online qual and a lan qual this would never even be considered an option. Its all about the money, when it should be all about the quality of competitions.
i'm not reading all that
but fair enough not suprised
yes agree, not a fan of the online shenanigans
What I will say though, is that online CS does have its place and we really need a cybergamer type league all year round. For the 8 weeks it ran, teams were regularly scrimming every night and I'd say there were about 5-6 teams on looking for scrims each night (or at least on the nights we were also looking for scrims).
We need a decent online scene at the moment, as it's the only plausible way I can think of that would revive the scene and get teams scrimming again.
If we have something like the CG league running for 8-9 months of a year, the players will come.
But that in NO way means we should start substituting LAN qualifiers for online ones. Period.
also just out of interest, who else has problems with eac?
Now I'm not against online at all.. I just don't see how cuting out LAN will benefit anything bar the prize money which will most likely only affect iM at the end of the day. If you're playing this game to win yourself some money, you're a nigger. I'm more than happy to keep flying to sydney or qld to play a nats knowing I won't be winning anything out.
edit: Look at the 3 last LANs in each state and go through the team list. Tell me how many of those people you ever see playing Online. Now look at the latest Online LCC where you saw 2 decent teams attending, every other team dropped out and didnt want to pay the cash. You think people will want to pay to play online rather than pay to LAN?
Also what shard said.
I obviously enjoy lan much better personally; more social, better personal performance and just all around more fun - but not everyone can get to them and let's face it; some of the amatuers/lower ranked (and even some of the more talented players) don't have a lot of money.
Look at Source just at CG for a second; they have MORE than 3 times the prize pool that you guys have, but not 3 times the teams. They are pretty much guaranteed that CG will run one or two major national lans a year for them (let alone other people like iM etc); simply based on the size of the scene.
I really think with the little amount of money that there is in the scene today, that online is the best way to spread it and grow it.
Don't get me wrong I love playing LAN events but QUALIFIERS are not the same as they used to be. There are so many teams now with players in different states because of the community shrinking and because of this you don’t see MANY teams sending their whole 5 to 1 state to qualify. Take Sydney for example, the lan tournament that’s currently running has the same type of teams registered that you would see in a qualifier for nats.
Although lan should never be substituted for online I now think that it should start becoming an option. I’ve never played the game for prize money myself but im not going to lie that their is extra drive in me if I know their is something of value on the line.
When I played cg I thought a lot to myself about the online factor that we are all so worried about but really when you’ve got a competitive environment it really does mimic the type of play that we see at LAN
By all these tournament organisers also (beedee, gomez etc) having these extra funds to play with..they now have better grounds to approach sponsors with also. This in turn creates a snowball effect like sommi mentioned. Wouldn't it be fkn awesome if we built dicenats into a tournament that would see overseas teams come to compete in? It’s optimistic but this is how these things start, with an idea.....that’s just my personal opinion what does everyone else think about this?
But like I said, if a particular Organiser had a sponsor to donate some cash and throw a $7,000 prize pool out (which is International newsworthy, actually) and host online qualifiers only then I'm pretty sure everyone would attend whether or not they liked the thought of online qualifiers
if you want this game to stay alive and perhaps grow or become more active, it would be very sensible to make online qualifiers a reality
You're not going to revive the LAN scene by having LESS comps on LAN.
The problem is that we have too few teams signing up to comps - that's the issue that needs to be addressed. Not the issue of online v LAN qualifiers.
My question is why cant we get big sponsors onboard? I think its because we cant give them much exposure What’s the cost of printing out banners at all the qualifiers to decorate the net cafe for sponsorship exposure as opposed to creating a couple banners for a website, branding the hltv\'s with messages from sponsors and spamming it all over the net to a user base that really is of decent size?
If the CG league ran for longer each season (or if there were other leagues present during downtime between the CG seasons) we'd see a lot more active teams - which is what we need.
We need actual TEAMS practising regularly, but when the only incentive is to attend a poor-turnout LAN comp it's hard to maintain motivation. But if you could keep people motivated by running a consistent league, we'd see a lot more teams putting in the effort and ultimately become motivated to actually attend LAN comps.
My motivation of this article was to inspire the mind of a few individuals here who are capable and responsible enough to run a national event. I would do this, but my time & energy is 120% focused on competing.
