2007 is the year when Ola “elemeNt” Moum put his mouse and headset away and moved on from professional Counter-Strike 1.6 to “real life.” elemeNt announced his retirement from Meet Your Makers and gaming in general several weeks ago.
The Norwegian player will be remembered for his dazzling spree of success between 2002 and 2004 with goL/eoL, SK Gaming and Team NoA as well as the controversies surrounding elemeNt’s transfers between teams.
And perhaps one more thing - giving good interviews. Enjoy this exclusive Christmas feature.
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The last episode of the GGL LANtics takes place in Newbury, U.K. and the protagonist’s name is Tim “DaHang” Fogarty. He came there for the i32 LAN to play Quake 4 and needed a free massage after his games…
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The 1on1 series continues with an interview with Paul “czm” Nelson, arguably the best Quake 3 player in history. In the feature Paul talks about life, Quake, switching to other games and how dumb he can be at times, despite graduating from Princeton with a degree in math.
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John “ZeRo4″ Hill is one of the most accomplished Quake 3 duelers in history with three QuakeCon titles, a World Cyber Games 2001 gold and the CPL Babbages championship, to name just a few. In an interview, ZeRo4 talks about a possibility of a comeback for the ESWC 2008 and throws down the gauntlet to one of his biggest rivals, Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel.
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The story of the week in Counter-Strike 1.6 was the transfer of PGS’s team into Meet Your Makers. The switch was surrounded with a lot of controversy - the champions of WCG 2006, Extreme Masters and ESWC 2007 were said to be unhappy with the organization, and PGS was said to have wanted to sell them.
The truth? Find out from the interview with the team’s player, Jakub “kuben” Gurczynski. Read more »
It was announced today that Quake 3 and Defense of the Ancients are official competition games for the 2008 season of the Electronic Sports World Cup. At the same time, the future of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 in the competition is uncertain.
The full lineup of ESWC games for today is Counter-Strike 1.6 (male and female competitions), Warcraft 3, Trackmania Nations ESWC, Quake 3 and DotA. The selection of Q3 as a game is not that surprising - the game has always been a very significant title for the ESWC. Some of the most memorable matches in the game’s history took place at the French event. The title also has a larger following than Quake 4 and looks like a better long-term platform, considering that QuakeZero will be based on Quake 3.
Considering that well over 90% of Warcraft 3 games played online are DotA matches, the choice of DotA for ESWC is not that surprising either. Competitive DotA has grown rapidly in recent times, with many online competitions for the game.
It may be that Pro Evolution Soccer will not come back to ESWC. At this stage, the game is suspended, as the organizers of the ESWC have not yet received a permission from Konami to use the game in their event.
So I attended the Championship Gaming Series World Championship final. I guess after reading this column, some of the people whose families are fed by a CGS paycheck will call me an esports killer.
Did they all really come from Birmingham?
I love gaming events. When I go to a live gaming event and see people immersed into a spectacle, then even if I don’t understand the game so well, I want to share their emotions. It always makes me wonder why they are so fascinated with what is going on the screens they see. The vicarious love of the game.
It is about having a passion and sharing it. It is about the smell of ozone in the air before a great final that sits in your nostrils and gets you hyped up. It is the excitement of other people that helps you enjoy something profoundly.
This is why I did not enjoy myself at the CGS World Championship finals. Read more »
Mortal Teamwork, one of Germany’s biggest multigaming organizations, announced a merger with the Danish Team NoA today.
Both sides needed the merger, NoA providing a high class Danish Counter-Strike team and international experience and mTw providing the organizational and financial stability German gaming teams can provide. NoA are this year’s runners up in the Electronic Sports World Cup.
NoA’s owner Lars Eiben is going to be the new mTw CEO. The Danish CS team will represent mTw internationally, while the German team will continue to play in the ESL Pro Series. NoA as an organization will not disappear altogether - manager Martin “guddo” Cording promises it will keep on promoting esports.
The G7 group of elite esports organizations has removed one of its founding members from the organization, Ninjas in Pyjamas.
The exclusion of a team has nothing to do with internal problems within the G7, but with the problems of NiP. The Swedish organization has been completely inactive in esports since the dissolution of their Counter-Strike team several months ago.
The other teams whose presence in the G7 should be questioned are 3D and compLexity - now Championship Gaming Series franchises, owned by the league and hardly independent.
It was announced today that Meet Your Makers is the new home for the former Counter-Strike team of PGS Gaming.
MYM let go of their Norwegian team last week to free the space for Lukasz “LUq” Wnek, Filip “NEO” Kubski, Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas, Mariusz “Loord” Cybulski and Kuba “kuben” Gurczynski. Those players have been one of most dominant forces in modern Counter-Strike, right next to Fnatic. Read more »
Brian “destrukt” Flander’s Chicago Chimera has won the Championship Gaming Series World Championship. The team beat their North American Championship final opponents, Carolina Core.
Both then and now, Chimera were the favorites of the match, but the encounter for the regional crown came down to a single point in favor of the Chicago team. This time around, it was a completely different story. Those Core’s players that could realistically deliver points in the match collapsed under pressure. Read more »
This week’s 1on1 features the legend that not many gamers will know. He is one of the most prominent players in QuakeWorld and the winner of DreamHack’s QW tournament, David “ParadokS” Larsen. How does one stay faithful to a nine year old game and what is a QW player’s perception of today’s esports? Find out in the interview:
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