Duncan “Thorin” Shields, SK’s editor-in-chief, has released an article of epic proportions. Shields puts forth a gargantuan effort to disseminate an extensive amount of information into an attempt to determine the greatest Counter-Strike 1.6 team of all time.

In undertaking the task, Shields distills notable data for use with four critera; these are prestige, competition, dominance, and additional context. From there, the necessary rationalization and logical analysis takes place as each is broken down with the candidates in question.

The candidates are predetermined under somewhat basic aspects that few in eSports can object to. They are as follows:

SK.swe – circa 2003-2004
mTw.dk – circa 2008-2009
fnatic – circa 2009
AGAiN – circa 2006-2009

A small excerpt from the article in question can be seen below:

Prestige

In this context prestige is defined as how important an event is considered to be and the level of status bestowed upon the team who manages to win it. Factors defining the prestige of a tournament include:

The degree of efficiency the organization is known for, the quality of the hardware used, the history of past champions, the players’ opinions and the attention the event receives from the community.

As tournaments and organizations have grown and shrunk over the years the prestige of SK’s achievements may, and perhaps should, seem less daunting in a modern context than they once were. At the time the two CPL seasonal event victories made SK.swe the undisputed best team in the world and their gold medal at the WCG Grand Finals not only added to their personal legacies but helped increase the prestige of the WCG itself as the best team in the world, and history to that point, had become a champion of its event. Winning the CPL European event also helped cement further that SK.swe were the best team in Europe, beating teams along the way who may not have had the financial backing to attend the bigger American CPLs.

To view the article and use the information to draw your own conclusions, click here.

Pro Responses to the 3.3.2 Patch

by Sascha “Yiska” Heinisch

The 3.3.2 patch recently hit the live servers and as always it brought a huge change to the WoW meta game. Despite the prot warrior nerfs, Blizzard surprised everyone with not only the resilience buffs but also with the introduction of an across the board healing nerf by 10% in all PvP situations. On the other hand, shield abilities such as Ice Barrier, Sacred Shield or Holy Shield remain untouched, ultimately buffing these classes. While comps who win games with a limited amount of burst windows like RMP got nerfed in that sense, their shields will still be as effective as large patch. It is extremely hard to predict what the new flavor of the month will be, and what will still be viable as well as what will just simply not be competitive anymore.  

With the ESL Global finals on the horizon, some teams will need to adapt. We asked a couple of pro players what they think of the new patch, both in regards to live servers and the tournament realm. Is their comp nerfed? What are the big winners in 3.3.2?

SK. Inflame (plays DK/Lock/Driud): “Better for sure, but so will TSG.”

H2K.Instance: “In my opinion, warriors and locks are the big winners of the new patch, because the longer the game, the better warriors and locks become. Warriors are also the best scaling class in the game, so the resilience buff favors them more than it hits them, due to the fact that they simply survive longer, but don’t do as less overall damage as other classes. WLD seems the right comp choice, but with the 10% healing nerf, druids take a big hit in comparison to paladins (sacred shield and if paladin got heals through, they most likely healed a target from nothing to full) and with warriors being so dominant in damage right now, I see paladin/lock/warrior being extremely awesome because of the offensive warrior support. Biggest loser is definatelly dk – their single target dmg without ms is a joke, so I don’t see them competing without a warrior or hunter after all.* “

*Referring to live server performence

EG.Azael: “Biggest winner’s class wise, in my opinion, are arms warriors and affliction warlocks and comp wise probably WLD. The Biggest losers are burst reliant classes, mages, destro locks and such as well as feral druids too. Biggest losers comp wise maybe RMP and Wizard cleave? I don’t know, that’s just off the top of my head. I think melee cleave teams will be greatly buffed by it too.”

Dignitas.Kalimist: “Rogues, DKs, Shamans and Paladin are the losers. Winners are affliction warlocks shadow priests.”

Dignitas.Hydra: “With the shields not being effected by the healing nerfs, it could be an RMP buff.”

coL.Black Twixz: “It’s really too early to tell. I dont think any comp will be completely OP cause of the buff nor do I think any comp will be completely crap now. The big losers, however, are prot warriors.”
 
Keep in mind, most of these players didn’t play more than 30 Arena matches yet. Still, it is interesting to see how the opinions differ. With the complex meta game and the different gear sets in WoW, it’s really hard even for the pros to predict what will happen until they have actually tried the the new patch. Every opinion has a point though, but we’ll likely have to wait until the next offline tournament to see who’s right. I guess the Asians will be the first lucky ones to try it out.

Amateur players looking for a chance to rise to the top of competitve Halo 3 will get a chance to strut their stuff in Nashville this coming March, in MLG’s first combine event.

MLG’s Co-Founder, Sundance DiGiovanni, explained the community’s desire for amateur players to prove their worth, and have partnered with Doritos to make it happen.

A combine event will precede the live Pro Circuit events throughout the year, where winning teams will walk away with a coveted Team Pass to that very Pro Circuit event.

