$1K Table Topper - February 2021

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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

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Post by Mitoe »

EGCTV wrote:@Le Hussard sur le toit - Respectfully disagree. I think one of the reasons the matches were so good is that a meaningful prize creates better action. That's not to say $300 isn't good money, just that I don't think it will bring the same attention and excitement. I will look to supplement this with some smaller things too, but honestly my aim is to end up with bigger prizes. It's likely the showmatch will become a regular event, but the next thing I'm looking to do will be longer and for a much bigger prize pool. Long long term, the aim is to have prizes big enough that AOE2 players and old pros will look to get back involved at the higher level, but that would require audiences in the thousands and might be fanciful - let's see!
As someone who plays in showmatches/tournaments a lot, the prize was actually motivating me to practice and grind ladder; however, I had unfortunately forgotten February only has 28 days, and then on the last day I was unable to play ladder due to cheaters.

If it was $100 - $300 I probably would just not care very much.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by princeofcarthage »

Mitoe wrote:
EGCTV wrote:@Le Hussard sur le toit - Respectfully disagree. I think one of the reasons the matches were so good is that a meaningful prize creates better action. That's not to say $300 isn't good money, just that I don't think it will bring the same attention and excitement. I will look to supplement this with some smaller things too, but honestly my aim is to end up with bigger prizes. It's likely the showmatch will become a regular event, but the next thing I'm looking to do will be longer and for a much bigger prize pool. Long long term, the aim is to have prizes big enough that AOE2 players and old pros will look to get back involved at the higher level, but that would require audiences in the thousands and might be fanciful - let's see!
As someone who plays in showmatches/tournaments a lot, the prize was actually motivating me to practice and grind ladder; however, I had unfortunately forgotten February only has 28 days, and then on the last day I was unable to play ladder due to cheaters.

If it was $100 - $300 I probably would just not care very much.
$300 a weekend is still good money tbh. You could end up with $1200-$1500 a month which is 1/3rd of what most earn a month in US/Canada and a months salary in many countries.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by EGCTV »

Mitoe wrote:
EGCTV wrote:@Le Hussard sur le toit - Respectfully disagree. I think one of the reasons the matches were so good is that a meaningful prize creates better action. That's not to say $300 isn't good money, just that I don't think it will bring the same attention and excitement. I will look to supplement this with some smaller things too, but honestly my aim is to end up with bigger prizes. It's likely the showmatch will become a regular event, but the next thing I'm looking to do will be longer and for a much bigger prize pool. Long long term, the aim is to have prizes big enough that AOE2 players and old pros will look to get back involved at the higher level, but that would require audiences in the thousands and might be fanciful - let's see!
As someone who plays in showmatches/tournaments a lot, the prize was actually motivating me to practice and grind ladder; however, I had unfortunately forgotten February only has 28 days, and then on the last day I was unable to play ladder due to cheaters.

If it was $100 - $300 I probably would just not care very much.
This is very useful feedback, and kinda what I expected. I also want to be reasonable. Knusch ended up playing for over 5 hours, and although that was a set of special circumstances I think if you're going to ask players to grind to participate and then compete on your channel, with your rules, then ideally want to offer a prize that justifies that.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

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Post by Riotcoke »

@EGCTV There's quite a few reasons:

- Getting to see the actual players play - for most people it's different to see the player who's actually playing on stage even if you're seeing them thru a twitch stream, it adds more of a personal aspect to it.

- More Hype - A problem with online tournaments is that they can feel somewhat repetitive, if you were to give someone two streams from two different online tournaments the differences wouldn't be that obvious hence why a new tournament will obviously get some hype going but it can be difficult to get hyped for something that feels very similar. On the other hand with LANs there's normally a lot of build up, an online stage before to help with this, and general excitement in the community for it.

- Audience - An live in person audience does a couple of things. Obviously it gives personality to the viewers of the tournament in a way that twitch-names unfortunately can't, somewhat similar to the first point. It also generates some level of revenue which helps cover the costs/increase profit. With an AOE3 tournament over say 3 days I think it'd be very easy to charge lets say £80 just for attending and it wouldn't be surprising to me if you reached an audience above 100 people.

- Community benefit - Relatively hard to quantify, but if you want to build a community having in person events is huge for increasing that sense of community. If you go to an event you feel far more engaged with both the players and the figures that you're used to seeing/hearing online. Specifically in AOE3 I know there's a significant number of community members who would go to a LAN for the social aspect of seeing friends they've only known online rather than the tournament it'self.

