Well I had fun in Mexico but I'm glad to be back home. Competing in Mexico was an all new experience that really made me appreciate how good we have it here in the U.S. You thought games were expensive here? You complain about having to pay $300 for an Xbox but what if you had to pay over $550 for the system and $100 for each game? That's right... in Mexico gaming is probably one of the most expensive professions you can have. With technology being outrageously overpriced the gamers in Mexico take every gaming tournament VERY seriously because they have some serious money to make up for all of the money they've invested into pursuing gaming as a career. Just wanted to touch base on this probably unknown fact and say that I appreciate the dedication of Mexico's players and highly respect all of them. And now... for details on my trip!
Sept 11th 8:30 am Los Angeles, CA LAX Airport
I'm at the airport. It's sooo early! Time to leave for mexico. I thought I'd be able to sleep on the flight but I found out I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork explaining my purpose to the country and such. This was my first time flying out of the country so I was completely oblivious to how everything worked. I was pretty happy I decided not to bring my xbox at this point in time since I saw how much of a hassle it was getting electronic devices on the flight.
12:00 noon Jalisco, Guadalajara, Guadalajara Airport
I push the button and it turns green *phew* I can pass into Mexico! I walk through the long walkway filled with people holding signs for their loved ones. Somehow I pass the guy holding the WCG sign without knowing it and was heading for the doors to outside when all of a sudden I hear "CIJI!!!" I look around and see none other than WCG Ultimate Gamer's Jamal "Zophar321" Nickens! He told me that he was there to fill in for Robert "Prod1gy X" Paz for Halo3. I had no idea he was coming so this was a pleasant surprise. Jamal is definitely one of the most fun of the group to hang out with. I noticed that there was extra baggage next to Jamal... Mark "applesauce" Smith had arrived with Jamal but was away at the moment. I checked in with the man in charge, Laurent, and we awaited Geoff "iNcoNtrol" Robinson. I greeted Geoff with a huge hug and was extremely happy that I was with my friends again. TEAM USA! we said... this is it! We left for our hotel and talked about the gaming community and what we've been up to since the show.
Later that night we stopped by the venue to check out the setup and check in on the progress of the Mexican country finals. We were all pretty impressed with Mexico's skilled players and all admitted that we probably underestimated our competition. A lot of people came up to us (the ultimate gamers) and asked where we're from. "USA" we respond, and the guys talk about which game they are there to play. This next part... it happened literally 6 or 7 times... The person then turns to me and says "...and you're here to cheer them on?". I chuckle and point to my badge... "I'm here to compete in Guitar Hero" to which almost all of them responded "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry... I mean... I didn't mean that like... " they then stumbled on their words. "It's ok" I responded. The USA Team leader jokes around and says "It's cuz you're a girl (lol)". "I've never seen a female competitor at WCG before is all." they say. I was amazed how many times they said this. I'm hoping that in the future there are more females at these events, and not just to watch. This shouldn't be unusual to people...
Geoff, Jamal and I take some time to do some Ultimate Gamer Rock Band 2. We choose Paramore's song "That's What You Get" since that was a song that Swoozie kind of helped to make our Ultimate Gamer official Rock Band 2 song on the show. :D We missed ya Swoozie! That song was dedicated to you!
We go back to the hotel after grabbing some food and I immediately work out an agreement to practice Guitar Hero with the Canadian GH player Dan. Luckily Mark brought his Xbox and I had my guitar and the Dan just happened to have a copy of GH: World Tour even though he had no xbox with him. (It's crazy how that worked out!) We played together and he told me which songs he thought would be in the competition. After practicing for a while I had beaten him on some songs but he still always beat me on points for nearly every song. This guy was good... I looked at it as HE was going to be the guy to beat here in Mexico.
Sept 12th Guadalajara, Guadalajara Convention Center
We arrive at the convention center and prepare for the flag ceremony practice run. Jamal had requested to be the flag carrier the day before so he was carrying the US flag. 13 countries chose the best players to represent their countries for each game. Mexico had the major upper hand in the competition since each country was allowed to have up to 3 people representing their country for each game but most countries couldn't afford to fly that many players out, Mexico was the only country to have multiple people representing their country for each game. It was at this point we realized our Virtua Fighter 5 player never showed up so we had no representation in that game. We played some games while we waited for the opening ceremony to begin.
Once the opening ceremony was finished we all ran to our perspective games to prepare to compete. I was upset to find that the Guitar Hero World Tour setup was on a huge tv and not just that... they had a sound system hooked up to it. Why is this an issue you ask? Well Guitar Hero is a game based on timing. With huge LCD, Plasma, etc tv's there is some video lag. When you add a 5 speaker sound system to the mix and have no audio coming out of the tv you then add the element of audio lag. We attempted to calibrate the tv the best possible and even fixed the xbox settings and in game settings to make up for the fact that it was not even set to HDTV when we arrived. No matter what we did there was no fixing the lag... this tournament would end up being determined by who can adjust to the lag best. Mexico, again, had the upper hand since they had been practicing on this setup for the past couple days.