An excerpt from the official post can be scene below:

WHO CAN COMPETE: The Combine is an amateur-only competition that is all about putting the spotlight on upcoming talent. No pro players are eligible to compete in the Combine.

COMPETITION FORMAT: Halo 3 4v4 (256 team bracket) and Halo 3 FFA (1,280 player bracket). 4v4 Team Passes include automatic entry to the FFA.

HOW IT WORKS: Fight your way to the top of the heap in an all-amateur tournament. Winners will get awesome prizes, including some cash, free travel and accommodations, as well as a reserved Team Pass for the following Pro Circuit Live Competition. Any competitor that stands out has the chance to be personally evaluated by an MLG Pro.

Source: MLG

Mousesports has recently announced their come back to the WoW Arena. Some people might remember the guild Nihilum who collaborated with mouz both in PvP and PvE.  While the PvE-Squad was one of the most successful teams of their time, their PvP squads were also a strong contender for the top spots.  After half a year without a WoW team they now picked up a new team. With technically the last chance to get their name into WoW for the ESL Global Finals, mousesports recruited the South Korean team Angelref. The lineup consists of the following players:

SeolHjen “Arai” Kim 
Jungmin “goochi” Oh 
ChulMin “Angelref” Bae

They will participate in the upcoming ESL Tapaei event which will be the Asian Championship finals. You can find the official news here. The top 3 will earn themselves a spot in the Global finals at Cebit in Hannover in early March.

The participating teams are:

Button Bashers
mousesports
RoC
SK.Korea
Gaming WoW
Suit Time Alb
DKP WoW
Death Blooms

ESL Taipei will start this Friday at 1:15am EST (7:15 CET) with the match between Button Bashers and mousesports. You can find the entire schedule here.

The VP of AOL is now the president of MLG Online, TechCrunch is reporting.

Ralph Rivera the former Vice-President of AOL Online-Gaming, and AOL Latino has made the move to MLG to run their online experience, which includes product development and digital strategy.

Rivera was the man in-charge at AOL for six years, overseeing all of AOL’s collection of games, he now comes to MLG and Agora Games to help provide them with insight and ideas.

MLG is at an exciting inflection point,” he said. “I’m honored that the company has brought me on to help manage its rapid global growth, as well as to continue to innovate around how MLG Nation experiences the world’s only digital sport.

With the addition of Rivera, MLG has also announced the addition of Doritos and Hot Pockets as advertising partners.

Today, the official groups for the ESL World Championship have been announced. Missing from the team lists are the Asian qualifiers. Once the Asian Championship Finals are complete, they will be added.

Counter-Strike 1.6

Group A	Group B
fnatic mousesports Oxmoze mTw Team EG   Asia 2nd	SK Gaming Roskilde Ravens KerchNET MeetYourMakers compLexity   Asia 1st

World of Warcraft

Group A	Group B
Dignitas x6tence   Asia 2nd   Asia 3rd SK Gaming fnatic	SK-Gaming SK-Gaming   Asia 1st iNNERFiRE compLexity Team EG

Quake Live

Group A	Group B
rapha Chance av3k cooller Stermy   Asia 1st	DaHanG vo0 Cypher strenx fox   Asia 2nd

ESWC just released their new website. This year they have added two more games to the list, Quake live and DotA. DJ Hero will not be played but replaced by Guitar Hero. This year’s pot size has increased from $200k to $213,500.

The ESWC 2010 Grand Finals will be in Disneyland, Paris and the famous entertainment park in the Paris neighborhood.

ESWC 2010 competitors will divide the prize money of $213,500 between the World Champions and their challengers in several tournaments

Counter Strike
Counter Strike Women
Warcraft 3: Frozen throne
Track mania ESWC
Virtual tennis
Need for speed Shift
Street Fighter 4
Fifa 2010
Quake Live
Guitar Hero
DotA

The qualification process will start in January 2010. Games Solution is aiming to gather 32 countries to participate in the ESWC come back.

ESWC

With the release of the Creative WoW Headset’s pending, we sat down with Ryan Schlieper from Creative. The interview breaks down the headset, from cost to specifications. Ryan also addresses the questions regarding the wireless headsets that everyone has been asking.

When are they going to be available?

Pre-Orders for a limited number are up on Amazon.com right now for both the wired and wireless. After that the headsets will hit the street at the beginning of March.

How much do they cost?

US$159.99 for the wireless / US$119 for the wired.

What’s the difference between the wireless and wired models?

There’s no difference between the two models other than the wireless uses wireless tech to send / receive info to your PC or MAC. The feature sets are otherwise identical.

Wait..you just said MAC in that last question. These headsets support the Apple platform as well?
 
Without a doubt. World of Warcraft is very successful on the Apple platform and we didn’t want to leave those playing WoW on a Mac out of the picture. The great thing is for the first time ever we will have feature parity between Mac OSX and Windows platforms. It’s really a big milestone for us as a company and our new THX TruStudio PC tech.

What exactly is THX TruStudio PC?

