The Cheonan 2009 eSports Cultural Festival presents ESWC Asia Masters – Starcraft

For the first time, Starcraft will be in an ESWC event. 4 players from around the world will fly to Cheonan City, South Korea to participate in the ESWC Masters. Here's all the information that you’ll need in the qualification process:

There are 2 ways to play in a regional qualifying event. Each regional qualifying event will have a total of 16 players. 14 of these players will be invited to the tournament. The other 2 players will be qualified through an open tournament system.

• ESWC Asia Masters rules

Rules for the ESWC Asia Masters regional qualifying events

- All players must show up at the designated time for the tournament in the ESWC ICCup server channel.

- All players must use the LAN Latency setting as well as the Anti-Hack ICCup Launcher.

- All other 3rd party programs, including but not limited to, map hacks, BWCoach, and disconnection hacks are prohibited. Any illegal use of 3rd party programs will result in immediate disqualification from the tournament.

- Use of allied mines / allied lurkers, or any yet to be discovered bugs is prohibited.

- All players must maintain good manner and fair play.

- All players must save the replay file of every game and give them to tournament administrators.

The tournaments are Best of 3 games, double elimination. The Grand Final match of each qualifier is Best of 5 games, with the winner's bracket winner starting up 1-0 and choosing map 1. The first map in all other rounds will be preset by tournament administrators. The loser of each game will choose the map used in the next game. No map may be used twice in any match. The map pool is as follows:

Destination
Medusa
Colosseum 2
Shin Chupung-Ryeong
Neo Harmony

The newest version of each map will be used.

Any breaking of these rules, or unforeseen events, will be judged by tournament administrators.

• ESWC Asia Masters Press meeting done in English

Artosis was on the scene to do coverage at the ESWC Asia Masters press meeting in Korea, you can watch the video by

Clicking Here.

• ESWC Asia Masters Asia qualifier information

Asia Qualifier

Open Tournament (top 2 qualify): Sunday, March 15th 11:00 AM Beijing time. Channel ESWC on ICCup.

ESWC Qualifier (top 1 goes to ESWC): Day 1 (play until top 3) Saturday, March 21st 11:00 AM Beijing time. Channel ESWC on ICCup.

Day 2 (Loser's bracket final, Grand Final) Sunday, March 22nd 11:00 AM Beijing time.

Click here to register for the Asian qualifier #1

Click here to register for the Asian qualifier #2

• ESWC Asia Masters Europe qualifier information

European Qualifier

Open Tournament 1 (top 1 qualifies): March 23rd @ 18:00 CET, Channel ESWC on ICCup

Open Tournament 2 (top 1 qualifies): March 24th @ 18:00 CET, Channel ESWC on ICCup

ESWC Qualifier (top 1 goes to ESWC): Day 1 (play until top 3) Saturday, March 28th 11:00 CET Channel ESWC on ICCup.

Day 2 (Loser's bracket final, Grand Final) Sunday, March 29th 11:00 CET

Click here to register for the European qualifier #1

Click here to register for the European qualifier #2

• ESWC Asia Masters America qualifier information

Americas Qualifier

Open Tournament 1 (top 1 qualifies): March 30th @ 6:00 PM EST, Channel ESWC on ICCup

Open Tournament 2 (top 1 qualifies): March 31st @ 6:00 PM EST, Channel ESWC on ICCup

ESWC Qualifier (top 1 goes to ESWC): Day 1 (play until top 3) Saturday, April 4th @ 2:00 PM EST

Day 2 (Loser's bracket final, Grand Final) Sunday, April 5th @ 2:00 PM EST

Click here to register for the North & South American qualifier #1

Click here to register for the North & South American qualifier #2

Note: Players from Africa must play in the European Open Tournaments. Players from Australia and New Zealand may choose between the Asia and Americas Open Tournaments, but may not play in both.