Around 2pm I did an interview with a news station from Brazil called GlobalTV about my style and gaming/ competing. I have to find that interview and post it on here for you guys to check out! It was short, but they interviewed a lot of competitors so I'm curious to learn more about them and their thoughts on the event.
As the day goes on our Halo team loses. Unfortunately they do not move onto day 2, but they ended up placing 5th. I am not adjusting to the lag well, and the matches are somewhat close, but I was not performing anything close to how I was playing the night before in the hotel room when practicing with the Canadian Guitar Hero player. After some matches I was done for the day and had to wait for Sunday for the rest of my matches, so I moved over to the Rock Band area to practice for the tournament they were doing. At this point our Fifa player was out of the competition and Geoff was struggling not to be eliminated.
As the event came to an end StarCraft matches were still going on. Geoff finally won a match which gave him a chance for a tiebreaker match. He won his first match, lost the second then won the third. One more time Geoff! We sat by his side all night as he fought... then he finally did it. Geoff moved onto top 3 and moves on to finals the next day! YAY!
Sept 13th 10:00pm Guadalajara, Dubai Night Club
WCG set up a VIP party for the players at Dubai. This club was AMAZING! I'm not a big party person but I went because I figured this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to bond with some amazing gamers and it was really the ONLY time that Geoff, Mark, Jamal and I would would have hang out together outside of the tv show. (with the only exception being that I hung out with Jamal a little bit at E3) Team USA, Team Canada and Team Mexico along with some of Team Brazil showed up to the event and we all got to know each other and learned more about how gaming is in other countries. We had a ton of fun dancing and chatting it up in the VIP area and then headed back to the hotel at about 3am.
10:00am Guadalajara, Guadalajara Convention Center
Well it's the day of finals. Guitar Hero is wrapping up. I have had enough of the lag... it's even worse today not to mention literally 10feet away from our area are two HUGE speakers blaring the WCG theme song. I love that song and all... but after listening to it for 4 hours straight I had grown tired of it. They had to turn the sound up for the game so loud that it blew out the speakers making it hard to hear the songs and making it even worse to play on. I'm done with World Tour so I run over to the Rock Band 2 area and sign ups were closed for the tournament. I ask the people running the tournament if they can squeeze me in. I had come late due to the GH tournament but they let me enter so I was last to go and wouldn't have a chance to practice any more. Many of the GH players that were competing in World Tour entered along with Mexico's top GH players from the Mexican national finals from the first day so I had some tough competition. Luckily when I stopped playing World Tour earlier this year I had grown super fond of and played a LOT of RB2.
The tournament was set up by the organizers picking the song and the players each had to do their best on the song to score the most points possible. This style of competition is usually called SCORE ATTACK. I was super nervous because Mexico was currently in the lead with the most points. The final song: Testament "Souls of Black". I'm watching people fail at the solo thinking to myself... "oh gosh please just make it through the solo without needing overdrive!" The lag on the tv's is minimal so I'm ok. I get 93% on the solo and I'm missing a couple hammer ons here and there because I'm still used to the wider note hit window of GH but I start fixing my mistakes pretty fast. I'm nearing the end of the song and notice I'm still about 13k below the highest scorers points... I save up overdrive hoping for just one more to fill it up and deploy on the final set of double notes to surpass the highest score by near 20k and the crowd went wild. It was awesome to have the crowd cheer for me once I won. I got a lot of handshakes and "congrats" after I collected my prizes. :D
4:00pm
The competitions are over. In the end USA had not performed as well as we had hoped. The only person placing top 3 was Geoff who pulled out an amazing win after a bad losing streak in the beginning. We watched a video which showed the past 2 days of competition at the Pan American Championships and I was excited to see that they showed me in the video for Guitar Hero about 1 min 50 sec in. (see below) The medals were awarded and we showered Geoff with praise for his great accomplishment.
Team USA results:
Halo 3- Mark/Jamal 5th
Guitar Hero World Tour- Ciji 7th
Virtua Fighter 5- Unknown No show
Fifa- Unknown Unknown
StarCraft- Geoff 2nd
Side tourney:
Rock Band 2- Ciji 1st
After everyone collected their checks and the event was closing up I got SWAMPED for photos. From magazines like UrBeat to the other competitors. I had never experienced something quite to this extent before. In Mexico I was treated with so much respect and got a lot of praise for what I'm accomplishing and hoping to accomplish in the gaming industry. I did an interview with Joseph from GAME ON! a Costa Rican company that sells games/ accessories and such but also runs events and keeps the gamers up to date on events and gaming news. I had a great time talking to him about the event, what I'm hoping to accomplish in the gaming community and even was asked to come out to Costa Rica to go to one of their events! It was a great end to the event and I was a bit bummed that I had to leave the next day.