- Building a brand - Although Escape failed with it's ambitions to create a long term centre for AOE content they did, in the short amount of time they existed, create a Image of excellence for production and hosting of tournaments. Escapes downfall can be chalked up to a number of reasons, too many to note here, but I would argue that if Escape started now as they did in late 2018 with both AOE2DE and AOE3DE out and with AOE4 on the horizon i'd aruge that their plan may have ended up being relatively profitable. Overall for building a brand a Lan, especially in AOE3 and arguabily AOE2, does far more than hosting showmatches or online tournaments. Lans are far larger events overall in the history of a game, think about how many tournaments have run for AOE3 and how many people look back on the WCG Lan or the Escape Lan compared to equally funded events.

Overall I honestly think if you were to go down the route of hiring out an Lan area, which again can be relatively cost effective depending where you host the event, charge a reasonable amount for attendence and limit costs such as flights, a LAN for AOE3 and especially AOE2 can be incredible value for building a brand that's without accounting for Sponsorships (which honestly with the size of the streams etc we're seeing now I can see as plausable, espcially for AOE2) or other partners helping with costs, ESOC & Microsoft are likely to help out.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by harcha »

EGCTV wrote:@Skwizz_Jehuty - First semi on YouTube now, next one tonight, third one tomorrow and the final on Thursday. I'll then post the game files here on the weekend. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXqhz7 ... 9j_doz60Nw
Please consider that the window to watch back recorded games is pretty small as there is bound to be a bigger or smaller update to the game soon that will break these recs.
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

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Post by WickedCossack »

Mitoe wrote:
EGCTV wrote:@Le Hussard sur le toit - Respectfully disagree. I think one of the reasons the matches were so good is that a meaningful prize creates better action. That's not to say $300 isn't good money, just that I don't think it will bring the same attention and excitement. I will look to supplement this with some smaller things too, but honestly my aim is to end up with bigger prizes. It's likely the showmatch will become a regular event, but the next thing I'm looking to do will be longer and for a much bigger prize pool. Long long term, the aim is to have prizes big enough that AOE2 players and old pros will look to get back involved at the higher level, but that would require audiences in the thousands and might be fanciful - let's see!
As someone who plays in showmatches/tournaments a lot, the prize was actually motivating me to practice and grind ladder; however, I had unfortunately forgotten February only has 28 days, and then on the last day I was unable to play ladder due to cheaters.

If it was $100 - $300 I probably would just not care very much.
As a viewer it does really elevate the prestige and engagement with the event. I actually quite liked the original premise of all or nothing (£1,000 or £0) as the stakes feel so much higher.

There was actually quite a lot of content, partly due to the circumstances of having the playoffs and a full BO9. I guess if you wanted to ensure you get enough content you could invite the top 4 ladder players and have two semis on Saturday, and finals on Sunday still with the idea that only the winner walks away with the big prize and everyone else gets naught. We got lucky this month but a quick 5-0 with shitty games might be underwhelming if that's the entire event? We have seen that before on many an ESOC final (or 5-1.)

Edit: Also with 4 people it could encourage people beyond Sam/Kaiser/Knusch/Hazz/Mitoe/Kyn to spam some ladder and sneak in. Top 2 looks pretty hard to break beyond those 6 guys.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by princeofcarthage »

@WickedCossack the 5-1 Esoc finals you are talking off (I presume h2o, Raphael, blackstar op) although 5-1 or similar in score were still pretty close, intense and exciting to watch.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by WickedCossack »

princeofcarthage wrote:@WickedCossack the 5-1 Esoc finals you are talking off (I presume h2o, Raphael, blackstar op) although 5-1 or similar in score were still pretty close, intense and exciting to watch.
Well a finals is a finals ... by which I mean you already get excitement purely from the prestige it adds. Sure they were probably still quite fun to watch, but could be even better ... no reason not to look at improvement opportunities.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

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Post by EGCTV »

@Riotcoke - Reasonable points for sure. Frankly if those numbers could happen (100 live participants), then I'd punt on it. I think for the very short term with Covid issues it's not going to happen, but I'm genuinely willing to do it longer term if we have a way to quantify interest. For now, I'd rather work with you guys and Aussie to work on something online so we can grow the base and make sure that when the time is right, a huge event can happen. I'm willing to speculate properly on underwriting any event that looks commercially viable.