My intentions were to provide an overview and a ray of light to show that it is possible to hold a worthy event, promote a volume of teams and competition, and spark the creation of an international-worthy team that can rival the 2008 iMmunity team (ferg/benor/panov/gazr/kram)
Like gazR said in his interview last year regarding MSI Beat-It & WCG, when the top team in Australia progresses then all the teams under them progress, too
xoxo
but this community's problem is PLAYERS, probably too late to do anything about it imo.. but we still do have a decent number of ipgn players/public server teams who dont even know a competitive side to this game exists(cos idiotslolol), or lack the intelligence to find/play for a team. unfortunately i would say a big majority of them dont really care about being competitive anyway and play for "fun" but you shouldnt count them out if someone were to somehow appeal to them with the competitive side of things, who knows maybe we get some more keen ameteurs in the scene, instead of when people switch over to 1.6 or just comeback to play. dont just send them straight to ipgn... think about how many new scrubs there is these days actually playing(not even duplicate accounts), if they were to find a team first and get to know the game on a more competitive side rather than just being sent to IPGN and adapting to the worst playstyle possible, and not understanding why it is actually bad for them. for those who do different story.
Also having online qualification gives us some sort of bargaining power with LAN cafes, which in turn may one day reduce costs. The only "real" negative i can see with online qualification is cheating. I do not trust EAC as far as i can load it but that's not where the problem lies. With a code of participation applied to online comps and leagues we could create such a deterrent that if anyone was stupid enough to cheat in the online process they would receive a hefty ban from all areas of cs (LAN included). This would be the ultimate step in trying to create a LAN like qualification process online.
At some point this community needs to make concessions to allow our small community to participate overseas and to make us competitive overseas. Which in reality is the overall determining factor on how well our community is going, like it or not.
From what height were you dropped as a child?
groups -> bracket online competitions with sign up costs should be something worth looking into, also could be run annually without the use of lan finals, it would keep people interested in the game year round
ladder play feels like a chore to a lot of players to show up to, having a comp over 1-2 days is always more enjoyable and better to plan around
but yeah online quals to lan finals can drastically change the team list
Printing out banners and such isnt that expensive at all, but usually the sponsors would already have their own they would want to give you to put up at the lan and would provide them for free. But what do you think is more appealing to a sponsor though? A few banners on a website, or a bunch of posters in lans on multiple weekends all across australia that not only cs players but all gamers playing at the lan cafe will see - their target audience. Better yet, what about both?
There is far FAR less appeal for sponsors if we have strictly online events, because everything we could offer a sponsor in terms of exposure from an online event we can offer from a lan event too - banners on the website, messages in hltv, spamming all over the web, etc - just theres the additional posters in lans all over aus that all gamers at the lan will see.
As to how to actually address the dwindling numbers? I dont know exactly, but im sure there are some people that can come up with some great ideas. We could run more regular lan comps with $10-15 rego, which for midcity would be enough to cover all lan costs but offer no/minimal prizes (cant speak for other lans caus im not sure what their prices are). Or even better yet go back to running regular lan leagues. The 2 seasons of EPGL were fantastic and if possible it'd be great to have a lan league running in each of the 3 main states. Things like the cybergamer season, and other online leagues/comps, are also great and if cg can continue to run more seasons with a month or 2 break in between it'll only help the community.
If they are running regularly, that means when a new player joins the community instead of saying "join #ipgn-comp", we can say "start off in #ipgn-comp and get urself known or start to know others, then try to make a team for the next cg league starting soon with some of the players u meet, or fill in/make a team for someone at the new epgl lan league" etc
EPS in France just cut CS 1.6 for a Naruto game on the PS3 and ESWC is running a CSS comp. If that isn't an indication of what lies ahead for CS then I don't know what is.
And yeah Pandan, Sponny was dropped as a kid and can't avoid his acute autism.
SC2 is storming the esports world atm. :>
There are sufficient players both new and old to revive the scene, all that's needed is the regularity of competition to give them a reason to become active.
More to the point, even if we couldn't manage to have regular comps and leagues - substituting LAN qualifiers for online ones would still not be a viable alternative.
It should supplement, not substitute LAN events. An online league with LAN finals would be the dream, it's just teams don't want to pay to play online.
I'd love to sit down and cost out an online league with lan finals but you sure as hell can't do it by having people pay $15-25 for the season.
All i know is that onliner qualifiers wont solve anything, at absolute best it will be a short-term stop gap to get a small amount of for one event in the long term it will only cause harm. Online should never substitute lan, as shard/unpro/etc have pointed out it should be an additional thing not a replacement.
#59 for every event that drops CS or lowers its prize money there are others that increase it or add the game, for example Copenhagen games adding a 15,000 euro prize increase and an additional danish only tournament, and estars adding 20,000 euro to the prize pool (due to dropping blizzard games and focusing purely on CS1.6). WCG might also drop all blizzard games due to recent lawsuits. Internationally CS is thriving more than it ever has, so eps france dropping it is really unimportant, as it was an incredibly minor event anyway.
Sites like hltv.org continuously get more and more users with it having to upgrade its hardware recently to prevent it going down yet it still going down yesterday due to overwhelming traffic.
