Tuesday, March 12, 2013

HoN Tour Administration Drops the Hammer; PPD reacts UPDATED 3/12/13 @ 10AM

UPDATE: The end of this post now has my actual thoughts about the decision, but the top is still nice and full of shit talk. Also I apologize for the small text on the forum excerpts, blogspot is kinda dogshit.
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So I am out at dinner with some friends on a Monday night for food and euchre (the local restaurant here (Skyline) knows most of us by name) when I get a text message about something happening in HoN Tour and how I need to check it out ASAP. Since we haven't started playing cards yet, I decided I would check out the forums and see whats up. Low and behold, drama has once again descended upon the Forests of Caldavar, and I was greeting with dozens of posts. Dozens of poorly written, barely comprehensible posts. It seems like after reading these posts (while listening to Mozart to offset any potential IQ imbalances) most people can be separated into two camps:

1. Those who SUPPORT the HTA decisions
2. Those who OPPOSE the HTA decisions

First, let's rewind to Sunday. Sunday night I met up with my main group at my friend Ryan's apartment. All of the people who are in my group of friends are gamers who have all played at least a bit of HoN, most play(ed) DOTA/2, but are still interested in watching some of the games from HoN Tour. We all have our little jokes about watching the games ie: Stay Green is called TruGreen (the lawn care service), once we were watching a really boring football game and I said "Let's see how Complexity's doing" and that is a running inside joke whenever we get bored with whatever we're doing, and a few others. So when I got to Ryan's place we were sitting around arguing about which game was worse: Diddy Kong Racing or Duke Nukem 64 and my friend John asked me how HoN Tour was today. I responded, "It was the worst cycle I've seen thus far. There wasn't a single enjoyable game today." Then I told them about the coL vs aL series and how annoyed I was with the casters, the players and the people in Twitch chat. Of course, none of them actually cared that I wasn't happy about how HoN Tour Cycle 7 ended, but that didn't change the fact that it is actually how I feel. Annoyed. I wasn't there for the first series (coL vs aL) live, but it was available shortly before they switched over to do the finals so I watched it on VOD while waiting for the Grand Finals. All I knew is that aL 2-0'd coL and coL was getting ready to play Team BYE for the SBHL.

What a disgusting display it was. Only exacerbated by Emperor talking in all chat while Breaky was just yelling and laughing like "AHHH WHAT A GRAND TIME WE'RE HAVING, IT'S SO FUN!" No Breaky, it's not fun. It's fucking embarrassing.  It's sad that people bitched and pissed and moaned for months and even YEARS for S2 Games and HoN to get its act together in regards to the competitive scene, and now when people actually have a strong reason (and capability to some extent) to try and play HoN for a living, the players and spectators treat it with disrespect. "Oh but Phil, it's just a game, you're overreacting" No. I'm not overreacting, but let's move on anyway.

So as I said, there are really two trains of thought and then a couple people talking about Fnatic and DOTA 2 because apparently moon said he was going to start playing it again. Forgetting about the DOTA 2  talk (because frankly who gives a shit), I want to focus specifically on the people who support coL.HoN not being punished. I could talk about those who support the punishment, but it's really all there on the top.

So in case you read my blog and not the forums for updated news (I feel bad for you if you do) here's a direct copy/paste of what happened:

For all-chat spam, unsportsmanlike conduct and blatantly throwing the series in both games, compLexity Gaming receives 1 (one) warning and the 50% points and prize money loss will be applied for Cycle 7 (for intentionally conceding both games at 15min).

Most of the people who are opposed to this ruling are making completely idiotic and ignorant points. Let's single out a few of these nuggets



 So these guys feel that since the games were "entertaining" and "fun" that they should not be penalized. Therkel feels that HoN Tour is a "tournament for the sake of the viewers" and definitely not a high profile prestigious tournament that should be approached with respect or reverance. This next guy goes a step further:


 Hell yea bro! Let's reward them. Let's reward these teams for showing a complete lack of respect for one of the biggest money tournaments in online eSports history.


Yes, it is Milkfat's fault that Riser_ and his teammates are unable to keep to a schedule that had been known about for a week. It's Milkfat's fault that a team who couldn't show up to a tournament that THEIR OWN SPONSOR ORGANIZED was forced to reschedule to a less than ideal time. I really wish Team BYE would have forced coL to forfeit that match in SBHL, not because I hate coL, but because players need a reality check. CHEERIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!you're an idiot.



