Just around two weeks ago in Poland new gaming tournament took place. Luckily, I was one of the administrators, I did mostly editors stuff there. Now, I have much more time, so I can write some kind of memoirs from this event. Enjoy!
Preparation to KODE5 Qualifications started around two, maybe three months ago. At the beginning, founders had to prepare online tournament to determine the qualifiers. It was necessary to select 12 players from Warcraft III and 12 teams from Counter Strike platform. Programmers had a colossal work to do with tournament script, but it was ready just a few days before deadline. Everything seemed to be fine and no one expected any problems, but as it usually happens in life, problems occur in last moment, just 24 hours before start. Something was wrong. Luckily our programmers patched up some bugs and we were able to make this qualification running.
First three phases of qualifications were done without any additional problems and finally we could start preparing the offline finals. After bitter fights, a lot of emotions and 'blood' we finally selected 12 Warcraft III players, which were able to participate in Grand Final in Warsaw. The online qualifications ended but the biggest task still upon us. To make offline finals worthy KODE5 mark.
I've arrived 2 days before deadline ended with a lot enthusiasm and willingness to work. My first task was to find Blue City in Warsaw. Luckily again, World Cyber Games Grand Finals 2007 was held there, so I had no problems with finding it. When I entered into the building, my enthusiasm felt down. As I expected a lot of work had to be done. 'It is nothing'- I told to myself and started, together with rest of our crew, the metamorphosis of Expo Hall into gaming center.
First of all we had to plan arrangement of tables, chairs and gaming stands. We decided to split hall into two stages, the main stage - for music bands, and competitions place for guests was in the middle. In this case we lost lan network conception a little, but it was a option, because this two platforms can collide between each other. Next step was to connect computers, but it was around 11:00 pm, so we decided to end it early. Our crew went to home, to get some rest.
Next day started around 8:00 am. We ate something and of course had coffee, which gave us necessary energy! We packed up, washed and dressed up and we were ready to reach our destiny - Blue City. We have arrived there around 9:30 am. We had to work very fast from the beginning, but of course safely. Connecting computers, preparing network and mass of work with standings – it was our job. We had a lot of luck, because rest of our crew came to help, so we were able to end everything at time. Only Counter Strike administrators had some problems, but reason of that was simple: they had to prepare around 50 computers, while Warcraft III and standings for Guests- SingStar, Guitar Hero, CoD4, F.E.A.R. took 'only' 30. Anyways we went sleep around 1:30 am.
We had a lot of work from early morning. Saturday was first day of the competition. I, my co-worker and friend- JoeBlack had to deal with players’ registration. This task took us about 2 hours: from 8:30 to 10:30 am. At this point we were ready to start whole tournament. First game began, while first guests, and probably fans too, came into Blue City. From minute to minute Expo Hall was filling up with a lot of people. Games were played without any problems and we ended first day of this tournament without any problems. Meanwhile players were playing, music bands were singing; we had a lot of competitions for fans and guests. Atmosphere was very peaceful. I did not expect that, because few times, when I was at lan tournaments, atmosphere was crushed by immature people. In this case KODE5 Poland was an exception and a great example for other Polish events. At 10:00 pm we were able to go to hotel to take a breather. I counted that day as a good one.
On Sunday we could be a little later, because next phase of tournament was planned at
We came at 9:00 am to check computers etc. Luckily nothing was wrong. All PCs were ok, network was working correctly. First players arrived at 10 am, so we started tournament a little bit earlier. First games in Warcraft III and Counter Strike weren’t surprising. Players, which “had to win”, won their matches without any bigger problems. From hour to hour we were waiting for final matches on both platforms. Around 3 pm we knew who will fight in Warcraft III for ticket to Moscow to participate in global finals. Tomasz Pilipiuk, better known as 'TeRRoR' and Przemys³aw 'Paladyn' Wadoñ were two finalists and had to face each other in order to determine the winner. Match between TeRRoR and Paladyn ended with 3-1 score for Tomasz. Third place went into Piotr Michalski- sLh hands. Time came for Counter Strike finals to be played. After very exciting match, MYM won with Fx Team winning also ticket to Moscow, where they will be representing Poland together with TeRRoR as Warcraft III player.
Everyone was expecting that those players will win, so we had no surprises. After prize ceremony, there were no fans or guests, because of late time, we had to pack up computers etc. and after 10:00 pm we went to a club, to have some after party.
In conclusion I can say that this event adds some much needed freshness into polish E-sports community. New tournaments are always criticized a lot by scene experts, but in my opinion it was good anyways. Some things went wrong, some went excellent. We can expect that founders will do everything to provide next tournament even better. See you again next year! |
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Mike 'Frozenik' Nowakowski
Poland