Streams get more and more viewers, such as groupstage iem games yesterday getting ~30,000 while 2 other games playing at the same time on hltv both with ~5-10k viewers each.
If ur talking about in aus, then yes of course, its been going downhill for years
I mean i love the fact that its thriving there of course, but im worried about here
the difference is that im offering a new option, your saying : D lets just sit here and hope it gets better : )
And conz I'm not saying lets sit here and do nothing, im saying look at the actual problem (lack of teams) and try to come up with some solutions, as opposed to looking at the result those problems cause (lack of money) and band-aiding them.
The player numbers are there, ipgn-comp alone shows that, so we need to start looking at why we dont have better numbers at lan comps and why people arent attending?
Is it because its too expensive?
- Look into holding cheaper lans ($10-$15 rego) with minimal/no prize money, and if money becomes an issue for autoberths or prizes are larger comps (nats qualifiers) then do what dice did and start a kitty for each state. For each of the $15 rego comps maybe $100-200 goes into a pool, with a comp every 3-4 weeks u'd have a fair bit of money in a couple of months.
Is it because they dont want to go to lan and play 2 games and get smashed?
- Then hold every lan qualifier as a round-robin by restricting team numbers to 8, but holding more of the qualifiers so no one misses out. This ensures everyone gets 7 games minimum. Other formats could also be looked at but it needs to be ensured that fairness remains if its a nats qualifier. Maybe hold the occasional amateur lan/online comp (preferably amateur teams would be jumping @ lower cg divisions) to encourage teams to form.
Is it because people dont have a team?
- Keep supporting regular online leagues like CG and help and encourage people to make teams for them. Its pretty disgusting that they had to extend regos for another week due to lack of interest, people should be jumping at one of the best things to happen to aus cs in a while. Maybe also work with ipgn-comp to try and encourage a system that better provides to teams as opposed to individuals. Also set up systems for LFT players to make themselves noticed and that other LFT players can contact them easily (such as posting at the bottom of regos 'available players' etc). Also run additional online comps like the dice 1-dayers (could even seperate them into multiple divisions).
Is it because the days/times are too inconvenient?
- Perhaps we could look at running comps on different days (saturdays). Or even look into running night-time comps on weeknights (mon/tues/weds), or keep them on sundays but start them in the afternoon as opposed to morning.
Is it because its too hard for them to get there?
- Perhaps we could start encouraging people to car-pool in from similar locations so they dont have to get public transport, would also make paying parking alot easier.
They are just a few suggestions, and as ive said previously im sure people can come up with far better solutions than me, but substituting lan comps for online ones is not one of those.
A lot of the main base players in cs now are a lot older ... we have full time jobs or commit study..etc... Whatever the reason is the majority won’t see the point in attending lan unless its a qualifier for an event.
The ipgn base will not move over to our competitive environment unless it includes stats...thats the whole reason they play that system..for the stats alone. Not to mention the good players that do play in the system don’t encourage the new players.... regardless of what people think if there is no action all this forum is useless. Everyone needs to look at whats been the main driving force in this community? (geo)
Notice that he is busy with his life commitments now and also realise that the last nationals was ran at a loss. So where does the slack get picked up?
With the advertising that the supaGN DM server got last month was $250 for that one month alone.
What we are doing now is dice have there own DM server and with advertising we will put all proceeds towards DNC/lan events/prizes/flights
(Server cost will not be coming out of this)
Money will be going to geo to (keep in safe hands)
This will help alot based on 200-250 p/m, Well i hope it does.
If it all goes sweet, we could set up a pub server and try take over the GA32 players, would bring double the $$$
- sa/wa/tas/nt teams
- those teams that have 1 or 2 interstate players
- other online teams that want to try their luck
enough teams signing up would definitely raise more revenue
but definitely still need the core state qualifiers at lan
Now the atmosphere might be different, i wont argue against that as i have no idea, i've never attended a major tournament and neither have you for that matter, but the facts about money/tournaments/teams/viewers dont lie, so thats how i can disagree.
And stats can very easily be introduced to lan comps if we think thats what ipgners really want. We could also host a few draft lans in each of the major states with $10-15 rego and provide stats at the end and have like an 'ipgn lan' day.
and to jakr, great to hear good work!
The fact that in your opinion the glory days of CS are over and you were around during them, doesn't actually mean anything.
What sommi says is partly true the lan quals in the last year have been pretty poor across the whole country barely getting 8 teams for the 1-3 quals. obviously trying to attract sponsors to get on board the cs wagon has always been a issue so maybe try something new even split the quals try 2 lan 2 online per state? i dont know... you can go on for days about this subject in the end you cant please everyone but trying new ways to better the game and attract new teams/sponsors cant hurt one bit and if it gets shit feed back drop it. There really isnt enough teams around anymore to care, most people dont give a shit anymore enough to change (well most of the people i used to play/talk to). IPGN killed online cs, it turned the game into a casual scrim whitout the need to prac or find a team, that boat has sailed a while ago.