Varane is a well known sub 70 IQ Competitive Discussion forum dweller, so pointing out his stupidity kinda feels like I'm making fun of a handicapped person, but I'm desperate for a couple more forum images so I let it slide this once. He starts off by making it seem like it's all good, but follows it up with an ignorant backhanded comment about how the "rules were created because of Experience Gaming" and how Complexity got punished for something completely beyond their control. Then when he gets called out by another forum poster he reaffirms that he actually has no idea what he's talking about. At all.

Let me be clear to anyone who might be mystified about what happened with coL and BYE in the SBHL. Riser, who apparently hasn't learned to read yet or doesn't care enough to actually check the schedule on his own, showed up 45 minutes late because his team basically gave him the incorrect information on the match. Team BYE then took a FF win, but changed their minds (speculation can be made here about why they changed their minds) and decided they would reschedule. The only time Team BYE was willing to reschedule to was 1PM EST on Sunday. I imagine this was by design by BYE so that coL would have to choose the lesser of two evils: forfeit HoN Tour costing them 50% of their winnings and earned points for the cycle, or costing them the change to win much more money in Sound Blaster Heroes League. Regardless of how Team BYE approached this situation and what HoN Tour Admins allowed or did not allow to happen, the ONLY people who can be blamed for this situation occurring is CompLexity.HoN.

Not all posts were without reason however. A few people tried to make a case without looking stupid.




The problem is that you guys are arguing over the semantics of the rules, looking at the verbiage instead of the tone. Rules are designed by institutions to express intent. The intent of the "Sportsmanship" rule for instance, is designed as a catch-all. InnerSpike makes the comment that "we can all agree that everyone has a different view as to what that is" to which I reply, "It's whatever Milkfat deems it to be." You see, as the Head Admin and the overall Director/Commissioner of eSports for S2, Milkfat has final ruling and may choose to make decisions without conferring with his administration team. I'm not saying that is what he did, I'm not saying that if that is what happened that it's the best way to handle a situation, but the fact of the matter is, Milkfat makes the final decision. No one else, not other S2 employees, not even Maliken, influence how Milkfat runs HoN Tour.  Still, I appreciate you making your opinion, even if it's incorrect, in a mature and intelligent fashion. You may continue to post.


THE BOTTOM LINE:

Obviously, most of you know where I stand on this issue. I feel Milkfat was completely in the right. I feel that any team who signed up to play in HoN Tour, Sound Blaster Heroes League, Clan Milk Amateur Fun House, Bob's HoN Team Super Challenge, whatever; deserve the full amount of respect of the players. If you can't make it to a game, it's YOUR fault. If you don't have a substitute player on your roster, it's YOUR fault. If you decide to try and play pocket lawyer with administration by saying "well TECHNICALLY" and get burned for it, it's YOUR fault. Deal with it.

Edit: PPD just released a 16 minute long video response to the HoN Tour Administration decision, be sure to turn ad block on.


This video basically explains what happened in detail, but changes nothing of what I've said. It's a good look into the minds of the Complexity HoN team, as well as the fact that PPD thinks that Absolute Legends should have conceded at the 15 minute mark because they were losing. If you can stomach the arrogance and delusions of grandeur which rival only my own, it's worth a watch.

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Edit 2: After rereading this post a few times over the past 12 hours I came to realization that a lot of things that the topic really is supposed to deal with went unexplained as I uncharacteristically dipped into troll mode. I think the important thing to take away from this situation is that both parties have some level of blame to accept. While I agree with the ruling, because I truly believe that Complexity understood the spirit of the forfeiture rules and were attempting to save themselves the loss of $1,000, the case must be made that the rules need to be fine tuned and communication between administrators and teams could be better.

I believe that HoN Tour admins, and Milkfat in particular, made this decision to protect the integrity of the tournament. I also believe that protecting the integrity of the tournament is the most important thing, more-so in some cases than the teams who are playing in it. This is one of those cases. Complexity openly admitted fault that the situation occurred because of their miscommunication with Riser_, but that doesn't change the situation that became of it, and doesn't excuse them from the punishment which the HoN Tour Administration (or Milkfat solely) levied against them. While many will argue that the enforcement of this rule is questionable, I ask you to be honest and think about the spirit of sportsmanship, and whether this type of activity would be looked upon in a positive manner by any professional organization.

