Just another one of those questions that have been on my mind. I want to know what its like to be in a competitive game competition and if its worth it. Theres no way ill even be in 1 because they look hard and im a casual gamer.
I been competing in fighting game tournaments for over a decade. Its a blast, even if you suck. The fighting game community is one of the most welcoming competitive environments I’ve ever been apart of. 10/10, highly recommend.
This. The great thing about fighting games is that today is one of the best times to join: there’s lots of online activity, long past the days in which you needed a local tournament to actually play. You will find a passionate player about literally any fighting game on earth, no matter if it’s an indie title (I suggest Punch Planet!) or an old KOF classic. Hell, good rollback implementation even makes playing on (decent) wi-fi actually acceptable.
I almost qualified for the World Cyber Games LAN event.
I’ve competed on stage in a rural village in F-29 Retaliatory head2head tournament (over serial cable) around 1993. I’ve gotten to grab first place in a Bo3 single elimination format, defeating my nemesis, Lil’ Cloud, in the finals. I took home a mobo for a 286 (but no cpu, PC case, peripherals or anything else). For a bonus prize, they’ve pitted me against the final final boss, the IT admin from the neighbouring town. I’ve beaten him 4:1 in a Bo7, and my reward was an AdLib card. I did end up using this one in a 386 SX build that my dad bought me a couple months later.
Despite being on stage, I do not remember having any stage fright at all. I remember the crowd around us, but everything got drowned out by the sound blasters screeching the noise into my ears through some cheapo cans. I just remember being baffled that after having my toughest final against Lil’ Cloud, I suddenly have another challenger I have to sit down against.Around '97 I got sucked in by Quake II in PC cafes, mostly playing FFAs on LAN. However the Q2 scene gradually moved on to QuakeWorld, Quake 3 Arena and Counter Strike. Since my PC was always lagging behind in performance, I chose to stick with QuakeWorld, and mostly played in 320x200 software rendering so I could aim for 120Hz + 120 fps vsync as time passed.
Around this time, between 98-2003 there were a couple LANs in and around Budapest that were CPL feeder events, however QuakeWorld has long been dropped from the biggest international events, and was relegated to mostly online tournaments and smaller local LANs only. Despite this, they always allowed QuakeWorld players in and even offered prices for first three places within categories. However the participants gradually declined from 50:50 Q3/QW to 50:40:10 CS/Q3/QW to 75:20:5 CS/Q3/QW by the end.
In the last LAN where they still allowed QW players in, must have been around 2003, I think we had no more than 50 players out of 600+.
I’ve competed, but not on stage, in the 1v1 category, choking due to nervousness around the quarterfinals, dropping to Loser’s Bracker. I did lose my LB match as well, the nerves never recovered. I remember one of my buddies talking over my shoulder, asking me wtf was wrong with me that I’m making all these mistakes. I came out as a sweaty mess from both matches, feeling totally defeated and unable to process why things were going the way they did. It haunts me to this day and gave me flashbacks to it in online competitive play, like WoW’s Arena 2v2/3v3.I also competed in 2v2 at the tournament with my best bud as my partner later that day. The nerves were still pretty bad, but I was relying on my partner’s skill to carry us, along with some clever map selections. It was a Bo5, and we knew that with my nerves shot we had to focus on just one map that had mixed shaft (lightning gun)/rocket launcher (RL) play in order to take the series, as otherwise we could dominate maps that relied on RL only, as predictive spawn lockdowns was our forte, in contrast with raw skill/aim. Basically the moment we won first draw for map selection, we knew we could make it a 3:1 or 3:2 at worst if we selected our least favoured map and won it. I’ve still made a lot of mistakes in heated moments, and we did have to draw out one map by deliberately avoiding respawns near the end of the match in order to deny our opponents a win, but in the end my partner carried us to victory.
While the 2v2 finals were not exactly on stage, they did put a cam on a big screen and we also had a bit of a crowd forming around us. Smoking a light joint an hour before the match did help though. I forgot what we won. I just remember receiving a trophy at the finals ceremony and feeling completely undeserving of it. And then moving out of my parent’s basement and in with my buddy, getting high 24/7 for the next 6 months.As for the question is it even worth it: yes, yes it is. Not when you are older though. At 20+ you are already aged out, and the commitment required is tremendous just to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Better stick to turn based strategy.