After all the photo ops were done and the interview was completed the USA crew headed back to the hotel. We took some time to bond again by playing some Street Fighter 4 in the hotel lobby since we decided to pull an all niter before catching the shuttle early in the morning to the airport. I was really happy I got to spend that time in Mexico with everyone... it was truly a learning experience for me and it was also an amazing opportunity for me to meet some GREAT competitors and amazing people.
Thank you WCG for making this happen! But I do have one thing to say... Samsung... please bring some CRTs to the US National Finals... I promise you the finalists will love you FOREVER if you do! Thanks again!
I think many people don't really understand why I'm here. I've noticed that in the past 10 months, since I went on Ultimate Gamer and decided to slow down with Guitar Hero that I've had a lot of people talking trash since they don't really understand what I'm trying to do in the industry. I think this is the right time for me to make my mission statement clear.
I started competitively gaming about 10 years ago back when I lived in Michigan. I started with games like Dance Dance Revolution and competed at locations like Great Lakes Crossing where Konami would hold their state and sometimes National tournaments there. I loved the game, and started to really love competing even though I didn't place much higher than in the 20's. I continued to look for tournaments no matter how big or small and found out that Soul Calibur 2 was a very competitive fighting game that I also enjoyed playing. I started getting many 1st and 2nd place finishes and continued to compete in that game whenever I found a place that was holding a tournament whether it was a gaming convention with 50+ entrants or a local gaming store with 20 entrants... I entered because I had fun, and I kept winning. I was nothing special at the time... a brown haired brown eyed girl who didn't stand out for any other reason other than I had boobs and was the only girl at these events that wasn't there as a cheerleader for someone else. I just kept playing and competing whenever I could from 99 to 2006 while going to school, working full time and dealing with the family life.
As time went on I started to travel more thanks to some marketing jobs I got on the Ozzfest Tour in 2006 and I eventually found my new home in Fort Worth, TX in August 2006. After only 2 weeks of living in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area I found out about a new series of tournaments called the Midnight Gaming Championship. MGC was a series of 9 tournaments that took place at 8 designated McDonalds parking lot locations around Dallas/Ft Worth and the winners from each week would move onto Texas State Finals the 9th week. I found out Guitar Hero was one of many games they had at the tournament and I decided I was going to go to as many of the 8 events as I could. After going to 6 out of the 8 tournaments I finally qualified by getting enough points to move onto state finals as a top 16 state finalist. (8 winners from each week and then 8 ppl with the most cumulative points from placements in the tournaments moved on) I didn't place as well as I had hoped but I had a ton of fun and was inspired to take my Guitar Hero skills to the next level.
Meanwhile, on the side I had been competing in tournaments for Need For Speed:Carbon where I placed 2nd at State Finals losing only by 1 second to Josh "Mofobian" Palmer. I also placed well in Tekken 5. I decided that while Guitar Hero would be my main focus I'd continue to try to compete in all genres of games like I had always done since 99.
MTV caught wind of me and filmed me at Guitar Hero 2 state finals at CPL in Dallas in 2007 and after a devastating loss to the 3rd place player on Scorehero.com I decided that it was time that I learn about star paths and all of the more in-depth parts to guitar hero to ensure that didn't happen again. I realized that trying to practice several games at once made it harder for me to be a top player in Guitar Hero so I had to do something to change that.
After placing well in several other Guitar Hero tournaments in 2007 I decided that I would focus all of my attention on Guitar Hero and see how far I could take it. I teamed up with Mofobian to organize a cross country competitive summer schedule where we'd drive from west coast to east coast entering all guitar hero tournaments along the way. I put about 20,000 miles on my car in less than 3 months! I started in Northern California and I picked up Mofobian when I got to Texas. I remember when I told the people running this next tournament we were going to that I was coming from Cali and my teammate was from Texas they said "you are either two of the most determined people I have ever met in my entire life... or two of the craziest". Once Mofobian and I got to Orlando, Florida to enter the Guitar Hero tournament for $10,000, a new Ford Mustang, an IADT scholarship and more... my engine blew. 5 miles from our final destination the tour had come to a halt and I had decided to move to California to pursue a job in the gaming industry. I lost my car that I had spent a good $40 grand on and was hoping that something good would come from showing my face at all these tournaments.
On top of working a full time job at this point I dedicated all of my free time to the game often coming straight home and practicing til 2 or 3am daily. I was determined to become something great in the guitar hero world. I had set a goal to place in the top 10 globally on Scorehero.com since the best of the best often place their scores on there and it was a great way to measure up to the competition when I was unable to attend tournaments and see their performance live in person.
