DNC and Quake, if I may...

meglome · 08-09-2002 5:24pm #1

I was pretty stunned when I read all this stuff about how DNC wouldn't support Irish Quake, and how basically we had let the Irish Quake scene down.

The amazing this is we NEVER EVER promised the Irish Quake scene anything. Even though we did bring over a Quake team to the CPL in London.

The really strange thing is that Nethouse pulled out of the CPL and mindphuck resigned from the CPL. As I understand it, both for the same reason, that DNC was given the right to run the Counter-Strike qualifiers for the CPL. Personally I like the Nethouse guys but we were given the opportunity to run the CS side of things, which Nethouse hadn't, and we took it... very simple business decision. I have no idea how we then become responsible for the downfall of Irish Quake. We are a small company we do what we can when we can.

Basically I'd like to know how Nethouse choosing to quit and mindphuck choosing to quit is our fault?, feel free to explain it to me. The CPL makes their choice, we went with it and it was their choice to make. All this talk about how we 'muscled' in is complete rubbish.

It is blatantly obvious to me that most of the criticism we have received comes from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Have you guys any idea how much we have spent on gamers over the last two years. My estimate is 25-30 thousand euro. I could be looking at that in my bank account right now, instead I listening to abuse for it.

It is too late to send any Irish team, any Irish team to the WCG, end of story. Not something I'm happy about but that's the way it is.

If anyone has any specific questions or complaints they can send them directly to me and I'll respond.

Illkillya · 08-09-2002 6:15pm

I was expecting a Q3 WCG qualifier in Ireland, so that I would be eligible to play in the WCG if I happened to be in Korea at the time (of course, I would have come 1st in the qualifiers).

Are the hosts of the WCG qualifiers obliged to pay for the team to go over? If this is the case, then I would complain to the WCG organisation. Maybe the players could have got sponsorship from somewhere else. As I understand it - DNC took responsibility to host the qualifiers. Why didnt' this happen? Now even if I had a sponsor I wouldn't be eligible to go to WCG. This is unfair on the Irish gamers, who were organising a qualifier (through Dardoz) and were told that it was sorted (by DNC) then in the end there was no qualifiers.

meglome · 08-09-2002 6:59pm

The qualifying centres have to pay to send people to Korea

Ok then... let's say we want to go to Korea in November
Dublin - London Heathrow say €90 each (including trains) return Ryanair
so for 15 people €1350

London - Seoul €1782 each with Korean Air
for 15 that's €26730

so total Price to fly €28,080

that's even without thinking about hotels.

How easy, no matter how keen we all are, do you think it would to raise 30-40 thousand euro for this trip in Ireland.

Good intentions mean nothing and that sort of hard cash for computer games is nearly impossible to get in Ireland. We haven't given up trying but it won't be this year.

Vincent · 08-09-2002 9:26pm

who said you had to send 15? you could send a cs team and 1 or 2 q3 players, 2 if you want to have a team representing ireland in the 2v2 competition, thats 6-7 ppl alot cheaper than 15. Thats all ill say about the situation since i know sweet f all about it.

DeVore · 08-09-2002 11:06pm

6-7 people is still 15,000 quid.

I'm just going to sit back and watch this unseemly squabble and those of you who know why will understand.

DeV.

Bunny · 08-09-2002 11:42pm

Ive come to the conclusion that Ireland is **** for everything

meglome · 09-09-2002 12:26am

Originally posted by Bunny
Ive come to the conclusion that Ireland is **** for everything

Nah it's just that we live in a small under populated country with little or no corporate acceptance of computer gaming. This is changing, very slowly but we have a long way to go yet.

And Vincent you can't just bring a few Quake players and ignore the rest of the gaming community, which Quake in not necessarily the biggest part of anymore. It really needs to be all or nothing, or near enough.

All I'm saying really is that we can't blame DNC or Nethouse or any small company on the fact that corporate Ireland has no understanding of, or interest in, computer games.

dardoz · 09-09-2002 9:40am

glad to finally be enlightened on the whole matter Gary. I take it the whole thing fell through ecause of sponsorship? Did you go ahead with the press conference etc?

Vincent · 09-09-2002 1:21pm

i said bring 5 cs players ie dnc and 1 or 2 q3 players, thats hardly bringing a few quake players and ignorning the rest of the community.

Wolf · 09-09-2002 1:43pm

Let us all take our hats off to all the people involved in making anything in the way of the real comptetion gaming possible. Both DNC and Nethouse have bust there balls without help or backing from big companies to the same degree that the places in England have had.

We should be thanking our blessed contten socks that there is a gaming scene at all. Instaed of bitching at what they havent done lets thank them for what they have done.

To the Quake player all I can say is yes it is unfair that you have to take second place to the CS gamers. However, life is unfair and CS is more popular and more marketable and therefore quake will FOR THE TIME BEEN have to take a back seat.

Again many thanks to all the hard work of those tring to make something of the Irish gaming scene so far job well done

Illkillya · 09-09-2002 4:06pm

Originally posted by DeVore
6-7 people is still 15,000 quid.

I'm just going to sit back and watch this unseemly squabble and those of you who know why will understand.