I played in a UT2004 tournament at SCALE or LinuxWorld back in the day. I got 2nd or third place and won a Sun backpack and some other swag. First place was a whole ass Sun computer. I played a few Starcraft 2 tournaments but I hate competing in it. It’s a lot of waiting, playing on far servers with worse ping, and playing against much better people a lot of the time.
A friend and I entered a local Magic the Gathering tournament. I had just taught him how to play, and he had picked up a few cards of his own and talked me into giving it a shot.
I sat down across from my opponent and watched him peel the plastic off of a deck that he just bought, and pummeled me with a pre built elf synergy deck.
My friend got stuck in a neverending healing token deck. He couldn’t do enough damage to break all the healers, and the healer didn’t have anything strong enough to get past his defenses, they just sat there dealing and healing infinite damage for what felt like forever.
I was pretty much over the game by the end of the day.
I played in a Halo 2 tournament at my local theater when I was a kid. Got second place. Won a wristband 👍
Went to a local smash tournament with my friends a while ago now and it became apparent to me that I was really good among my friends, but the worst at a tournament lmao.
That’s definitely how it goes. So many of the people that show up start that way - “I can beat all my friends, I bet I’ll do pretty good in tournaments.” then “Oh no”.
But everybody’s gotta start somewhere.
To answer the question I think you are asking: No, I’ve never done any of the modern game competitions or leagues. I am not nearly good enough to compete against anyone who is remotely good enough to compete in gaming competitions. I’m also a completely different gamer these days and prefer to just play more meditative single player games that have bursts of action.
To answer the question in a very literal way: Yes, back in the 80s I made it to the regional finals of the Nintendo World Championships (at the time when the Fred Savage movie The Wizard had just came out). I was up on stage in the central throne chair with the 100ft TV screen behind me projecting my game to 1000s of people in front of me cheering us on. I was roughly 10?? at the time, so I thought I was fucking amazing. I just barely missed out on making it to the next round in some other state because I screwed up placing a long piece in Tetris. I won a hat out of the thing.
I also played in a Tetris tournament at a bar in LA about 15 years ago. I fucking crushed it and won $100.
Summer of 2005. Played one round of CS Source on stage at CPL. We lost.
I participated in a local Unreal Tournament competition and won $3k. Was $75 buy in and I think I got somewhat lucky in my match placement. Was allowed to do this solo at 14 🤣.
Lots of terrible players in my bracket while I watched the best pick each other off on the other half. Took second honestly by sitting back and picking off kills from others engagements 🤷♂️.
I did CAL P on in the CS1.6 era with middling success.
I barely can get high in the mid tier leagues today. Too much specialization, meta, guns, characters, and the playing field is literally thousands of times bigger.
You’ve probably also aged out of it. I never thought it’d happen, but I can feel my hand/eye coordination getting worse over the decades.
It’s well document in Korean pro leagues that APM decreases with age as well.
It’s mostly meta and effort. Your reflexes don’t decline THAT until your 60s. Sure you might not be able to be a top 1% but beyond that it’s mostly just practice and giving fucks lol.
I’m not reading patch notes, I’m playing builds I want and ignoring meta, and I’d rather pop 2 off in the noggin than seek out and practice with better players.
OTOH I’m turning the fastest laps of my life with my auto racing and am chasing a win!
I travel to Combo Breaker every year and enter a whole bunch of games. This year I was able to up my travel budget for both CB and Frosty Faustings. Some of them are games I consider myself decent at, some of them are games I just hop in casually for fun. And then there’s the Mystery Bracket, where every round is something you’ve probably never heard of and the goal is to figure out what’s happening before your opponent does - it’s the highlight every year. Back in 2022, I even TO’d and commentated the side tournament for Puyo Puyo Champions, and I got roped into filling in on commentary for Panel de Pon.