As time went on in 2007 and 2008 I started to get noticed more. With bright red hair and cosplaying as judy and winning guitar hero tournaments at major gaming events I was starting to get media attention and teams were starting to ask me to join. I decided to join the PMS clan for Rock Band and had fun having a team of outstanding members like H20 Mr Pulsar, PMS Wedge, etc. During this time is when a couple of female guitar hero players that were ranked higher than me started some girl on girl feuds bragging about how they were on paid teams. This was pretty discouraging and the fact that the trash talk spilled into my teammates and my friends who were also competitive with guitar hero made me quit the team and decide to stay solo.
Fast forward to 2008. I got a gig with Activision as the official "Judy Nails" and did a guitar hero competition at PAX where I took on competitors in Guitar Hero world tour before the game was ever released. Playing about 60 opponents and losing to only 4 (2 of which were due to an attempt to use the slide bar during the intro to hot for teacher) I saw that I hadn't lost my touch and couldn't wait for world tour's release.
Late 2008 I finally did it. I got over 60 full combos and was ranked 5th in the world for Guitar Hero: World Tour. At this point other competitors such as Ecstacy and WitWix and many others have already uploaded all of their best scores and I was still ranked higher than them even though I started posting my scores a full week late. I held my top 10 position dropping only 1 spot to 6th place when I left to film for the show WCG Ultimate Gamer around Thanksgiving.
After filming WCG Ultimate Gamer I realized why I started gaming in the first place. I started gaming because I have a passion for games in general. I realized that many people never knew that my skills extended beyond Guitar Hero and thought that was all I did. WCG Ultimate Gamer inspired me to quit focusing all my attention on Guitar Hero and start focusing more on all genres again. I stopped posting on Scorehero.com and stopped researching star paths at this point.
In March of 2009 I was approached by a friend asking if I would ever like to learn Street Fighter to go pro. I immediately said YES as I had never played SF before but the game looked cool. 2 months went by before I finally got in touch with the guy who was supposed to train me... GOOTECKS. I was surprised to see that this was the guy that was going to be training me as I had heard about him before. He convinced me that I'd have to dedicate all of my free time to SF4 to get good at it and I agreed that I'd quit guitar hero completely to learn this new fighting game. A couple weeks went by and I was being trained by local SF4 players so Gootecks called off the training program. I continued on playing and fell in love with the fighting game genre all over again getting into games like Tekken 6 and BlazBlue today.
Today I am the newest member of Empire Arcadia. I am a cross platform cross genre player and I compete in all games but sports. Even though in 2009 I was approached by multiple professional teams, I had decided to stay independent since they all wanted one thing... "We want you to sign to us to compete in guitar hero and rock band only" I told all of these teams that I wanted to be allowed to compete in all games since I'm pretty good at racing and fighting games as well but was discouraged from doing so, so I declined all contracts. When Empire first approached me TriForce claimed that I would be allowed to do my thing, compete in all games and have fun while having a manager to help ensure that I do the right thing in the industry and keep things professional. After 9 months of negotiations I finally agreed.
My goal: To become one of the best all around gamers in the world.
With over 30 top 5 finishes for over 7 games in 3 genres I'm off to a good start. While this seems impossible it's really not. If you've ever heard of Todd Rogers you'll see what I hope to become one day. This man has so many Guinness World Records it's not even funny and they're for all types of Games. I want to do this for multiple reasons.
1) I want to finally help to break this stupid "girl gamer" stereotype. While teams like the Frag Dolls and the PMS clan are out there helping to do a good job of this, no female has really been at a level like Fatal1ty or Todd Rogers where they have completely dominated the gaming scene showing that sex doesn't matter, it's all about dedication, hard work, and practice. I'm sick of hearing girls that go "I'm the best female" this or "the #1 female for" that. It's annoying. I just want to be the best or one of the best period. While I'm happy to be the first female to be on WCG's team USA I'm more excited just to be a MEMBER of team USA. That in itself is a great accomplishment. As a Valkyrie for the Empire Arcadia me and my team of girls will help to show the world that just because we have boobs doesn't mean that we can't game, and game well at that.
2) I want to help shrink the big heads on these elitist pro gamers who think they're the shit just because they're on a paid team and good at one game. Basically these gamers degrade other gamers for entering local tournaments and belittle opponents for not being ranked well on leaderboards or for not placing well in some of the bigger tournaments. Basically I think that gamers should get respect for all gaming placements in ALL tournaments. These people don't know who goes to a local tournament to talk trash. Some of my local tournaments have been tougher than national tournaments since I live close to some of the best players for games like Tekken 6, Guitar Hero, and Street Fighter 4. Many of these local players cant make it to events like Devastation and don't qualify for the world cyber games since they have playstation not xbox. To belittle someone for an event you have no idea about is just stupid. Here in cali, placing 4th in a street fighter tournament means more than placing top 10 in a tournament somewhere in the middle of the states since the nations best players are in Cali and New York. If a gamer ONLY enters major events like WCG they are only hurting themselves and are not getting their name out there by only showing their face once a year for the sake of trying to show how elite they are.
