Curse

Sarus · Mar 05, 2006, 05:28 AM // 05:28

iQ in Taipei: Day 3

Introduction Day 3

Day three was of course the big day we had our match. I woke up around 4 am and had trouble staying asleep until 7 when I finally got up out of bed and started pacing around the room. After breakfast the team headed over to the convention center sporting the hoodies Pally's Aunt purchased for us (Thank you Pally's Aunt). I have to say I was a more than a bit nervous.

Once we got over to the convention center we headed straight to the NCSoft booth to try and snag a few PC's so we could warmup a bit in TA. I ended up spending about 15 minutes adjusting my interface for the lower resolution LCD's they had there and getting some equipment from Scaph just in case I needed to change to a /necro monk (which I did). We knew from the day before that the NCSoft people didn't really like us sitting on the computers and monopolizing them so I got off pretty quickly and headed over to the stage to watch the WM vs. LUM match. The Val guys were hanging around the stage as well.

Prior to the match starting the cheerleaders came out and did their little dance routine to pump the crowd up. WM was running their now famous 3 warrior build and LUM was running a super defensive build with 6 copies of distortion, 3 monks, and rotated aegis. Everyone was expecting a quick WM victory but they just couldn't break the defense. In the end WM managed to outmaneuver and stall till VoD at which point they pulled out a win. Amazingly WM made no changes to their build game two and it was another slow drawn out fight. LUM played great but was unable to capitilize on their success in the 8v8 fights. In the end WM squeaked out a win. The WM v. LUM matches were definitely the best matches to watch up to that point.

Lunch

After the WM match we went to get some lunch at one of the hotel restaurants. Not everyone had an appetite at that point but the menu ranged from lobster to noodles to salad to steak. We had a nice converstation about skill balancing and Zrave managed to convince Izzy that gale is woefully underpowered. I would expect a boost in the next update :wink:

iQ vs. EviL: PreMatch Warmup

After lunch we headed back to the convention center to start getting setup for our 3 pm match. We were able to get backstage around 2:20 to start setting up our computers and warming up. Everyone was frantically unplugging mice and keyboards setting up their equipment, adjusting resolutions, checking vent settings etc. Unfortuantely we had quite a few equipment problems. For some reason the left shift key on my keyboard wasn't working due to some OS language issues. It took them about 3 reboots and 30 minutes of fiddling with settings before I just gave up and remapped the shift key to the caps lock key. Everytime they rebooted my system is shut down our vent server (my computer was running our vent) so the other guys that were trying to warmup in arena kept freaking out.

The vent on Rayne's computer was completely broken and everytime he tried to talk it would just create a bunch of feedback. The problem was compounded by the fact that he couldn't type in english without holding down the ctrl key and spacebar at the sametime. During the pregame warmup Zrave's computer started lagging really badly. It turns out windows update started running in the background. We're not sure if any of the lag during the actual matches was a result of windows update but it definitely wasn't turned off.

We realized about 2 minutes before the match started that talking on vent was going to be difficult at best but figured we could just try and do our thing without too much voice comm. In all fairness to Anet, NCSoft was supposed to have the voice comm setup before we arrived in Taipei. However, they didn't have it setup and poor Izzy had to try and jury rig a system under extreme time constraints. In addition, Anet had ordered us very nice equipment to play on but it all arrived late from Logitech so we had to use the NCSoft equipment which was not so great. Basically for the people I've seen on other forums bashing Anet, they don't deserve the bashing. Many of the problems were largely outside of their control until it was too late to do anything about it. Everybody from Anet and NCSoft bent over backwards to try and make us feel as comfortable as possible and I know all the teams competing really appreciated it. I certainly did.

iQ vs. EviL Game 1

Contray to popular belief the crowd noise was not an issue at all. Once we were in the game and playing everyone had the crowd completely tuned out. However, the giant subwoofers from the booth across from the stage definitely was an issue. I think at one point my monitor was actually vibrating from the bass. The only time I noticed the crowd was between matches and when I was dead (which was more often that I had hoped). We had a good feeling EviL would be running the dom mesmers but we did not realize how effective they would be. Unfortunately, we did not have any experience playing against great dom mesmers prior to the EviL match so we completely underestimated their effectiveness. Our warriors seemed unable to coordinate an effective gale lock without reliable voice comm and with our offense stuttering the defense quickly buckled. We were forced into a route early on and EviL never gave us a chance to recover. After Game 1 we quickly decided to change builds to something that required less character to character coordination (i.e., gale lock not needed).