In a double elimination bracket, 25% of players will go 0-2. If this is your first time entering, you should expect to be one of them. And you shouldn’t let that stop you from going to have a good time! Majors are basically conventions that happen to have brackets at them, and that bracket will only be a small fraction of your time all weekend. Get as many casual sets in as you can before/after bracket, check out the arcade room, buy some trinkets with your favorite characters on them from the artist alley, watch finals, go out to dinner with rivals you’d only ever spoken to online before and finally get to meet in person. Oh, and come to the mahjong tables where you’ll find me promoting this strangely unexpected venn diagram intersection.
And that’s just what majors are like. If you have any kind of local FGC, go to your locals! Don’t just sit at home playing ranked, get out of the house and meet people!
100% agree! I used to go to Smash locals on the regular, and it’s so much more welcoming than I thought it would be at first.
There’s no expectation for any skill level, just show up ready to learn and people will mostly encourage you and help.
You don’t have to do massive or big tournaments - go small instead! More fun and way less pressure. I’ve done a few ttrpg tournaments at GenCon and another few at my LFGS. My sister sometimes did small local puzzle tournaments like for KenKen and Sudoku.
Yes. I have. Thank you for asking.
2 things come to mind:
The first thing is that at one point many years ago we participated in Rocket League’s RLCS. Participation was completely open. We were actually doing quite well until we randomly ran into pro players and got completely demolished. It’s kinda humbling to know that even though you’re part of the top ~1% of players, pro players are still in a totally different league and absolutely unbeatable. Their speed and game sense is so much better than that of any mere mortal, it’s like we weren’t even there. We were probably low Grand Champion around the time, and we got beaten like we would beat Gold ranked players. Personally I don’t mind losing like this, it’s a good learning experience and shows you how much is possible.
At uni I also participated in plenty of LAN parties that had random game competitions. Usually they were games that a lot of us didn’t ever play before. We’d usually start playing the game a few hours in advance to get a feel for it. There I’ve found that I’m quite decent at this usually, but that there are definitely a few people who can get quite decent at a game in 2 hours to the point that they challenge people with casual experience with the game. It as always good fun though, and because I tended to put some effort into it I regularly managed to get into the top 3.
I’ve been in a few, but not the big cash prize tournaments they have now. I was in the TF2 studio rumble around `09ish against several game development studios. We made it through 3-4 rounds until we played against Valve, who of course wiped the floor with everyone. Later I joined a competitive team for a game called Guns of Icarus. It was fun at first and we did really well, but over time it became more and more stressful as we focused on winning over having fun. I finally gave it up because the competition eventually took all the fun out of the game. Edit- I just looked it up and the Studio Rumble I participated in happened in '07
What do you mean exactly by “wiped the floor with us”? Even if they are the devs of the game they’re still devs, not pro players. How much better could they be?
Valve was the only team that seemed to have a plan. The matches we played beforehand were sort of like a really good public match. People were taking it seriously, playing well, communicating, and going for objectives, but there was still a lot of “doing your own thing” and not a lot of team strategy. I think most of the studios, including ours, were just in it for the fun and didnt really practice very much beforehand.
I believe we were on gravelpit when we played valve (might have been dustbowl or one of the other western looking maps, this was back in 07 so it’s been a while). The spawn gates were sort of down in a dip in the ground, and on the defenders side where we couldnt see yet, they setup a row of turrets with a row of dispensers behind them. Like a lot of them, probably half the team or more was engineer. When the gates opened, anyone that went down into that little dip was immediately wrecked. Their engineers were running between the rows constantly spamming repairs, and they had pyros spamming flames to catch spies. We almost broke out a couple of times, but in the end never made it out of the spawn area.
Hahaha, that sounds glorious, wish I was there to see it!
The devs are usually pretty good at their games, especially when it’s a passion project and in the earlier years of the game.
Yea this was back in 07, so still the early days off the game. They also had an actual strategy, unlike the rest of us lol. I wrote a little bit more about it in reply to shayeta below if your interested.
Sometimes devs are pretty good at their games. Other times, they bring QA who are typically really good at their games.
But it was a tournament among gaming studios, with Valve being on home turf basically.
It’s like when you had the Blizzard dev smurf the SC2 ladders at a really high level, but the guy regularly lost to the actual Korean pros.