Friday, February 27th

We touched on Starcraft 2 right away and the mechanics of the game, MasterOfChaos and his new program, ICCUP’s new season, the result of Idra vs. F91 in Liquibition, Lecaf aka Hwaseung Oz and the real reason why they switched names, Leta vs. Flash in MSL recap, Bisu and his dominance, Hyvaa and his tears, Piano and his recent status, Sea[Shield] and his return to the top, the poor decisions SKT1 made, Savior and his match against Zero, Nada and JangBi’s upcoming match, next week’s video tour inside the STX Soul practice room and also 3 new interviews with their players, and of course more talk about the upcoming Starcraft 2 discussion video.

Friday, March 13th

After a week away from doing the Starcraft Weekly show due to ESWC Asia Masters planning, we’re back with some new fresh stuff, you can read what we cover here: ESWC Asia Masters and all that jazz, PJ and his recent ICCUP rank, multiple Liquibition stuff, a new Starcraft section inside a PC gaming magazine, Winners League updates, KTF and SKT1’s match this Sunday, a ton of MSL coverage, OSL as well, and what we’ll be covering next week. Enjoy~


You can view Episode 6 by Clicking Here.

If you're unable to view it from the original source, you may view also watch it through YouTube, Click Here for part 1 of 2 & Click Here for part 2 of 2.

The R3spect Q3 TDM 4v4 cup will see its Final played this Monday evening. Players from MiEL-GAMiNG will face Team Poland in a best of 3 match. If you wish to lose some ESR money, a bet is already available (bet).

Lineups:

- MiEL-GAMiNG: unity, link1n, spart1e, zyvve, slx, noctis, premo (coach)
- Team Poland: ThrawN, uksz, v3rb, zik, kertaL, tox1c, inz4h, sch, mcz (coach)

Time: 16:30 CDT, 16 March 2009
Admins: Heero-2b & forst3n
Maplist: pro-q3dm6, ospdm5, ospdm6, q3dm14tmp, cpm4, q3dm7

Website: forst3n.own.cz - Brackets - IRC: #r3spect.quake
GTV: games1.olympus.ru:27970

Scheduled: 11:00 CDT, 15 March 2009 to 15:30 CDT, 15 March 2009
Schedule: Passed

ESL will be running a quick cup tomorrow, Sunday 15th March for UT3. Sign-ups are already open, the cup mode is single elimination bo3 and open to 16 players.


Don't forget that UT3 is free this weekend on Steam!

#esl.ut on Quakenet

Now it's official: The upcoming ESL Major Series Season IV will support Starcraft Broodwar again. After the great success of the first season, we've decided to give this great game another chance.
This Season will have 750€ prize money:

1st Place - 450 Euro
2nd Place - 200 Euro
3rd Place - 100 Euro

Of course, we will have like in the last Season a weekly coverage via ESL-TV. So you are able to watch this hot games live (always Mondays at 15:00 CDT)! After the matches, you can download the replays of the other games or watch the VoD again. The shows will be mainly in German.

More info: EMS announcement - Cup Dates

The videogame BAFTA awards for 2008 took place on Tuesday night in London’s West End, where the "best games" and developers in the industry were awarded for their achievements. The over-all winner was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare winning awards in 3 categories: Action & Adventure, Gameplay, Story & Character and also the "GAME Award of 2008" which was a public vote.


Source: HEXUS

VQ3Pickup are running a VQ3 2v2 Nations Cup, each country are allowed to participate with a maximum amount of 3 teams and 3 players+coach in each team. The gameplay of choice is vq3.

All matches will be played on EURO servers.

The mappool will consist of pro-q3dm6, ztn3dm1, ospdm11, pro-q3tourney7, ospdm6/q3dm7. The order of the maps will be decided by a simple cointoss (cv random 2 -> heads/tails), where the winner picks first map etc.

Hopefully we'll get this cup started before May, be sure that you've signed up by then!


Visit #vq3p.cups on irc.quakenet.org pm hazrd or linkoo to sign up.

Update - Site should work properly now.

The Official AGP (Association of Gaming Professionals) Tour Website has been launched by Jarod "Streetrunner" Reisin.

"The AGP Tour is an international series of professional video game tournaments consisting of the best players in the world. Following Quake 3 and its 10 years of history as a pro sport, Id Software’s Quake Live has been released as its successor. It will be featured and focused on by the AGP Tour as a major sport and will be presented live and online as it has always deserved."