3)I just want to have fun and not limit myself. In 2 years of playing Guitar Hero pretty much exclusively I lost out on the chance to go to a lot of events and have a lot of fun and meet new competitors. This year by competing in all games I have met many street fighter, tekken, and blazblue pros and am learning about all new gaming communities like SRK and others that I never knew of before. I love the gaming community and want to know as much as I can about all things related to gaming. Guitar Hero is a good game and all, but the game is far less competitive then it used to be and I see tournament frequency dropping drastically since the release of world tour. I don't want to limit myself to this one game because once it disappears, if all I have is a career dependent on that game, my career will come to an end once the tournaments end. I am starting to go to more events like Comicons, PAX, CES, VGXpo, EVO, Devastation and have even more events coming up where I will be competing in Guitar Hero, Rock Band, BlazBlue, Street Fighter, Tekken and more!
4) I like a challenge! I want this to be tough for me... because it only drives me to be better. With Guitar Hero the game is too easy. I lost all motivation to try to go for FCs in the game and the song selection was just boring. Practicing multiple games like this keeps me busy and makes me have to try twice as hard at each game since I have even less time to practice each game individually. My days consist of playing on xbox during the day, practicing at local arcades at night and going to tournaments on the weekend. Even if I don't place well I keep going because every tournament is a learning experience. While some gamers feel the need to talk trash at a placement I get at a tournament I look at it like this...
I practice 10 games at a time and still somehow manage to place top 16 at tournaments with over 60 opponents in the brackets and you practice only 1 game for 40-60 hours a week so you should be placing 1st at every event then right? Basically look at the work you put into one game and the work that I put into SEVERAL and look at my placements. I try very hard to learn the mechanics of every game and practice execution for games that are COMPLETELY different from one another. From Tekken 6 to SF4, to Blazblue, to Guitar Hero and Rock Band to Need For Speed... every game is different and learning all of these games at once is something that takes a lot of patience and determination to become better. I just wish that some gamers would respect what other gamers are doing to take gaming to the next level, and just learn that even though they're not 1st in everything, they put in just as much hard work as anyone else in the gaming community.
Ok rant over!
Future plans:
-Guitar Hero 5 full combos and Rock Band 2 high scores to be video taped and uploaded online this fall.
-Do my best in the World Cyber Games Pan American Championships for Team USA!
-Set some world records! Yup! Time to put my name down in Gaming History!
-Help gamers get the respect they deserve!
Well guys, I had a meeting with Coffin Case today and we're going to start kicking promotions into high gear! First step, we want you guys to spread the word about Coffin Case on twitter! What's the reward? Well I'm going to track all of you guys who tweet about Coffin Case (don't forget to @reply me so I know who you are!) and I'm going to pick one of you at random to give one of these awesome Guitar Hero Coffin Case bags to and someone will also get a Coffin Case shirt! 2 winners this week and more to come! Basically I want to see how many people we can get to follow Coffin Case in just 3 days! So come on... a simple @CoffinCase and a link to CoffinCase.com can win you a FREE Coffin Case shirt or bag... what more can you ask for? :D
Think of this like a raffle, you can get more than one chance at this if you tweet every day through Saturday but you get only one point per day (max 4 points total) so if you remember to tweet every day about Coffin Case telling your friends to follow them as well is going to increase your chance of winning! Note: The Coffin Case shirt is a size small (just letting you know in advance) The Coffin Case bag fits both Guitar Hero and Rock Band Guitars.
Ask for these at your local music store.
I will also be giving away a bag at each of my upcoming events to the person who does the best against me in a Guitar Hero: Metallica challenge so stay tuned for more details on that!
As you guys may or may not have known, I've been competitively gaming for about 10 years now. In the past ten years I've watched the gaming industry get larger and larger and watched the rise and fall of many gaming leagues and have noticed many things, some that are good and some that are bad. I've decided to write a blog dedicated to bringing some issues to your attention and write about how things could be improved.
Internet Hate:
For the past 10 years there's always been trash talk... I don't think that's anything new. It seems like more and more however, as the gaming industry gets larger and professional gaming and gamers get more attention the spotlight becomes a target and the jealousy of other gamers often turns into hate. 10 years ago trash talk was pretty limited to some online forums or chat rooms/ lobbies on servers for particular games. Now the fact that pro gamers are so easily accessible through youtube, myspace, blog sites like this, xbox live, email, aim and other online gaming communities it makes it much easier for people to express their disliking anonymously online to a bigger crowd. Unfortunately it's things like this that can ruin peoples reputation since rumors and hearsay are repeated as truth and people assume "if I read it online it MUST be true" rather then talk to the person themselves.