iQ vs. EviL Game 2

Game 2 was on the Ice Map which we felt good about. We had practiced a lot on the map during the ladder season so we knew we could handle EviL's movement. The match started off well with both teams splitting up and playing the movement game. Eventually an 8v8 fight ensued at the flag stand. Unfortunately, the lack of voice comm made it extremely difficult to organize a temporary pull back and we ended up having to do a full retreat. While hiding in our base we resorted to typing our strategies in chat and then trying to execute the strategy. Although we were able to route EviL once and force a morale boost we ended up in our base again and could not break EviL. EviL made no mistakes and never gave us an opening to exploit (as far as I could tell) and the match went to VoD where we tried to send two warriors to gank. Again EviL was beyond prepared and knew they only needed to send the one necro back to stop the warriors. I was very impressed by the play on their part.

Overall Thoughts

Overall I think the best team in the tournament won. EviL was without a doubt the best team. Part of their skill is the ability to play at such a high level even under extremely poor playing conditions. Most of the other teams were unable to play at their normally high levels under the given conditions. Many people have asked us if we felt one side of the stage was better than the other. In other words, did both teams play in the exact same conditions or not. To be honest I can't entirely answer that question as I'm sure every team had their own unique equipment problems. Every team from EviL to LuM looked a little stressed out before the matches trying to get things setup. On day 4 we got to talk with the leader of WM who played on both sides of the stage and he seemed to feel as though the left side was harder to play on. Since I only played on the one side I can't really confirm if that's the case or not. So again I want to make it clear that yes we had equipment and voice comm problems but so did everyone else. Some teams were simply better at playing through the problems than others. If we do manage to make it back to another championship I know the experience we picked up playing in Taipei will be invaluable. I'm sure Te, LuM, Val, WM and EviL would all agree.

Dinner!

Dinner on Saturday was my favorite dinner of the trip. The food wasn't the best but I think everyone just had a great time hanging out with each other. I got to sit next to Jeff (cofounder of Anet) and he was just really funny to talk to. Scaph sat at a table with some NCSoft employees and Bloodlight Eyes. I like the picture below with drunk Trex talking to sleepy Ensign. Kind of cute. And yes, that's Taiwan Beer.

Night Market

After dinner we had the option to stay at the hotel and get drunk (Te and Evil picked that option) or go to the night market. I figured we hadn't seen much of Taipei yet so I decided to go to the night market. For those of you that don't know, the night market is like Taipei's red light district. The only difference is instead of hookers they have food and video games. So actually it's not like a red light district at all. Anyway, the night market was a big dissapointment. We thought they would have lots of electronics and stores and stuff but it was this filthy run down warehouse which just smelled horrible inside. We ended up playing some arcade games (the Taiko game with the drum). In the picture with the turtles the bin next to the turtles have shrimp. They would give you a paper net and you could try to scoop out as many shrimp as possible before the net broke. Then the owner would impale the shrimp on a stick and cook them for you. I don't think the turtles were for eating though.

They had this game where you shoot the ballons with a pellet gun. Pally really wanted one of the crappy stuffed animal prizes so instead of playing the game he paid the lady around 400 taiwan dollars (about 12 bucks) for it. He was really proud because he had talked the lady down from $15. Of course he still got ripped off. The lady had this big grin on her face and was taking a drag on a cigarette and you could just tell she was thinking "sucker".

It turns out our tour guide brought us to the small night market instead of the real one 10 minutes away. So about half of us decided to head over to the real night market which was more like a lively downtown area. We stopped by a bootleg DvD store and browsed around for a little bit. Of course since PP is a tot he wasn't allowed in the adult video section. We then stopped by a 7-11 to get some drinks and saw a Guild Wars ATM which was kind of cool. (that's Izzy's arm by the way).

Drunk Izzy

By this time most of us were pretty tired and we grabbed cabs to go back to the hotel. I went straight to bed but Scaph and Augie went out with some of the guys from other teams. During the course of the night Izzy had quite a bit to drink culminating in the iQ sponsored beer which probably should have been an iQ sponsored bottle of water. I think that's the Izzy Shuffle in the second picture. Meeting Izzy for the first time in person was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Despite the loss to EviL I think everyone still had a great time on Day 3. It's hard to stay upset for long when you're having such a great time with everything else.

PP's Moment of Zen

I now bring to you PP's moment of zen. Why PP's moment of zen? Well because PP took the following 3 pictures and video. This was PP's favorite girl at the show. He was for lack of a better word infatuated with her. I can't really blame him either.

