Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, we’d like to announce that Mike “LANDodger” Luxion will now be a regular contributor here at compLexityGaming. We’re certain that Mike’s opinions, editorials and thoughts about eSports will always keep you in the know with his unique brand of intelligent commentary.
Mike’s first article debuts this Friday, but we thought you’d find his take on the recent CEVO-P CS:S controvery very interesting. What controversy? Check this out:
(As always the opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of compLexity Gaming or its parent company.)
January 18, 2009There’s so much absurdity here it’s hard to know where to start, but let’s talk about the two main parties involved.
Every once in a while you come across something that makes you scratch your head and go “what the hell?” Like, for instance, somebody landing an airplane on (in?) a river. I don’t think I have to explain that one, but suffice it to say whenever somebody pulls off a stunt in real life that I can’t even do in Grand Theft Auto, it gives me pause.
Unfortunately, not all those things you stumble across are good. Some of them go from “what the hell” and slowly degenerate into anger, confusion, and disappointment.
This is one of those not-so-good times.
For those of you that don’t religiously check the CAL forums, which seems to be the only place actually “reporting” this besides Insider Esports, there was some controversy surrounding the CEVO-P Source Finals. It was my favorite kind of controversy, too: the one that spawns a nine-page forum thread that slowly saps the reader’s will to live and faith in humanity. (Although now that I think about it, I’m not sure there is any other kind of controversy in eSports.)
Anyway. Before we get any further, let’s emphasize one point. This is the CEVO-P Finals. This isn’t some random match between two amateur teams that have fifteen combined fans. This isn’t practice. It’s the last match of the season and determines, theoretically, the best team from the last ten weeks.
That being said, the situation goes something like this:
1) Cyber Revolution was set to take on the remnants of the Carolina Core (rest in peace) in the Finals. As part of the Finals coverage there was a shoutcast for the best-of-three series.
2) Gosu, another CEVO-P team, and/or Cyber Revolution realized that the shoutcast for the Finals wasn’t on enough of a delay. Rather than connect to SourceTV, the shoutcasters connected directly to the server, and the delay between the broadcast and what was actually happening in the server was small enough that a spectator listening to the shoutcast could send fairly reliable information about player positions to somebody, say, participating in the match.
3) Gosu and Cyber Revolution also happen to share a ventrilo server, and during the match players from Gosu were clearly watching the broadcast and ghosting for their vent-mates. There’s a recording of part of the match, but it doesn’t take long to see how egregious the ghosting is. Rod Blagojevich couldn’t have made it any clearer. For instance, at the beginning of the round and before anybody playing in the server has called the bomb, one player from Gosu says, “They’re just doing the default, bomb’s just sitting in B tunnels again.” Oy.
4) Eventually, word gets back to CEVO about the ghosting and they make a ruling. The match was overturned and Cyber Revolution was removed from the playoffs.
5) After that, things get even stranger. CEVO reversed this decision, instead forcing Cyber Revolution to forfeit one map in the best-of-three and replay the other two maps.
6) Cyber Revolution ends up winning CEVO-P.
For the full article and lots more, visit LANDodger.com
