Hey everyone!
2016 has been a great year for ESOC. We hosted several successful tournaments, some community-made which is awesome to see, and we've already financed the entirety of tournaments in 2017. We hosted two seasonal tournaments in 2016 and even as we succeed, we are always looking for ways to improve. We have a few ideas planned for the next events rules and wanted to share with the community where we are heading. Feel free to leave your opinion in a post, at our facebook, or tweet us at
@ESOCommunitynotification
ESOCommunity[/url] wrote:notification
Maps
The tournament admins have selected the map pools for all our events. We don't see that changing as the tournament admin needs to be empowered to provide a diverse competitive event. Maps are one of our biggest levers in keeping AOE fresh.
Now that our ESOC map pool has grown quite large we feel that we can start to layer some player choice into the process in the form of a map veto. We believe this will give players the right level of impact on the map pool without impacting the tournament admins ability to keep the community and viewer interests in mind. More details will be released as soon as the signups to the ESOC Spring Championships 2017 open.
Furthermore we have decided to release the map pool for the entire tournament as soon as the signups open to allow players to prepare their matches and strategies optimally. This, along with the veto system, should give our players a better feeling about the map pools and their role in the process.
The Group Stages
The group stages will remain unchanged for now. We discussed a double elimination system but determined that a double elimination system is an overkill for our already very small player base and that a double elimination system won't work due to the amount of players who actually play after signing up. The group stages will remain as they are right now, we will however moderate if games are being played much more strictly.
The developers of ESOC are currently working on a personal page which should function as your scheduling and tournament hub. We hope this will be ready for the next tournament. As soon as it is ready it will make scheduling a lot easier, and will hopefully result in more games being played.
Media Team
Unfortunately, our dear friend @Jerom
has decided to depart both the media team and the moderation team to put his focus on drinking alcohol his real life. He will still be active in game and on the forums for now, but he won't work for ESOC anymore. Jerom was an amazing asset to have on this team and website, and a great friend in times of personal need. Most of the news posts which ESOC tournaments are known for were written by him and he always chimed in with various problems within the team. I think I can speak for the entire team if I say that we will miss Jerom and all of his knowledge about consuming alcohol.Jerom wrote:notification
Organizing tournaments, managing the twitch channel, arranging casters and players, uploading and maintaining the youtube channel.. It can get hard sometimes. That's why, along with our recent search for casters, we're now also searching for a trainee or two within the Media Team. We'll teach you the ropes of managing the most successful Age of Empires 3 competitive scene and all of its assets. Interested in applying? Send me (Mr_Bramboy) a PM! There are no specific requirements, but having a little bit of experience and being active in the community greatly helps. (but is not needed!)
Once again, please leave your thoughts about the tournament reforms in a post!