Sarus's Moment of Zen

So I thought maybe I should throw something out there for all the ladies to ogle. Then I thought nah. But then I thought well ... maybe. So I ended up picking one for the guys (photographed by PP, touched up by myself) and one for the ladies. Nothing hotter than a hunky taiwanese guy in armor.

~Sarus

zoozoc · Mar 05, 2006, 06:03 AM // 06:03

lol, again another great article, too bad everything wasnt situated ahead of time.

Mercury Angel · Mar 05, 2006, 06:22 AM // 06:22

Izzy looks less formal than I imagined o.O
In any case, thank you for day 3.

Poison Ivy · Mar 05, 2006, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Woah...No wonder there was a age limit to the trip...

Reks · Mar 05, 2006, 08:52 AM // 08:52

So voice comm was an issue. =/ Even though everyone else had the same problems, I don't think it's fair that you can't at least have proper communication in the World Championships, when it was that precise team communication and team coordination that got you guys there in the first place. Just my two cents.

But alas, EviL was #1 for a reason. If they had to go through the same problems too, and pull out the victory, then more power to them.

Good job on these dairies, btw. They're fun to read.

Rilder · Mar 05, 2006, 09:15 AM // 09:15

Man I wanna move to Taiwan now... the geeks are getting more action then the popular dudes.... btw why didn't you sneak one of those chicks back.. i'm sure you coulda just left one of your members there in Taiwan and nobody would knotice

Vermilion Okeanos · Mar 05, 2006, 09:19 AM // 09:19

This article confirm that what I thought couple months back when I left my old guild.

"Don't over rely on voice com."

In fact, don't over rely on anything.

Brutaniu Mason · Mar 05, 2006, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Those pics looked like a blast!

Symeon · Mar 05, 2006, 06:11 PM // 18:11

All the places you went to look awesome, and from those pictures it's easy to tell you guys had a really great time over there. Thanks for Day 3.

Resette · Mar 05, 2006, 09:44 PM // 21:44

Awesome article, glad you guys had fun.

Inde · Mar 06, 2006, 04:39 AM // 04:39

I really enjoyed reading through all 3. And the pictures were just awesome, thanks for sharing your experience with us!

zoozoc · Mar 06, 2006, 05:42 AM // 05:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inde

I really enjoyed reading through all 3. And the pictures were just awesome, thanks for sharing your experience with us!

Woot, its inde.

Dart · Mar 07, 2006, 01:53 PM // 13:53

I love how you took insightful pictures of the little things that we never see here- a GW ATM

wouldn't have believed that till I saw it! Oh and thank you for the male eye candy

Tortoise · Mar 08, 2006, 03:58 AM // 03:58

I keep enjoying reading these. Anet put these on your homepage!

jmj102 · Mar 08, 2006, 04:08 AM // 04:08

Ummm In one of the pictures isnt that your team sitting next to each other on the computers, if that was the case, why didnt you just shout out to each other instead of using a program. I mean if you were all in the same room kinda thing, ts or vent, isnt really needed...

Eonwe · Mar 08, 2006, 05:33 AM // 05:33

"Shouting" to one another while playing is impossible. If you haven't played on LAN before, I can't really explain it. Logically you would think you would be able to, since after all, your team mates are right next to you. However, that's not the way it works out when you're wearing headphones and trying to focus on what's happening in game. Also given the noise level in this case, it would certianly have been a bad idea.

Ju_Smurph · Mar 08, 2006, 07:40 AM // 07:40

Telepathy... ftw

Serviette · Mar 08, 2006, 07:05 PM // 19:05

I think a question on everyone's mind is Where are the girls in the elementalist cosplay costumes?

*edit*
Nevermind, found them.

thor hammerbane · Mar 08, 2006, 10:43 PM // 22:43

Ty for another good read, i read all 3 dairies and finally decided to post here :P
Watched your ice match, was pretty close, i was rootin' for you guys

PS::Go do some hoh for America, i want some ectos!

LuLu · Mar 14, 2006, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmj102

Ummm In one of the pictures isnt that your team sitting next to each other on the computers, if that was the case, why didnt you just shout out to each other instead of using a program. I mean if you were all in the same room kinda thing, ts or vent, isnt really needed...

Actually, shouting was out of the question. I was sitting right next to kriegar, and shouting at probably about 90% we could barely hear each other, including leaning our heads in together.