Im all for the online qualifiers just for the convenience side of it that's all. i love every aspect LAN has to offer and will sadly miss the scrims! :( i have made life friends from it(im sure other people have too), but people move on. its becoming a chore more than a hobbie the competitive edge in local comps is shithouse these days. if you wanna catch up with your mates you dont need to goto lan to do that.
think outside the box, try online.
Admins who feel they are capable of helping put your hands up, we'll announce in the next 2 weeks - heard it here first. KGO!
Edit: Also include if you're able to help on LAN and which state.
I dont like the idea of online quals. The thought of having to deal with QLD's elite fully banked by their own internet actually makes me want to end myself...
But at the end of the day nobody who is STILL playing 1.6 and hasnt either quit yet or switched to source is going to quit over this change. We may not all like it but the decision should be made in the best interests of the progression of the game in australia not the fears of a few online rage factories like myself.
Do what ever gets more bums in chairs and players in servers. Long live 1.6
I don't really see the need to switch, the lack of prize money isn't the reason cs is dying in Australia. This may favour the teams in contention for winning, but those teams we're always going to play anyway. The logic is flawed, the aim should be to attract players like our team who are older players starting to play again, (which there are potentially a lot of), or newer players, both of which WILL NOT WIN PRIZEMONEY ANYWAY.
i'd defs play
Cheating and online play come with the territory.. i don't understand how anyone can argue that the system you have now is any good, it killed wa's scene, it killed sa's scene long before that and the only people benefiting from it is those who live in the state nationals is held in.
If someone cheats, then someone cheats - they'll do terribly on lan, if someone is online, then they are online and they will do terribly on lan but for a greater prize and greater number of teams that is the risk you take.
If you are wanting a decent event with your friends or w/e dont whinge about money, dont whinge about the number of teams or whatever.
Sommi is right, they're is a reason every other game and every other country in the world uses online qualifiers, most of you are just too stubborn and arrogant to even entertain the idea.
edit: jim said it best
"Online definitely has a place, and should have had a place in our community for years. We've robbed ourselves of countless opportunities by not having it play a bigger part in the amount of competitions offered."
"It should supplement, not substitute LAN events."
No one is denying that online competitions should have a place in this community, just simply that they shouldnt be replacing the lan comps/qualifiers we already have, they should be an additional thing. Adding online comps is great, replacing lan comps with online is terrible.
One could argue that other contributing factors helped kill WA's scene, such as not being able to practise online against the eastern states, or that going to nationals wasnt cost-effective due to ridiculous flight costs.
I dont think you would be getting any greater prize pools at nationals either, as you would get significantly less teams attending qualifiers. How many teams do you honestly rekn would play an online qualifier with $30 rego JUST for the fun of it? The only, and i mean ONLY, reason teams would ever play an online qualifier is strictly to qualify for the nats. That generally rules out 3/4 of teams that would ever attend.
Look at the dice nats online qualifier for an example - not one but TWO semi-paid autoberths to nats, and a total of two teams register - archaic and v300. Now you might say "oh of course no other team would want to play when its such high quality teams playing the online qualifier" - well, thats what will ALWAYS happen, as online qualifiers benefit the top bunch of teams the most that all have interstate lineups. V300, iM, archaic, archaic.nz, etc.
The counter-argument is to lower the price for the online qualifiers to perhaps $15 which would probably be less of a turn off - but then ur left with the exact same amount of money you would get from playing lan qualifiers (assuming same amount of teams), just with an inferior tournament.
I dont know about you, but i sure as hell would never play an online qualifier with $30 rego purely for the fun, i'd even have second thoughts about playing it purely to qualify. I wouldnt hesitate for a second to play a lan comp with 0 prize money for that cost though. And if anything the dice nats qualifiers showed a similar trend amongst all players.
CS is done through online as well, just not as frequently as it should be. Not to mention the online events for other games are not actually replacing LAN play as is being suggested; they're supplementing it.
Also a lot of other games are not even a fair comparison to CS. The difference between online play and LAN play in CS is huge, whereas the gap between the two for a lot of other games isn't as big. Online play being a viable alternative to LAN play for one game doesn't hold any relevance as to its viability for CS.
"If someone cheats, then someone cheats - they'll do terribly on lan"
Yeah the teams that actually deserve a spot in a nationals should just miss out! Because hey if someone cheats, they'll be terrible on LAN so it's OK! :D:D:D
"Sommi is right, they're is a reason every other game and every other country in the world uses online qualifiers"
Your grammar hurts my head and so does your ignorance. You obviously aren't aware of some of the other games that are the same as CS, where the most prestigious competitions are strictly offline play.