I've asked many pro gamers how they deal with the internet hate and most say the same thing. "I just ignore it. They're usually some 13/14 year old kid ranting because they can hide behind the computer screen." While this is mostly true, it's evolved into much more then that now when elitists that are on teams will create blogs dedicating to their disliking for players or will chat in irc or forums about their disliking of a player potentially ruining their reputation. In instances like this it all comes down to who has the most fans as to who will be the good guy and who will be the bad guy in these situations. (Just look at Mike Watson vs gootecks in the SF4 community for example)
Unfortunatelydue to more and more companies realizing how big the gaming industry is, more and more gamers are gaining fame and are therefore gaining haters. When gamers are featured on Dr.Pepper bottles, in commercials and on TV shows, the jealousy comes out and the hate rages on. It's things like this that are driving up and coming pro gamers away from gaming communities and promoting more underground environments since players feel more safe competing in those situations.
Teams:
Before there didn't use to be so many teams, and the teams that were around were more underground with a small few that stood out and gained attention due to sponsorship. Now with sponsors helping out teams big AND small more and more teams exist such as the PMS Clan, VvV, MoB, and all of the CGS teams that are all pretty much done for now. While there were some teams that were considered more "elite" than others due to the number of professional gamers and top place players they had on the team, it always seemed as though the members on the teams would have the mentality that they are better than other teams. Unfortunately not every gamer can be a paid team member as most teams like the PMS/H2O clans have HUNDREDS of members and only up to about 5 sponsors covering just a few people to go to events. The fact that clans like PMS make promises to send team members to events and also have rules that you have to let other teams belittle you and not say anything is something that really turned me off to the idea of joining a team.
Giving gamers a chance:
This kind of relates to the teams subject... but something I've noticed is that more and more now gamers that are called "the best" at a particular game seem to be under the most pressure to stay on top. While gamers like Fatal1ty find this feat to be easy, some gamers are dealing with criticism if they ever lose a match for any reason. I have witnessed the #2 player in the nation go 0-2 in a match before due to equipment failure and no one says squat about that, but yet if the player that does something like this is one that's in a spotlight, then all of a sudden if they lose a match they've lost their game and they are torn apart by the community, and no, not by 14 year olds, but other pro gamers.
It's a shame to see that this is how pro gamers are treating other pro gamers right now. I remember watching pro gamer Stermy go from being one of the bottom Fifa players (yeah he specialized in FPS games and is one of the top in that genre) to being given a chance by Kat to turn his game around and then became of the top Fifa players in the nation and a part of the 2nd place team in the World. It's things like this that can help the gaming community. Just because a gamer specializes in one genre doesn't mean that they don't have talent elseware, and if gaming communities like CGS should arise in the future I think they'll keep finding the nations best players by giving them a chance to prove that dedication and hard work can lead to a player accomplishing anything they set their mind to.
Ensuring the integrity of E-sports:
I've noticed a couple people in the community that claim they are doing things a certain way for the "betterment of e-sports" but I wonder if they even know what the heck they're talking about. I am all for protecting the integrity of e-sports... but I've noticed that top players are calling out the players asking referees and people running tournaments to modify brackets to do match ups that would appeal to the crowd or boost someones ego. I'm sorry, but last time I checked randomized brackets are how things are done and asking to manipulate brackets for ones own benefit doesn't seem like keeping the integrity of a game or e-sports in general. There were instances of this that happened at Devastation for multiple games and this caused a huge dilemna that was not necessary especially with SF4.
Esports in general:
While I see gamers talking about how they care about helping e-sports and want to contribute, the only person I've really seen doing anything that matters is Fatal1ty. He's started a gaming school where people can come from all over the nation to his Fatality "camp" and learn how to play FPS games professional as well as giving tips on how to be a successful gamer. While I have not talked to anyone who has attended these classes personally I think the idea is a great one that will encourage gamers to pursue their goals to go pro in a safe environment where there are no negative thoughts affecting the player.
Cheating:
Back when I played Quake 1 I remember there were always hackers that would somehow modify their character to do things like shoot rockets out of their ass. If you were ever wondering why someone was just annihilating the competition and it WASN'T Fatal1ty, it was usually some hacker praying on innocent victims that just wanted to up their game or have fun playing.
Now thanks to Microsoft Xbox and other companies there are programs in place to help prevent cheating. Mods are often detected and prevented from being used or accounts suspended to prevent that player from playing online against other players. The new thing to come up is that companies are taking pride in developing products with software that is undetectable by systems and that promote cheating. One of these companies is Evil Controllers. Here's their quote
"Throughout the video game history, there has always been one constant error, HUMANS. Evil Controller LLC develops controllers that finally eliminate the human error in video games. These controllers help you be the best video gamer possible. From a hand gun that shoots like a machine gun or an automatic reload in Gears of War, Evil can provide you with the controller that best fits these video games.Some people believe that these controllers take the spirit away from these games. At Evil we think that increases the fun and excitement in these games. Once you pick up a rapid fire controller for Call of Duty 4, you will NEVER be able to play the game in its normal speed. We are constantly pushing the gaming limits; imagine perfect swings in Tiger Woods or a dual rapid fire in Call of Duty. The lists go on and on from controllers that are specified for Lefties and n awesome Guitar Hero mod. As the industry evolves we are determined to evolve just as fast. "
So basically... do you suck at shooting in COD or Halo 3? Do you want to make it so that all you need to do is get your aim right and you can kill someone with a pistol? Seriously, rapid fire was banned for a reason... do we really want to see these controllers showing up in MLG tournaments? Evil Controllers isn't taking away human error, they're taking away talent so that anyone that can aim at a guy can kill them with one push of a trigger button. Reading further they are talking about some "awesome guitar hero mod" which is probably one of the things I'm most strongly against. I've seen computer programs that are combined with a small unit that can fit discretely inside of a guitar hero guitar to automatically hit all of the notes in a song for the player. What the hell is the point of this? Can we not PLAY games anymore? It's sad that big name gamers are jumping on board to promote a company that prides itself on cheating.
