Mods & Why You Shouldn't Use Them, The Prince Of Qatar, IEM In Dire Straits

Mods & Why You Shouldn't Use Them

This week I came back to 2v2 because I was bored and I was hit with a revelation of why nobody should use mods.

After sitting through 3 minute queues I was getting matched up against a lot of really bizarre teams like enhancement shaman/priest, feral druid/priest, the list goes on. These matches were frustrating not just because of the team lineups we were running up against, but because of the mods.

Against these teams, whenever I needed or decided to divine plea, I would get it purged immediately (before even a single tick). Even if I strafed out of line of sight right when I used it, it was too late as it got taken off within 2 seconds of being used. The funny part about this is that against the top players like Kollektiv, if I decide to pop divine plea out in the open, I will typically be able to get at least 2 divine plea ticks off, sometimes even a full divine plea. Against 2200 rated teams? Divine plea is off without a single tick if I am not already sitting behind a pillar. It may not sound like a big deal and people will argue that I should just stay behind a pillar, but sometimes a paladin can not afford to do that and has to be in line of sight to cleanse, freedom, heal, you name it.

As anybody knows, a lot of players get carried heavily by mods. I'll admit I was one of these people. With my spellalerter, afflicted and gladius, I was able to keep an eye on everything simply by looking at a mod. For those that aren't aware, these mods can easily carry you through tough spots by letting you know everything without actually keeping track of anything yourself. Actually, this is where the criticism of "always looking at mods, never the battle field" spawned.

Generally speaking, I've been pleased that significantly less people use mods than they used to. I look at streams on an infrequent basis but I see a lot of people running with few or no mods at all, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, however, some people, like Affix, are notorious for using mods. In Affix's case, he's actually getting more mods, not less. Frightening to think that this guy could have very well gone to a tournament (although I admit the hilarity of watching somebody adjust from all those mods to zero is entertaining).

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my problems with mods as people can have similar mods to tell them when counterspell, kick, pummel, etc are off cooldown.

Don't do it, kids! Turn off those mods! It builds character! It also helps you play better in the long run by forcing you to watch everything around you in an arena match.

WoW Sideshow - The Prince of Qatar

For those that may not be involved in the esports scene, you may not be aware of a guy named "Ooi", also known as the prince of Qatar. Pretty much every top or high-recognition arena player has been in contact with this guy at one point or another. Basically, he is the prince of Qatar and has an absurd amount of money due to, obviously, being a part of the royal family.

What he is most known for is giving players an exorbitant amount of money to play with or for him to get arena points every week (and, incidentally, proving why a lot of middle eastern countries are failed or collapsed states; use all of that oil money on infrastructure and jobs and not on the elites you dimbulbs).

Nobody really knows why he hands money out like this. Maybe he is just a lonely individual, but the cash he gives out is a lot higher than you may think as Yog, Sonydigital, Pookz, Twix, Valrath, Veev and many others including myself have all been paid to be a part of this cartel. Although I haven't really been involved with the guy in a while, the amount of money paid out is easily close to a grand just for playing 10 games a week. For end-of-season gladiator titles? Over $500. For rank 1 titles? Over $2000.

If you play on Blackrock and have been wondering why Pookz, Valrath and several other players have transferred off, the reason is money. An insider reported to me recently that Yog was paid $4000 to transfer his character to Ooi's server and has been getting paid $800 a week for some time now.

God only knows how much account sharing is going on as not everybody always transfers their characters to play with/for Ooi for money.

Does the prince of Qatar have the resources to pay off Blizzard employees from account action?

IEM In Dire Straits

The Intel Extreme Masters tournament, hosted by ESL, has been going on for a while now, and a lot of people are really interested to see what the competition will look like. As you may remember from my previous articles, I've been reporting on a lot of internal problems within the organization when it comes to their WoW tournaments, and this one is no different.

To give an update on how this tournament is supposed to play out, I'll explain: 8 teams (sponsored teams) were automatically invited, with 8 spots remaining, which would be designated to the top 8 teams in an online qualifier which would last severel weeks (the past severel weeks were this perio) with teams signing up to compete for a chance to go to the regionals event in Edmonton, Canada, followed by the global finals event in Hannover.

After the online qualifier, the top 8 teams from the online ladder will compete against the 8 invited teams, with the top 8 teams representing the US being invited to the IEM US.

That is where we stand today. Tonight the qualifiers entered the phase where the 8 sponsored teams would compete with the top 8 teams from the previous phase. By the end of the weekend the top 8 of those 16 would be granted invitation to the regionals on December 11 in Edmonton.

However, word is from several teams actually participating in the tournament that the ESL tournament realms have been barren, with virtually nobody queueing. A few players from some of the notable teams told me that people in the previous phase were grinding to the top of the ladder by beating random no name players because everybody's MMR was extremely low due to lack of activity on the realms.-small;">

"well the event is supposed to be december 11th but the online ladder was super inactive the whole time and there's supposed to be the top 8 teams from ladder vs the top 8 invited to qualify for the event but there won't even be 8 real teams and the US ladder was completely dead, no one played.
theres probably not even 8 US teams that can get to edmenton, especially on this short notice"

It also appears that the entire tournament is really unorganized, with the qualified teams not even having been notified yet nor have matches even been scheduled for this weekend.

The current standing, as some speculate, has the team consisting of players named Lafu, Lyricals and Fadingaway in first place running beastcleave and paladin/dk/hunter. Many people do not even know who these players are, giving credit to the previous claim that random teams are getting to the top. The reason, as already explained is due to such low activity on the tournament realms with people farming off of really bad, low teams and getting a lot of points. Remember, the ESL realm isn't live; teams aren't 2800 rated.

The core of the problem is that few unsponsored teams want to bother competing for a tournament when the flight fees, room and board, etc are not covered by anyone other than the actual team, making them front the bill. We're talking about over a thousand dollars here and remember, the prize money won't even begin to cover all of these fees unless you place well.

After these "US Regionals" in Edmonton, Canada, which is scheduled for December 11, the top teams of that event will go to the global finals in Hannover. Again, nothing is paid for by ESL so you are on your own.

What a bad idea. The regionals on December 11? I know for a fact that final examinations for me, Sodah and a bunch of other players is the week following directly after that.

There is much speculation that we will see either very bad teams appear at the regionals in Edmonton or there will simply be a shortage of teams (and it could very well just be the exact same teams that participated at MLG Anaheim).