Having listened to PPD's video a couple of times now, I think he brings the thoughts of Complexity up in a sincere fashion. While I completely disagree with using personal/private Skype conversations, the irrelevance of Roland vs Insania (which occured nearly 8 months ago), and the usage of the DoP vs coL example (which took place prior to the forfeit rules being expanded upon), I can understand the frustration of the Complexity players. However, keep in mind what I was saying earlier, I also see the frustration of HoN Tour Administrators.

HoN Tour must be respected. The tournament was the culmination of years of ideology and was developed because of the rabid desire for HoN's players to have a predictable and sustainable tournament model. Respect HoN Tour, or you disrespect what everyone who has ever been involved in it has worked for; whether you be a player or someone behind the scene. coL threw away games on purpose, regardless of how they approached the match initially, by the time the 15 minute mark passed and they knew aL wasn't going to concede they should have just called it right there. I actually think the admins would have even shown some slack, perhaps not even reducing their winnings/points, had Complexity approached it this way. In the end, one thing is for sure: HoN, despite having come such a long way in the last year, still has a ways to go; both its players and its administrators.

Let us look at this as a hard learned lesson for both parties, because that's ultimately what it is.

39 comments:

  1. that video is so dumb holy crap

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  2. obviously phil is trying to suck some more dicks. he wants to get back to s2 so bad he's queer now.

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  3. FUCK YOU. DIDDY KONG RACING IS THE SHIT.

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    1. ^ thats the real problem here

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  4. si si esto article es muy bueno... MENTIROSA.... DALE HUEVO

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  5. cpttrapper: mentirosa dale huevo

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  6. Phil is a connaisseur of dick taste.

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  7. Back in the dark ages before cellphones the captain of my sports team would get in contact with everyone in the team the night before the game to confirm location/time/transportation/refreshments and arrange a ringer if necessary. Must be a lot harder for captains these days!

    Ironically the only photo that exists of that great yet mysterious player Riser_ is one from years ago where he is taking a photo with his cellphone.

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  8. lmfao at ppd video, makes the organization look even more shit than they already did over this

    :D:D:D

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  9. keep it on phill.
    keep sucking s2 dick until they wanna to hire you back

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  10. Yeah because the airline company is responsible for you not bothering to check when your fucking plane lifts off.

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  11. Complexity got the full 2,000 points for third place going from 10,975 to 12,975.
    http://www.hontour.com/standings/

    Actually no penalty at all, S2 only joking.

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  12. You are too thick to understand that in order to be serious esports first you have to take your own rules seriously.
    And too far from any sort of professional to know what 'damage control' means.

    I mean you both, ex and current "esports directors". Wouldn't be surprised to see Sam join Phil at the burger king counter pretty soon. Where you both belong.

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  13. I think one thing that goes really unsaid in all this is how lucky CoL is that QsQ completely dropped the ball this last cycle. If they'd had a decent showing on top of this 50% points, CoL would be in a serious fight for 3rd place and the last secured spot in the finals.

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  14. Hard to have respect for something so poorly made. The competitve scene doesn't give a single fuck about hon tour it seems, so what does that tell us about S2? that they really suck at their jobs. So they maybe should start showing some respect to the people paying their fucking bills instead, because they actually have something good, but they could have done it so much better.

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  15. Phil is like an ex-McDonald's manager who was fired due to gross incompetence, and now he hangs around the establishment all day in some sort of weird attempt at staying relevant.
    The employees can't be bothered to remove him from the premises because he isn't doing legitimate harm, and the customers treat him like a minor nuisance. Every time a minor incident happens, he butts in with his unwanted opinion on it.

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  16. I'm glad that Phil understands the difference between rules and laws.

    S2 had several catch-all rules for this tournament. What happened was that Col tried to play grabass and Milkfat saw through it.

    Col is quickly becoming one of the worst sponsored teams out there but I guess that's what happens when only one guy on the team has a university-level education (too bad it's journalism rofl).

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  17. So being Phil a dick sucking, ex-S2 employee it's not worth taking into consideration the massive grey-areas existing the HON tour rule set.
    That's quite some logic going on there. Keep on going with your one sided blog.

    Speaking of "completely idiotic and ignorant points" you seem to make your own work just fine.

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  18. This was a really well thought out post. Captures all the sides. Thanks Phil.

    For better or worse, your blogspot is the most articulate form of news that is in HON right now.