What do I want to see happening?:
Basically I want to see less of these random teams that are all over the place making promises to help gamers go pro but not delivering and more teams that are serious about competing and want teammates that are both talented at their game but also personable. We don't need anymore arrogant elitists in the industry... really, there are plenty to go around. Having teams promotes more companies to team up and sponsor them therefore increasing money flow to the gaming industry.
I would like to see more events like WCG, WSVG, CPL, and such. These leagues and events help to grow the gaming industry and increase money flow into the industry as well as increase the number of people involved of gaming by giving the no name players a chance to show what they've got and be picked up by teams.
WWFOG disappear and ECA gaining more attention. Lets not give gamers any MORE false hopes or make promises that will be broken. If you want to help the gaming community join ECA and make your voice heard.
I recently talked to a kid that was writing a paper on adding a "pro gaming class" to high schools and collages. Basically something along the lines of Fatal1ty's boot camp but more accessible and something that would be a part of the regular persons schedule in school. This is probably one of the best ideas I've ever heard and something I hope will be seriously considered in the near future. By making pro gaming a part of everyone's daily schedule it will become more common and acceptable and will be considered as a "normal job" one day. They take this kind of thing seriously in Korea, why can't they do it here in America?
*I am open to hear what you guys have to say. Is there something I missed? Something that you would like to add? You disagree on something? Post a comment. :D Thanks!
Well this season is getting PRETTY DAMN BUSY! I have events just about every weekend for the next few months or so. :D Some small... some HUGE... some top secret... but I'll tell you what I can for now. Here's my schedule...
Saturday, July 25th
Street Fighter IV Tournament and Retro Game Party hosted by RGN and Angry Banana
Street Fighter tournament on the Big Screen! xBox 360 - with tournament joysticks!
Also... we will have Street Fighter 2, Super street fighter 2, street fighter 3rd strike, and street fighter IV
Guitar Hero room
A DJ spinning retro inspired tunes .... what you say... a DJ?!?! Yes :D
I'll be entering the SFIV tourney and so will Mike Ross. I'll also be showing off my Guitar Hero skills for those interested. I shreded up the drum set on some Metallica songs at the J!NX photoshoot/ party and I'm taking on challengers here as well!
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Subaru WRX Games
As you may or may not know... I'm into cars and LOVE to race. I have been attending Subaru events lately and was excited to check my email to see an invite to the Subaru WRX Games. I'm going to watch the Subaru Ralley team prepare for the X-Games, to race around the track in the new 2010 Legacy 2.5GT, to kick some asses on Need for Speed and to check out the car show. My friend Brian has really turned me on to these cars and I'm hoping to one day get and mod one of my own... I'm sick of my Mercedes Benz already. :( All attempts to modify my 190e have been really drawn out and it's taking longer than it did to mod my Sunfire so I'm thinking of giving up on it soon. :p Anyways, if you're going to be there on Saturday lets meet up and race!
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Saturday, August 1st (night)
DIZeLAN Street Fighter IV Team 3v3
I think I have my two teammates for this event already... a Cammy player and a Zangief player. There are currently 17 teams signed up for this event. I'm still deciding on if I should use my Sagat or Ken. (gosh I HATE ken.... but I'm beating ppl with him. lol)1) Mellow Japanese BJ
2) Team Betty
3) E2K Gaming (Engage 2 Kill)
4) Team D.A.M
5) Dream Team
6) Bloodmaster, Sick_Revolver & friend
7) Chonez & Co.
8) Sennin & Co.
9)
10) Team Black Money
11) Wittle Luigi & friends
12) Team C-Man
13) Team Cobras
14) Team Kush
15) StarSlay3r & Co.
16) Team Xblades
17) Team R.U.N.