There’s a LOT to THX TruStudio PC. In short it’s an audio enhancement suite designed for entertainment. It’s a collaborative effort between Creative Labs and THX. The goal was simple. Deliver the fullest audio experience on home computers as possible. Whether it be games, music or movies. In the case of the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft headset the THX Surround is going to blow people away. Along with the usual “around” you placement of sound we have the ability to place sounds above and below you…something that might come in handy if you’re flying around on your Nether Drake in WoW…or in arenas for placing exactly WHERE that vanished Rogue is creeping around. There’s a lot more than just surround as well. Bass enhancement, dialogue enhancement, custom EQ’s…there’s a lot of tweaks you can make to personalize the audio to your tastes.

Is there lag on the wireless headset. Will it get me killed in raids because I didn’t hear my DBM warning until too late?

Absolutely not. Since we’re not using any compression for transmission there’s almost no latency at all. We’ve had pro-gamers using the tech for quite some time now and latency has never been an issue. I think in general…wireless gaming devices are starting to smash the pre-conceived notion that wireless is bad for gaming.

Some people are known to be skeptical of wireless audio devices, most notably because of interference or sound quality issues. How do the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft headsets stack up?

I think people are going to be blown away with the quality of the wireless audio. Being a former DJ and musician I’m pretty biased when it comes to “what sounds good” on my head. The technology we’re using has been refined through several products and really delivers a full audio experience. As the headset is wearing the Sound Blaster brand on it…we absolutely needed to live up to our name and heritage. We really feel like we’re changing the landscape of gaming audio here and making wireless a truly viable solution for casual and hardcore gamers alike. The tech also is very very smart even in a crowded wireless environment. The headset actively scans the environment it’s in and finds interference free areas of the spectrum and latches on to those areas. It then keeps scanning and if it ever picks up any interference or a sign of it changes over to a different portion of the band. All of this is acoustically invisible to the end user…so the result is clear interference free audio while you are gaming. Really advanced stuff that takes wireless audio to the next level.

What about having multiple headsets in the same room? Can you do this?

Absolutely. You can have many headsets in a room since we’re narrowband based. We took this into consideration especially for people that will be playing at tournaments and whatnot. And we also know there’s a lot of couples out there (myself included) that play the game. It just wouldn’t do to have me sporting my headset while the wife had to wear her old ones…although it probably would have been me wearing the old ones and her wearing the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft ones…haha.

And how long will the wireless version work without recharging?

You’re looking at about 8 hours of solid gameplay. But, you can always recharge WHILE the headset is in use as well. So you don’t have to pop it on a charger and wait for a charge. Just grab your charging cable and pop it in.

So what about the interchangeable lens system on the headset? What’s up with that?

Well, sitting at the core of the World of Warcraft fanbase is the Horde and Alliance Rivalry. When we were in the design phases of the headset it was always a goal to make something that would appeal to both sides. One of the coolest things about working with Blizzard is they really LOVE their brand and world they’ve created. And they want to take everything to the next level when it comes to delivering content and products to their fans. So we wanted to make sure we had a way to really allow the user to customize the headset and “declare” their allegiance. So naturally it came down to the root level of Horde vs. Alliance. We then went completely over the top and added RGB customizable lighting to the headset. Just red and blue weren’t going to be enough. The inside joke was we wanted all the pink pony-tailed gnomes to be able to sport glowing pink earcups. And they can with this headset. Again, it’s all about customization. And shortly after launch we’ll be making the class lenses available, and more after that. We’ve got some pretty cool ideas when it comes to this feature in the future.

The headset looks pretty big. Is it heavy? How comfortable is it?

This is actually one of the coolest things for me to watch whenever we show the headset to people. They are always amazed at how light the headset is when they pick it up. We’ve made this headset the ideal MMO gaming headset. Those of us that play WoW know you can play for long periods of time. The headset has to be wearable for that entire period. To make it comfy for extended periods you really have to take a lot into account. How much tension is in the headband? You want to make it tense enough to be fit but loose enough to not clamp someones noggin’. How big are the earpads? Are they comfortable with glasses (YES…I can vouch for that personally)? How heavy are they? Etc. etc. I think we’ve struck a great balance on all these things and created a headset that screams quality but won’t give you a neck cramp halfway through your Icecrown raid.

Anything else to add?

I just wanted to say thanks to all the patient World of Warcraft fans out there that have been waiting patiently for this product to hit the market. We know you’ve been waiting since August to get your hands on them. I think all the technology, design, and touches we’ve added since we displayed the prototypes at Blizzcon are going to prove it was worth the wait. I can’t wait for the community to be wearing these. As WoW players and fans ourselves, we’ve made this headset for all of YOU fellow players and fans. Thanks for the interview and opportunity to talk about the headsets!

After the long awaited re-release of CSPromod, this morning at 10AM pst, 1PM est, Beta 1.04 was released and everyone raced to be among the first players to play the new patch of the game.  If you would like to join this race here is the link to CSPromod’s download section.  Good luck and have fun! 

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