    Think about it. If I was to keep up with my favorite sports team and news, I would go to espn or sportsillustrated or whatever.

    As someone who likes to read about the sports scene, I have different options:
    1. Go to the competitive forums discussion-- isn't that pathetic, that I have to go to forums to get some "real news?" Well, before they get deleted anyways.
    2. I go to reddit.com/r/heroesofnewerth-yep, sad
    3. Gosugamers.net- sometimes has the best analysis of games, but not well-known, imo
    4. Honcast.com is crap- no real news
    5. Your blog.

    All this to say, that your blog provides people with more news and analysis than anything that is out there. Keep writing.

    If any s2 is reading this, we could use an espn.com equivalent of HON. Please don't say honcast.com nor hontour.com nor the forums.

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  19. http://pastebin.com/cgWTDEWN
    I'll just leave this hear to remind us all how great an admin phill is

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  20. Maybe teams need to start getting real about their rosters and not rely on a 5 man squad for situations like this? Because one guy didnt show up all of a sudden it became BYE, AL, SG and S2's problem. CoL could of played with any 1500 pub and essentially lost the first game to BYE until Riser had enough time to get his shit together and taken their "free win" in the next 2 games.

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  21. did you even watch the video? the only point you bring from it is that you dont like peter... what about what he had to say about that sam was gonna work around it, but then later when he is gonna watch the game with his friends with some taco and some beers, it turns out to be a booring game for him and his freinds to watch. then all of a sudden the rules change. IF MILKFAT CANT ENJOY IS GAMES AND TACO ON A SUNDAY, YOU BRAKE THE RULES

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  22. peterpandam 8 hours ago
    i realized the wording of what I said was a bit arrogant, i simply meant if ANYONE should of conceded at 15m *which no one should of* it should of been them based on the current status of the games.


    and what do you have to say about that? all of a sudden you have nothing to point out in the video. please review it again

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  23. ohh... and Roland also stated that you can concede whenever you want. WHENEVER YOU WANT.

    stop sucking cock and being so biased

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  24. Unfortunately, I can't disclose any sources supporting this for obvious reasons other than that I am close with one of the BYE players, but you can dig this information up yourself I'm sure:

    Team BYE was paid 1500$ to reschedule the match instead of taking the FF win, which made them agree to reschedule at another time of the tournament organizers' choosing.

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  25. Team BYE was paid by whom? And also, we can't dig up the information unless the people themselves reveal this into the open.

    I do agree that it was very very very shady that all of a sudden, TeamBye gets "talked" into not taking the forfeit win AFTER they had made the decision.

    Lets say COL paid BYE for a 1500$ reschedule for shits and giggles, I find nothing wrong with that (unless there is a HonTour rule against it)

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  26. Pathetic how you defend s2 in this matter. To think Milkfat is capable of running such an event is a joke. The admins showed multiple times that they do not know how and or are willing to communicate with one another. The simple fact is that s2 profits over the broadcasts of these events and regardless of what coL did they broke no rules and in all honesty did not disrespect anyone.

    If s2 wants go ahead an punish a top3 team in the scene for something they couldnt control, its their loss. As much as a rage kid PPD is, he makes valid points that you can't argue.

    Bottom Line is that Milkfat is stuck on his high horse of "Lead Admin" and thinks anyone gives a fuck about him.

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  27. ^^What do you mean "for something they couldnt control"

    If pro-players want E-sports taken seriously, then they must take it seriously.

    Do you see a professional sports (NBA, NFL, etc) asking for a reschedule? or not knowing when their games are? No, you play the game WHEN it is scheduled.

    On a more accurate comparison, I watch dota2/starcraft streams a lot. I never see them being as late/delayed/cancelled as much as HON games. HON pro-players for the most part DO NOT know how to be professionals.

    I watched Peter's video. I love all of his attempts to make sure that EVERYONE panders to COL. When Riser missed that SBHL game, ALL of the events that followed can be blamed to that. Period.

    Here is what Peter/COL wants:
    1. Team Bye to reschedule
    2. AL to cc
    3. Milkfat, the day before, to pull strings for Sunday
    4. He talked to SG/AL and asked them to be "reasonable"

    Now, I don't fault Peter for doing what he did; it's what he had to, but if Riser had just showed up, none of this would've happened.

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    1. Shit happens and sometimes mistakes are made. Being 45 mins late is not a huge deal. It's a joke, it's just another random hontour game. It's not CPL or MLG...