@WickedCossack - 100% agree about preferring all or nothing. This case was a little different as we advertised that the top 2 would get in automatically, and even though what happened was out of our control, I thought it was unfair to ask 3 guys to devote a lot of time to playing without throwing in something additional. I think for the next one we'll play around with this so it's either all or nothing, or closer to all or nothing. Regarding making it top 4, we are also looking at how to structure the entries a little different, so something close to what you described may happen.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by Riotcoke »

Escape hosted the event when the game was, playerbase speaking, roughly 1/3 of what it is now, which resulted in around 50 audience members. So it was just a very rough estimate.

Obviously with covid as it is hosting anything in person is a long term thing.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

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Post by I_HaRRiiSoN_I »

hmm i was the nobody in the esoc twitch chat before the 2019 lan, since then ive certainly come into the community more. I could imagine that repeating for others if there was another lan or at least a social meetup
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by chronique »

WickedCossack wrote: As a viewer it does really elevate the prestige and engagement with the event. I actually quite liked the original premise of all or nothing (£1,000 or £0) as the stakes feel so much higher.
I will refuse to watch "all or nothing" event. Binary stuff should be reserved for statistic and comp prog (i would feel so bad for the looser ^^)
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by EGCTV »

chronique wrote:
WickedCossack wrote: As a viewer it does really elevate the prestige and engagement with the event. I actually quite liked the original premise of all or nothing (£1,000 or £0) as the stakes feel so much higher.
I will refuse to watch "all or nothing" event. Binary stuff should be reserved for statistic and comp prog (i would feel so bad for the looser ^^)
Oh come on! I'm soft as fuck and even I will get over it for the loser. Don't get me wrong I'm all for fair distribution in a deep tournament, but 2nd prize in a two person competition is a little overkill!
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by PancakePrincess »

That may be a dumb question, but what's EGCTV? I must have missed something : x
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by chronique »

EGCTV wrote: Oh come on! I'm soft as fuck and even I will get over it for the loser. Don't get me wrong I'm all for fair distribution in a deep tournament, but 2nd prize in a two person competition is a little overkill!
Depend of the prize and, to me in a showmatch i prefer when the prize is not big ^^. I will be honest, i am not a big fan of the kind of rules of the last event ^^

But pls feel free to do what you like to do, don't care about my solo opinion :D
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by Astaroth »

Regarding the games (which were great btw, really well played and congrats @Kaiserklein ) - did Knusch win the India/France game at least partly due to the fact that mahouts don't cost gold? As far as I can tell, Kaiser probably mostly lost the game because he ran out of gold. In contrast, Knusch didn't run out of gold and/or could rely on mahouts as well, which don't cost gold.

Or were they a non-factor?
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by gibson »

Feels like knusch shouldn’t have been able to get away with making nothing but gurka til 13 minutes and shipping Indian boyars 2nd in age 3. Kaiser was too passive probably.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by onfiregun17 »

PancakePrincess wrote:That may be a dumb question, but what's EGCTV? I must have missed something : x
Someone anonymous who funded the tournament this last weekend, so you haven't really missed anything.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by Astaroth »

onfiregun17 wrote:
PancakePrincess wrote:That may be a dumb question, but what's EGCTV? I must have missed something : x
Someone anonymous who funded the tournament this last weekend, so you haven't really missed anything.
Presumably ZeroEmpires.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by onfiregun17 »

Astaroth wrote:
onfiregun17 wrote:
PancakePrincess wrote:That may be a dumb question, but what's EGCTV? I must have missed something : x
Someone anonymous who funded the tournament this last weekend, so you haven't really missed anything.
Presumably ZeroEmpires.
That seems like the last person to be doing this?
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by howlingwolfpaw »

Astaroth wrote:Regarding the games (which were great btw, really well played and congrats @Kaiserklein ) - did Knusch win the India/France game at least partly due to the fact that mahouts don't cost gold? As far as I can tell, Kaiser probably mostly lost the game because he ran out of gold. In contrast, Knusch didn't run out of gold and/or could rely on mahouts as well, which don't cost gold.

Or were they a non-factor?

Until that last battle all his mahouts were not doing very much in terms of kills, but he only had a few.

But in the last battle brought out at least 7 which is really hard to counter with goon type units. There were not enough body blocking units. so to kill them the goons kite away from the skirms leaving them vulnerable.

through out the match knusch was in some pretty hairy situations but was able to hold using better positioning micro, and pathing. Including surviving some scary gendarme masses.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by Astaroth »

Why Zeroempires? Of course it's just a guess, which could be completely off-base. But there are some indications, at least IMO.