DeV.

Where is the unseemly squabble? My question was a fair question about the way WCG is run, and I got a straight answer from meglome. Vin's question was a fair question about the way Irish qualifiers could be run. I think meglome misunderstood both of our posts a bit but that doesn't mean this is unseemly squabble.

Illkillya · 09-09-2002 4:07pm

double post

DeVore · 09-09-2002 4:13pm

Originally posted by Illkillya

Where is the unseemly squabble? My question was a fair question about the way WCG is run, and I got a straight answer from meglome. Vin's question was a fair question about the way Irish qualifiers could be run. I think meglome misunderstood both of our posts a bit but that doesn't mean this is unseemly squabble.

Sorry, this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of squabbling. If you arent part of that and are just asking then apologies.
This has been festering since the London CPL and blew up again on quake.ie only a few days ago.

DeV.

meglome · 09-09-2002 5:40pm

I didn't misunderstand your post at all. What I'm saying is that we won't half do it. Either we can run the qualifiers and raise the cash or we can't. I had have harsh experience of running games competitions that haven't gone fully to plan and it isn't funny when you're getting serious abuse for it. So we do it right or we don't do it, simple as that. Not what the gamers want to hear but I for one refuse to preside over a ****up.

Illkillya · 09-09-2002 6:27pm

Originally posted by meglome
I didn't misunderstand your post at all. What I'm saying is that we won't half do it. Either we can run the qualifiers and raise the cash or we can't. I had have harsh experience of running games competitions that haven't gone fully to plan and it isn't funny when you're getting serious abuse for it. So we do it right or we don't do it, simple as that. Not what the gamers want to hear but I for one refuse to preside over a ****up.

meglome, what the gamers want to hear is straight answers to their questions. I thought thats what this thread was for? Neither me nor Vin have accused DNC of anything, but your tone is hostile, and theres no need for such drama.

You must have misunderstood our questions, because your answers were very unclear. All I wanted to know was "The qualifying centres have to pay to send people to Korea". Vin asked a good question, is it really necessary to pay to send the full 15 people? Since the UK qualifiers are only sending 10 people if I understand this quote off their site properly "The 10 winners of this National tournament will be flown all-expenses-paid to South Korea", I presume this isn't the case. That would mean your post is misleading. But Vin didn't get an answer to his question either.

meglome · 09-09-2002 11:38pm

Actually I can honestly say I wasn't being hostile, sorry if I sounded that way. Just trying to get to the point really.

I thought your questions had been answered,

quote:

Originally posted by DeVore
6-7 people is still 15,000 quid.

DeV.

plus hotels...

quote:

Originally posted by meglome

The qualifying centres have to pay to send people to Korea

Ok then... let's say we want to go to Korea in November
Dublin - London Heathrow say €90 each (including trains) return Ryanair
so for 15 people €1350

London - Seoul €1782 each with Korean Air
for 15 that's €26730

so total Price to fly €28,080

The first line of my second post answers your other question. So as I said I didn't misunderstand your posts at all.

The thing is we wanted to bring as many as possible but if all you can bring is 1 or 2 it's not worth doing imho, who do you pick for starters. CS for instance is still one of the big games and it's a team of five.

Illkillya · 10-09-2002 12:37am

ok thats clear now, ta

po0k · 10-09-2002 3:16pm

One would imagine that Intel would sponsor it to some degree, having their large profile in Ireland.

I too know sweet fnck all about this.
Is there an agreement that the CPL's are AMD only affairs?

meglome · 10-09-2002 3:35pm

One of the biggest problems is that a lot of the marketing people for these big companies are based in the UK. A company like Intel may have 5,000 people working for them in Ireland but they only have one marketing person for Ireland (UK based).

Wolf · 10-09-2002 4:02pm

Originally posted by meglome

quote:

Originally posted by meglome

The qualifying centres have to pay to send people to Korea

Ok then... let's say we want to go to Korea in November
Dublin - London Heathrow say €90 each (including trains) return Ryanair
so for 15 people €1350

London - Seoul €1782 each with Korean Air
for 15 that's €26730

so total Price to fly €28,080

HMMMMM hey I know lets DRIVE over, in a lorry containers!
sorted

DaSilva · 11-09-2002 11:49am

I don't know all the info about this but as far as i can tell I think the problem is....

DNC is the WCG (team picker ppl) and although you never promised the Quake scene anything I think some people are annoyed at the fact that you control what goes on and are willing to stand by not sending anyone (which we can understand due to costs) and Quakers not having any other option to go.

So, in simple terms only DNC have ability to send ppl to WCG and they arent so now no-one can go.

Disclamer: I don't know much about the problem atm and so what i just typed could be total rubish but thats what i *think* is the problem, if im totaly wrong ignore/flame as appropriate

meglome · 11-09-2002 3:39pm

Originally posted by DaSilva
I don't know all the info about this but as far as i can tell I think the problem is....

DNC is the WCG (team picker ppl) and although you never promised the Quake scene anything I think some people are annoyed at the fact that you control what goes on and are willing to stand by not sending anyone (which we can understand due to costs) and Quakers not having any other option to go.

