CEVO Articles

This post was spurred by a comic by Tim Absath, who is the creator of the Ctrl-Al-Del Comic.

What is it about the internet and forums that seems to draw so much negativity? Why is it that so very few posts have complete sentences, and instead we have piles upon piles of “junk” posts of “Looloololol” or “rofl,n00b!” What type of contribution do these individuals bring to eSports? Who are these people? I’d like to share my ideas as to why so many forums, especially gaming forums, are this way.

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After the struggles with having TF2 update through steam (a rant which I won’t go through here) I’ve finally been able to compile a quick strategy guide for the Soldier. Hopefully this will help those who seem helpless as a soldier.

Basic Strategy - Play Offensively

I don’t mean to offend every person on the server with e-Thuggery, but play forward and on the offensive. Even if your team is on the defensive, a soldier should play more forward that back. Especially on maps like 2fort or Well, please play aggressively and try to push the enemy back. Most common cause of not playing offensively is getting owned in the face. But with the soldier’s 200 HP, how is it possible to get owned in the face?

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Now that Team Fortress 2 has been released I’ve had the opportunity to play quite a lot for the past few days. I’ve been very impressed by just how well this game has been designed, and all the strategy behind it. I’d like to openly discuss different character classes and strategies used for them. I’d like to kick of with my #2 favorite class, the Sniper.

First of all, its important to understand that the Sniper is not a well rounded class. It has very distinct strengths and weaknesses. However, I’ve seen time after time people who have no clue on how to use the sniper effectively.

In pubs, many times a sniper will hang back from the fight and just sit around to pick off kills. Other times, a sniper may rack up serious kills and lead his team, only to lose every time. Why? To be an effective sniper you need to position and focus on trying to kill the right types of enemies.

I’d say the primary focus of the sniper is this: Kill Medics, Heavies, Engineers, and Structures. If anything else crosses your path, kill it, but don’t focus on Soldiers and Scouts when there are Heavies with Medics.

Why?

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What makes a good strat? What makes a great strat caller? After speaking with several professional and amateur players I wanted to venture my ideas on what makes a good strat caller. Maybe I’m “totally off my rocker” and I’m way off in left field; or perhaps I am dead on. Either way I’d like to explore and get some feedback from the community on the topic of calling strats.

First of all, what is an effective strat? While the question may seem odd to ask, it is important for us to understand the definition. I think a good definition transforms a strat from being “3 go here and 2 go there…” to a powerful strategy. So here is my personal definition for what is a good strat in a competitive video gaming:

A strat is a clear plan of action with a specific purpose of creating and maximizing opportunities to gain and/or maintain the advantage.

Let’s break that down into two parts: First, a good strat is a clear plan of action. It is clear in the sense that the end goal and secondary “back-up” plans are in place. This means players know their parts and know what to do in case things change. This is especially important with more risky/aggressive strats, because if you wrongly predict your opponents’ moves, the seconds transitioning from Plan A to Plan B can make the difference between winning and losing. A well planned strat has zero confusion as to different possibilities. Many times I’ve seen a Plan B executed just as well as a Plan A due to proper preparation. Other times I’ve seen a team just fall apart because one thing went wrong and left them in confusion.

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Haven’t you ever played a game, and thought that it would be the most amazing job to make that game? The other day I ran into a good friend from high school. He was working at a local GameStop and we began talking. We talked about what we were doing since high school, and we got on the topic of jobs. He told me he always wanted to work with video games because he loved them. However, his hopes and aspirations of working with video games was limited to working at GameStop as a clerk.

He called me lucky that I had a job that allowed me to work with games. I thought to myself that there has to be more job opportunities waiting for people, they just don’t know where/how to look. Last time I checked, career day was full of doctors, laywers, accountants, cops, engineers, musicians, software developers… but not once did I have a guy who worked with video games. Thats when I decided that information for working within the video gaming community was not common knowledge, and I knew many of our viewers would benefit from this knowledge.

I contacted Kathy Gehrig at Valve Software, the makers of games like Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Steam, etc. She was more than happy to answer a few questions for us that would hopefully help out future game developers, or just someone who would like a more traditional job inside the gaming industry.

We’d like to thank Kathy for taking time out of her super busy schedule to talk with us!

Justin: Kathy, could you give us little background on you, your job, and how you came to be at your position at Valve?

Kathy: My path here doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. I have a BA in Music. I worked in the IT department at a law firm for a number of years – nothing in my background translates well to the industry. A collegue of mine (he’s actually the rhythm guitarist in my band) left the firm we were working for and a couple of weeks later I had an interview. Valve’s philosophy is that you create an environment of smart, talented, creative people and give them the tools to make amazing products. Pretty simple really.

Justin: What different type of jobs and careers are available at Valve and in the gaming industry in general? Is there a large variety of careers available or are they all very similar?

Kathy: Yes, even at a relatively small company like Valve (we have 143 people working here presently), there is a good cross section of careers represented – animators, artists, programmers, level designers, support techs, IT, marketing, web design, UI design, UX design – etc. And, each of those disciplines has different areas for people to specialize.

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These last few days I’ve spent wondering some “bottlenecks” for eSports and competitive gaming. To give some background, I have competed at a state level in High School swimming and water polo as a player, and later in life I was a Swimming Coach for a High School team that had a good amount of success. I’ve thought about similarities and differences between the eSports and Swimming/Water Polo, and where they stand. I constantly come back to the same question and one very large difference between professional gaming and other sports: where are the coaches?

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