Our prophecy fulfilled, our prayers unanswered
Unfortunately. European Quake League season 7 is about to finish but for many people it was finished before it even started. Almost every point I made in my post “EQL to torture us again?” became reality. I am not proud that I was able to predict the outcome of the league, why? Because it was so damn obvious.
“But is the crew’s new blood patient enough to wait all summer long until fall to start the new season? That is left to be seen.” was my finishing line in that article and as we know by now, they weren’t patient enough. It surprises me that people still fall for this mistake. All the members of EQL crew have played QuakeWorld for various seasons and are aware that summer is the time when it is simply time for something else, something that’s not QW. If they acknowledged this issue, I can’t quite understand what made them still go for the obvious disaster. Back in the day when I used to run my cups for Quake3, I always tried to make it the best possible cup I possibly could. So how can the EQL guys even imagine of doing a best possible league they could if they already knew that one of worst issues were about to hit them without a doubt?
In the history of QuakeWorld maybe this season of EQL will remain as the example of “what to not do”. However I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be any tourneys or leagues during the summer. Instead, I think summer is good time for little competitions that don’t last long. Tournaments such as KTK and FTK could work fluently because they require the players attention just for couple of hours on the given day. Even if big competitions like EQL feel more prestigious, I would personally still prefer a well run KTK or FTK over that during summer because QuakeWorld should be all about having fun. And as we all know, 4on4 + summer holidays + good weather don’t form the most fun equasion. When the weather is decent and people go on holiday, 4on4 simply requires too many people to be available simultaneously at a given time.
It may seem overly harsh to criticise everything these guys are doing, and this is by no means the intention of this article. Regardless of how this season of EQL went, the people involved tried to contribute to keeping this game alive, which is a whole lot more than what 90% of the people involved in the scene do. But with all the exerience these guys have, it is even more puzzling why these guys made so many simple mistakes. NQR could have easily started earlier if someone had notified them that EQL was planning to squish another season in between NQR11 and the notorious “summer break” QuakeWorld seems to take every year. Well at least this year the EQL guys waited until NQR was over, which is something they unfortunately failed to do with EQL5, which ended up overlapping with NQR10.
And what about the European Football Cup? The schedule for that has been up for half a year, and it’s no secret that Europeans tend to be pretty fanatic about football. Like it or not, but an event like that even draws some of the biggest nerds away from their computer screens and into the sunlight.
To sum things up a little: It really shouldn’t be that hard to successfully run two leagues during the 12 months that fill up a year’s calendar. What’s wrong with running EQL from October until December and NQR from February until April (or the other way round, of course)? Sure, two 4on4 tournaments might not be all that much, but who wouldn’t rather see two well organised tourneys instead of the idlemania presented to us in EQL6 and EQL7?
Furthermore, EQL keeps on suffering from a lack of coverage. Where were the predictions, the interviews, the columns? Unfortunately the EQL site isn’t up right now, and it currently actually leads to a beautiful site reading “eql.nu might still be available for registration”, but if I remember right, there were only about a dozen posts during the entirety of the season. A league is not going to be attractive to spectators if the news posts can be summarised under “signups are open, the divisions are up, please play your games even though it’s summer, we found a russian cheater, playoffs began, eql is over”. Some of the EQL admins have previously written a ton of coverage/news at QuakeWorld.nu prior to EQL7, so why stall when it’s actually most important?
One of the main arguments the EQL admins have come up with in their defense was that “Sure, the activity wasn’t amazing, but we knew it would be this way because it’s summer, and it was only supposed to be a short/small season”. Well this might be a nice attempt to suffocate criticism before it even emerges, but on the other hand it makes you think “If you knew things were gonna suck, why do it anyway?”. As mentioned above, the admins tried to contribute to keeping this game alive, and one has to respect that. But if a tourney makes people think “Fuck 4on4, QuakeWorld is dead”, you really gotta ask yourself whether you actually contributed or not.
Again, this might seem overly harsh and demotivating for people trying to make an effort. But if you talk the talk, you should be prepared to walk the walk.
Good read, but maybe way too long article for such a simple statement.
In my opinion it's mostly due to most players getting irresponsible - QW is not that important to them as it used to be years ago.
And also ofcourse the coverage. Not only there wasn't coverage, even the tables/reports were buggy this season. That demotivates players from playing too imho.