Obviously individually they don't mean much, but in combination it does seem quite possible:
- British (UK flag)
- way of speaking/writing (obviously a British native speaker, at least to me the texts read similar to what I've seen from ZeroEmpires over the years)
- clear and obvious interest in the AoE scene, willing to put lots of money into it; especially in AoE3 in the past as well
- interest to make a business out of it
- experience with tournament organisation and interest in it
- the acronym "EGC" seems similar enough to "Escape Gaming" (EG)
- interest in staying anonymous at first because the last business venture (Escape) wasn't entirely successful and because he has been somewhat inactive in the past

I could be completely wrong, of course. I also don't wish to insult anyone. It's just a friendly guess.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

Post by Mitoe »

princeofcarthage wrote:
Mitoe wrote:
EGCTV wrote:@Le Hussard sur le toit - Respectfully disagree. I think one of the reasons the matches were so good is that a meaningful prize creates better action. That's not to say $300 isn't good money, just that I don't think it will bring the same attention and excitement. I will look to supplement this with some smaller things too, but honestly my aim is to end up with bigger prizes. It's likely the showmatch will become a regular event, but the next thing I'm looking to do will be longer and for a much bigger prize pool. Long long term, the aim is to have prizes big enough that AOE2 players and old pros will look to get back involved at the higher level, but that would require audiences in the thousands and might be fanciful - let's see!
As someone who plays in showmatches/tournaments a lot, the prize was actually motivating me to practice and grind ladder; however, I had unfortunately forgotten February only has 28 days, and then on the last day I was unable to play ladder due to cheaters.

If it was $100 - $300 I probably would just not care very much.
$300 a weekend is still good money tbh. You could end up with $1200-$1500 a month which is 1/3rd of what most earn a month in US/Canada and a months salary in many countries.
It's good, yes, but this is a monthly thing, not every weekend. And considering how actively you have to play/grind the ladder in order to maintain a top 2 position on the ladder, it's not that great.
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

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Post by EGCTV »

Astaroth wrote:Why Zeroempires? Of course it's just a guess, which could be completely off-base. But there are some indications, at least IMO.

Obviously individually they don't mean much, but in combination it does seem quite possible:
- British (UK flag)
- way of speaking/writing (obviously a British native speaker, at least to me the texts read similar to what I've seen from ZeroEmpires over the years)
- clear and obvious interest in the AoE scene, willing to put lots of money into it; especially in AoE3 in the past as well
- interest to make a business out of it
- experience with tournament organisation and interest in it
- the acronym "EGC" seems similar enough to "Escape Gaming" (EG)
- interest in staying anonymous at first because the last business venture (Escape) wasn't entirely successful and because he has been somewhat inactive in the past

I could be completely wrong, of course. I also don't wish to insult anyone. It's just a friendly guess.
The speculation is quite funny, because I'm not really trying to be secretive. If someone wants to know something, just ask :)

To clear some of this up:

I'm not Zeroempires and I don't know who that is.
I am indeed British.
I have a lot of experience in building successful entertainment projects, especially on YouTube, but from a performance marketing (not creative) side.
I have very little experience in tournament organisation, but I am indeed interested in it and think it's a growth area.
Of course I'd like to make a business out of this, but doing so will require significant speculation prior to any success, and that's a risk I'm able to afford and willing to take.
I'm not a serious long-timer on the AOE3 scene, but chose it as my starting point as it's my favourite game and usually business goes better when it's something you really enjoy.

Anyway, no insult taken of course! I've said all along I'm not here to step on toes, and that I think what I'm doing should only benefit everyone doing similar projects in the space!
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Re: $1K Table Topper - February 2021

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Post by Le Hussard sur le toit »

Mitoe wrote:
princeofcarthage wrote:
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$300 a weekend is still good money tbh. You could end up with $1200-$1500 a month which is 1/3rd of what most earn a month in US/Canada and a months salary in many countries.
It's good, yes, but this is a monthly thing, not every weekend. And considering how actively you have to play/grind the ladder in order to maintain a top 2 position on the ladder, it's not that great.
I can understand why it is a bigger motivation for the people who actually have a shot at winning the money !

Which is my main regret with this format in fact, as basically there are only 5-6 players with a realistic shot at the money, while a tournament with a wider qualification process and money for the top 4 or even 8 is a motivation for all top 30 players to grind some games - and AoE3 needs more players trying to go from good to top.
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