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Saturday, August 8th
American Guru/Howie's Game Shack "Pros vs Joes day with StarSlay3r"
American Guru and myself are teaming up with Howies Game Shack in So Cal to help raise money to help the homeless in Southern California. Come in on Saturday for the meet and greet and to vs me in Street Fighter IV to help a great cause. Prizes will be awarded to those who beat me. (Prizes have not yet been disclosed) American Guru is doing several Pros vs Joes events at Howies Gameshack so expect to see other pros like Mike Ross (the REAL SF pro) there as well in the future.This will be my first time at Howie's Game shack... but I'm told this place is EPIC. You can tell from the pics that this place is no joke. Hope to see you there!
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Friday, September 4th-6th
Penny Arcade Expo
Working at PAX last year for Activision was a ton of fun, but this year I won't be making an appearance as Judy Nails but there WILL be a contest where you can attempt to beat me at Guitar Hero, Street Fighter 4, Halo or COD. The exact games I will be playing is still TBD at this time but you can find me at the Tritton Technologies booth talking about their great products and taking on challengers!
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September 11-13
WCG Pan American Championships
The World Cyber Games have given 3 of the 12 WCG Ultimate Gamers a trip to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico to compete on Team USA for Guitar Hero: World Tour and Halo 3 against 13 other countries and 50 gamers for the chance to take home the gold medal and $12,000. I will be there along with Robert 
"Prod1gy X" Paz and Mark "applesauce" Smith for the event and am looking forward to meeting up with all the pros from 13 different countries and visiting Mexico for my first time. While I no longer play Guitar Hero: World Tour much anymore I am still pretty excited for the event and that WCG gave me and the guys this opportunity to compete. I have to go out and buy a new guitar since all of my guitars are now not in "tournament condition" with problems ranging from buttons cutting out to star power activating on their own so I think I'm actually going to buy my first guitar hero 4 guitar. *cringes* Well either that or I'll hope that Red Octane will fly me out to San Jose again and just GIVE me some guitars like they did last time, but I'm not really counting on that one again! lol I also hear that Geoff "InControl" may be there for StarCraft. (I hope this is true!)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 25-27th
WCG US National Finals
It is TIME! The 12 Ultimate Gamers have been summoned to have their reunion at the WCG US National Finals in New York. Most of the gamers will be competing for the games that they specialize in at the event. I know Mark and Rob will be doing Halo, Geoff will be playing Starcraft and I will be playing Guitar Hero and I believe Jamal said he's playing Virtua Fighter 5. I'm not sure what the other gamers will be doing but I'm just glad that I will get to see my friends again and have a chance to hang out at National Finals again. Last year National Finals were here in LA so it was close and I won some nice prizes competing in Guitar Hero 3 and 4 in the meantime while watching. :D --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OTHER....
So many events! I'll also be attending QuakeCon this year as well as several other events around the U.S. There is also one top secret event still in the planning stages. A major network has become involved as well as a major organization and they have summoned the top rhythm gamers to come together for this amazing event. We will be coming together to help Childs Play and do something that will be SO big that it will be forever recorded in history. :D This event is still in the process of being worked on so I can't reveal any details... all I can say is that this is something you will DEFINITELY want to see and you will probably be talking about it for a long time after! All I can say is... keep checking back because the day I am able to tell you all the details is the day you'll be putting countdown timers on your myspace pages til the day it happens! ;)Make sure to check StarSlay3r.com and my myspace for new additions as well as this blog of course!
Well I get a ton of "WHO DO YOU USE?" questions for all the games I play so I thought I'd break it down for you. (Still adding characters as the day goes on)
BlazBlue
Noel Vermillion
Guitar Hero Series:
Judy Nails (or custom character "Star")
Soul Calibur 2:
Kilik (in SC4 I use a custom female that has Kilik's moves)
TEKKEN 5 & 6:
Christie Montero
STREET FIGHTER 4:
Sagat
Virtua Fighter 5:
Pai Chan
Burnout Revenge:
Nixon Special
Well J!NX is slowly posting more and more about the event so here's an update for what you missed out on!
From Jinx.com:
J!NX Photo Shoot Party Wrap-up
The first bi-annual J!NX Photo Shoot party was a huge success and we'd like to thank everyone that joined us. The photos turned out amazing, games were played, drinks were consumed, plastic instruments were jammed, and overall we had a blast. If you pay attention you might see the amazing and beautiful Jessica Chobot, TRS's Alex Albrecht and Dan Trachtenberg, Empire Arcadia's Prod1gy X, TriForce, and Justin "Marvelous" Wong, along with other professional gamers Ciji "StarSlay3r" Thornton and Mike Ross. Thanks to all the minions that made it out! Extra props to Mike G, Nak and her wonderful boyfriend, She, Kaybi and Tracy P for all their help and support. Hats off to the Bui Brothers for creating this awesome video. Keep an eye out for the upcoming J!NX Fall '09 IDentity line launching in early August. Enjoy!
*Yes they spelled my name wrong on their website so I fixed it on here.
Here's a video they posted.
Fun times! I'll let you know if I get more photos or info about this. :D Thanks again to J!NX for everything!