      Whats also funny is how they didn't throw at all. They 100% had game one in the bag but aL wouldn't CC. All 3 teams involved knew the circumstances and just milked coL's time. As far as game 2, it is what it is, there is nothing in the rules that says that can't go all 5 mid.

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    2. "Shit happens and sometimes mistakes are made."

      If this is professional E-sports, then lets just call it amateur sports.

      "Being 45 mins late is not a huge deal"

      I fired an intern 2 months ago for being 15 mins late.

      "Whats also funny is how they didn't throw at all."
      You're right, they didnt throw..depending on your definition. To me, throwing is when you purposely lose. One could also give the definition that COL conceding those games = purposely losing. That's how I saw it. So in my mind, when COL conceded, they THREW the game on purpose.

      Ok, the argument that people enjoyed it, because it was high-action paced. This is where we need to talk about quality. Lets say that the meta-game changes to game 2 COL/AL, will people still be enjoying it? I want my pro-playes to come out with real strats and give me great quality viewership. I don't want to watch a troll game.

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    3. [ "Being 45 mins late is not a huge deal"

      I fired an intern 2 months ago for being 15 mins late. ]

      This might be taken as an arrogant post by someone. To reiterate, being 45 mins late is a huge deal. When 10k people are waiting, and you're trying to present this product (that's what the players and s2 should have the mindset of), it is unforgiveable.

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    4. Let me clarify by saying personally what happened is not something I support but at the same time coL did nothing wrong given their circumstance.

      Please do not compare eSports to professional sports or a well-ran business. Although their intentions may be to be ran like professional sports, it simply isn't. You have a bunch of anti-social, college drop outs, considered as your "competitive scene". The HonTour admins probably have an AA degree.

      Being late in E-sports happens sometimes. Next time I'm sure if someone is running late they will not just say their internet is not working. coL did what they had to do.

      I do not agree with your stance on game one, they tried, they "technically" didn't succeed, so they CC'd.

      Game two was a joke, I watched like 7-10mins of it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't played.

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    5. Have you seen Starcraft and Dota2 productions? League of Legends even? That is how professional E-sports should be implemented.

      I agree with you, HON e-sports should not be compared to a well-ran business. But what are we striving for? What do you want to see out of HON?

      Yes, being late in E-sports happens sometimes, but isn't it pathetic that a Honcast podcast is 30 mins late continuously?

      Its not a matter of agreeing with my stance. If they (COL) "tried," then they would've tried to win the game and had AL forfeit.

      Lets bring the game up to some sort of standards. Not settle for this shit scene that we have now.

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    6. "Let me clarify by saying personally what happened is not something I support but at the same time coL did nothing wrong given their circumstance."

      - COL is responsible for their circumstance.

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    7. I agree with you, we (hon players/fans) are striving for better. Like you said Honcast Podcast is 30 mins late all the time.

      It's isn't like this is a reoccurring issue. This is a once in a blue moon type of thing. I just think it has been blowing out of proportion, given the events that took part on coL's side of things.

      Correct me if I'm wrong but if coL knew they were going to be penalized for this, then they would have just forfeited to begin with?

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    8. I feel like this situation (agree that it is kind of getting blown up, but such is HON, eh?) is a good time to reflect on the things that we have talked about: the pro-scene, the admins, etc.

      For your question, here is what I pose, as let me be a less-informed COL mind-reader. If I knew that FF was going to penalize my team for sure (as stated in HON tour rules), I would do EXACTLY as COL did with that game. Play it out. Not play it out to the intent of the purpose of the Hontour game and its rules...but certainly play it out. I can go to sleep knowing I did nothing wrong because I played the game. But did I play the game to my full potential? Or play the game to make sure that I took advantage of the rules?

      Then one would say S2's faults for not having clear rules, etc. I don't really want to argue about s2, I want to bring accountability to these pro-players. You say they're college drop-outs, anti-socials, I say they will keep acting like that if we keep giving them opportunities to perpetuate their behavior.

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  28. Phil you were released from your duties at S2 because you lacked the skills to do your job. You were relevant but now you're anything but. Maybe if you weren't a biased admin and showed any sort of professionalism, you would still be working at S2 instead of balding and working behind the counter at McDonalds. It seems to me that you write these little articles to take your mind off what is a lack of purpose you have in life.

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  29. Who better testie moon

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