So, in simple terms only DNC have ability to send ppl to WCG and they arent so now no-one can go.

Not that simple....

You register as the qualifying centre, you then HAVE to run qualifiers, you send ONLY the winners. You are then expected to send people over to Korea. And not just 2-3 people. 7 or 8 may be acceptable but this is still a huge amount of cash, which in the time we had available we didn't/couldn't raise.

In fact NO ONE offered to pay anything, and you can't exactly have a whip round for 20 grand. To be honest I think it will happen but it is painfully slow.

So we can't run it on the basis that the winners of the qualifiers will happen to have 3 or 4 thousand euro handy to send themselves. And realistically will get beaten pretty quickly in such heavy competition. Not having a go at anyone but at the CPL's the Irish have not faired well so it the only evidence I have to go on.

It’s very easy for people to shout about this now but unless we can find companies willing to hand over large sums of money for this we could be in the same position next year. Although next year I will be in a position to pay for some of this out of my own pocket, this is how committed I am to this.

Wolf · 11-09-2002 3:48pm

What is half the problem is recognition if we had a top erou clan then sponership would be much easier.

DaSilva · 11-09-2002 4:11pm

Originally posted by [-UK-]Wolf
What is half the problem is recognition if we had a top erou clan then sponership would be much easier.

Wolf afaik there are many top irish clans around :P in Counter-Strike you have .dNC. and in Unreal Tournament you have Dardoz and hmmm i dont know anymore :P

Originally posted by meglome
Although next year I will be in a position to pay for some of this out of my own pocket, this is how committed I am to this.

I dont think that should be neccesary for anyone, but its nice to know you care

. Ohh and appologies if what i said wasn't true coz tbh i dont know much about it all :X

Wolf · 11-09-2002 4:17pm

Originally posted by DaSilva

Wolf afaik there are many top irish clans around :P in Counter-Strike you have .dNC. and in Unreal Tournament you have Dardoz and hmmm i dont know anymore :P

Soz i meant Quake clans and also raising the general view of Irish gaming. If we got Acid back together for a year im sufe we could have a class team to send. After all Ireland boasts one of the best ever Quake players (Kuppa). But the real question is is there the interest in Quake enough any more that you can sell it to the big companies Im not sure that there is and if it is there its up to the gamers to make that know and push the regognition up thats not DNC or Nethouses responsibilty

Bunny · 19-09-2002 5:43pm

I don't know why there is any argument about this. There is absolutely no point in sending any quake3 players to the WCG. They wouldn't win any games let alone get past the first round.

CS is different, there is actually a decent team with some chance of doing well.

If we'd had broadband a few years back then the situation would be different.

Shad0r · 02-10-2002 1:32am

Apologies for my tardy reply to this but I'd like to clear some stuff up. This is the last post I plan to make on this subject on these boards as its all old news now.

The really strange thing is that Nethouse pulled out of the CPL and mindphuck resigned from the CPL. As I understand it, both for the same reason, that DNC was given the right to run the Counter-Strike qualifiers for the CPL.

We felt at the time that you were wrongly given the right as those rights were supposed to belong to us. We had already acted in good faith for one qualifier and spent alot of non refundable money on it due to a very short deadline on the basis that we would have opportunity to recliam some of this on subsequent qualifiers through sponsorship etc. We had an agreement to host both Q3 and CS qualifiers. We didnt host CS the first time around because Q3 was the main game at the CPL and this was the first event of this nature in the country at that time and we wanted to feel it out. We had EVERY intention of running CS quals thereafter

Personally I like the Nethouse guys but we were given the opportunity to run the CS side of things, which Nethouse hadn't, and we took it... very simple business decision.

I agree, very sensible business decision. Its a pity at the CPL the left hand didnt know what the right hand was doing. There is no anomosity towards DNC at our camp. Our problem always lay with the CPL and their fvck up. On a personal note I admire alot of the decisions you've made Gary with regards to gaming..

Basically I'd like to know how Nethouse choosing to quit and mindphuck choosing to quit is our fault?, feel free to explain it to me. The CPL makes their choice, we went with it and it was their choice to make. All this talk about how we 'muscled' in is complete rubbish.

Its not your fault outside of the fact that we were prepared to host both qualifiers but not just one and DNC were only prepared to host CS. The CPL did make their choice and unfortunatly it was a choice that meant that they wouldnt stand over any agreements that we had previously made.

Its a pity that things turned out the way they did but if anyone is looking to lay blame in my opinion on the way things are in relation to the CPL in ireland then the CPL themselves are the only people to blame.

meglome · 16-10-2002 4:47am

Sorry Neil just saw your reply now... was I late or what.

Thanks for that...

...just to make this clear we have no issue with anyone from Nethouse. In fact quite the opposite, we get on very well with all the lads over there(I know you already know this but worth saying all the same). I just had a major problem with the way things were being twisted.

I'll be the first to say that Nethouse did a lot for Irish gamers over the years and that is something I think we all (as gamers) appreciate.

You still stuck in Cork? (I'll check back in a couple of weeks for the reply

)

DNC and Quake, if I may...

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