Swedes Dominate Counter-Strike Championship

fluor2 writes "'Guys, somebody stepped on a switch. I'm not kidding; someone actually stepped on a switch and unplugged our network!' These are not the words one would like to hear from one of the staff in the middle of Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) Extreme World Championships $100,000 Counter-Strike finals. But it happened. Finally, after the game was restarted, Team Eyeballers (Sweden) is the new CPL CS Champion over Schroet Kommando (also Sweden), winning (7-5;6-0)." Update: 08/02 01:06 GMT by S : There's a more detailed report over at Gotfrag.

Comments

Same players...New game...

[oneiron]

I've not followed the 'pro gaming' scene for quite some time, and it never ceases to amaze me how the same players dominate the leagues no matter what game is being played.

Re:'Cyberathelete'?

[FosterKanig]

Replace "athlete" with "skilled", and I'll agree with title. But cyberathlete? Please wake up and smell reality. Athlete involves some semblance of physical fitness.

P.S. Not breaking a sweat while you reach for the Cheetos doesn't make you an athlete.

Common traits in 'pro' gamers?

[Professor Oompa]

When it comes these championship caliber gamers, is there any particular areas in which these folks excel? Do they have extrordinary IQs? Uber fast reaction times? Xtreme mouse-eye coordination? Do they have better hardware, are they great mentalists, or do they just spend way too much time playing video games?

In the end I'm sure its probably a combination of more than one trait, but I'm curious if any of them are outstanding in other arenas as well. (i.e. can make a Big Mac like nobody's business)

Re:Common traits in 'pro' gamers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the reason they excel. They know how to exploit the rules of the game they're playing. Realizing hitscan, gun glitches, recoil behavior, model hitboxes, physics rules, and even in some cases map flaws can help in professional gaming. It gets to the point where you're trying to play against the rules of the game instead of playing the game. That's why I hate "pro" gaming.

Re:Common traits in 'pro' gamers?

[zerocool^]

It's probably a combination of features, including practice. However, (and I learned some of this from my wife, who studied neurochemistry in college) a lot of it is probably reaction times. Case in point: if you practiced driving a stock car, you could still never drive in nascar. Studies have shown that their reaction times are (admittedly) nanoseconds faster than the average person, and this gives them an edge.

So, you could practice your build order, or your objective list, or memorize every querk in the maps, etc, and get very, very good at a game, but most of us could never be excellent.

Re:Common traits in 'pro' gamers?

[angle_slam]

I remember reading about the guy who was the Q3 champ (or maybe it was the Starcraft champ?). He would practice 8-10 hours a day.

I don't play CS. But I used to play Q3 a lot. I would download the replays of the championship matches. The champ knew the maps down cold. Knew all of the spawn points and had absolutely incredible rail gun accuracy.

As an aside, Starcraft replays are also available. The champs have an amazing ability to multitask, being able to micromanage their base and their attack at the same time. And, of course, they knew the maps like the back of their hand.

Re:Common traits in 'pro' gamers?

[leathered]

A TV show here in the UK once analysed Michael Schumacher to learn what makes him the greatest racing driver in the world. To their surprise they found out that his reaction times were no better than the rest of us.

They found out that what makes him great is his ability to anticipate, to prepare himself and make the correct decisions in his mind anything up to a few seconds before he executes them. I play fps games myself and I can believe his is probably the case with the top gamers.

Re:Common traits in 'pro' gamers?

[noewun]

A TV show here in the UK once analysed Michael Schumacher to learn what makes him the greatest racing driver in the world.

Whoa - stop the hype. There are five or six WRC drivers who could drive circles around Schumacher. The WRC guys will always win in sheer driving skill, cause it takes a enormous level of finesse to drive a 400 hp car down a logging road at 160 km/h.

Schumacher has benefitted immensely from being on the best team of the era in a time when competition in F1 is at an all time low. He has also benefitted greatly from all of the semi-auto shifting and traction control crap in the cars now. In his Bennetton days, before all that, he was infamous for blowing engines with botched downshifts - when the car isn't good, he isn't good. Compare to Senna or Prost, who could (and did) win in less than stellar cars.

Re:'Cyberathelete'?

[Valar]

I seriously doubt any of the CPL players were using bots, considering a) aimbots are notoriously easy to detect b) point a is even more true when there is a judge standing right behind you.

Movies?

[sn0wflake]

Does anybody know if there's movies from the competition? I'm especially interested in in-game clips.

HLTV statistics...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some interesting facts about the HLTV network used to broadcast the final. HLTV is what we in the HL community use to spectate games live much like GTV for quake.

There were 35000 spectators watching the finals. The HLTV network had over 180000 spectator slots spread over more than 700 proxies worldwide.

Re:Mandatory military

[dimeglio]

Vikings anyone?

'A furore normannorum libera nos domine'
'Skona oss herre från nordmännens raseri'
'Oh lord, save us from the rage of the Nordic people'

[A common prayer in the French churches during the 9th century.]

Those other teams probably forgot the prayer.

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Re:What a joke

[cbreaker]

I used to play a game called Tactical Ops; a mod for UT. It was awesome, we were in the #1 clanbase ladder position - because we worked together really well, we were honest players, we went over tactics and plans during practice runs.. it was just a blast. Unfortunately, a lot of bad element started to come onto the scene after awhile and we just ended up losing interest. But it was the most fun I've ever had with online gaming.

It's the kids. And no, it's not all of them. We had a couple young guys in our clan (age 14 and 15 I think) and they were cool; great players and nice kids. But that's not usually the way it goes. The young kids, age 13 - 16, are so troublesome. I ran four TacOps servers for over a year and that demographic was constantly and continuously a thorne in my side as well as all the players that played on the servers.

Re:'Cyberathelete'?

[Cornflake917]

I just came back from the CPL and met with many of the top players. One thing I've noticed is that alot of the top players are actaully quite accomplished athletes. Many of the swedish players are soccer players. And they are thin but well built. I've noticed that I play fps's better if I am regularly exercising. I don't want to go into any deep psyho-analysis but I think the whole mental attidude many athletes develop, such as being determined to win,focused, relaxed, and confident, will bleed off into other things like video games.

I can see how these people can get away with being called a "cyberathlete" because they have to focus, train hard, have good reactions and hand-eye coordination.

I will have to admit though, there were some really pale, fat, and unhealthy players there that manage to hang with the cream of the crop.