To mark the launch the site Joe "nineX" Szymkowicz has interviewed Shane "rapha" Hendrixson, Jeffrey "draven" Debipersad, Aaron Anton "HELL" Jones, Johan "Toxic" Quick, and "Chance" Lacina to get their thoughts on QuakeLive ...


Livia "Liefje" Teenstra discovers if Karl "fooKi" Johansson is coming back for QuakeLive.....

So if Quake Live is played in tournaments, will we see FooKi back on the scene?

Read on to find out the answer to this and many more questions.

Links:
AGP Tour Site
Is Fooki Back for Quake Live?
Quake Live: 5 Questions for 5 Pros
Quake 3 How I Missed Thee!

The Games Mini Video Contest, powered by Dell, was finished yesterday with live announcement of the winners via IPTV broadcaster GameSports.

Update: All Videos are now available for download. So if you want to have those videos in your collection you can download them from own3D.tv. Winners in Quake III:

1st Place - Quake Lessons by c3llux, Hungary - 250 Euro + Dell Mini 9 Netbook
2nd Place - Moment by mccormic, Hungary - 150 Euro
3rd Place - back2oldsql by dKsL, Germany - 100 Euro

You can also take a look at all Quake contest videos.

The Winner and contributions in other categories:

Enemy Territory
Defence of the Ancients (DotA)
Warcraft III
Counter Strike 1.6
Counter Strike: Source

We want to thank everybody who participated and uploaded their creative works for this contest. Thank you!

Stay tuned for the next edition and next generation of the Games Video Contest!

Blizzard Entertainment's 3rd instalment of the Diablo franchise is rumoured to be released this coming Christmas with the online beta multiplayer trial to open on 11th September, 2009.

"It was unveiled on June 28, at the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France. Development on Diablo III began some time in 2005 when Blizzard North was still in operation. Four years is about time for a game release.

Associates working on a Diablo 3 game design have supplied the following information.

The release date for the online beta multiplayer trial version is currently set to:
11th September, 2009

The final version, available for purchase is to be released before Christmas:
24th December, 2009"

Source: kaputik.com

Scheduled: 13:00 CDT, 13 March 2009 to 16:00 CDT, 15 March 2009
Schedule: Passed

Due to last weekends HUGE success Steam is once again offering UT3 as a "FREE weekend of play" so you can try the full game. The free period starts this Friday at 13:00 CDT and ends Sunday at 16:00 CDT.

"Unreal Tournament 3 Black, the fully updated version of UT3 with the Titan Pack, has enjoyed an increase of over 2000% in simultaneous player numbers since its March 5th release and last week's Free Weekend on Steam. In addition, UT3 Black has claimed the number one spot on Steam's bestseller list."

All you need is a free Steam account and you can preload the game today. Additionally the 40% off sale of UT3 has been extended till Sunday 22nd March.

Challenge-TV.com, the age-old demo repository that was started in 2000 by dethkultur, Hoony, DonKing and Agent, has recently undergone a major face lift, update and upgrade. CH-TV is now graciously hosted by endpoint.nu and development is ongoing. Check out the work in progress on challenge-tv.com.

CH-TV caters to demos and replays of all kinds, with an extensive collection from all the Quakes, Enemy Territory, Broodwar and Starcraft, ZDaemon, Warsow, and more. Some of the new additions to the site include a customizable RSS feed and front page game preferences.

Hey CTFers! (And not only CTFers) Not so long ago www.speedcapture.com site was relaunched. It contains almost 4500 (!) fastest demos, recorded in Quake3's mod Defrag on 'Capture the flag' maps. The point is to carry an "enemy" flag to your base as fast as possible using your strafe/trickjumping skills. In my opinion, trying yourself in this new gametype will be interesting for everyone, not just CTF players.

For more detailed information head over to the site www.speedcapture.com.

defrag_1.91.16.zip is the newest version of defrag mod.

Registration is now open for the ESL QuakeLive Spring League and closes at 14:00 CDT, 22 March 2009. Participant sign-ups are unlimited and ESL are using Bo3 system for this league.


Rules | Participants
#esl.quakelive