Fatal1ty Walks Away With CPL Purse

Via the Guardian Gamesblog, the news that Jonathan Wendel (Fatal1ty) won a large cash and loot prize for his victory at the Cyberathlete Professional League championships. From the BBC article: "In all 32 players battled for the grand final title but the fight for the top two places became a showdown between Mr Wendel (aka Fatal1ty) and Mr Kaasjager (aka Voo). The pair have dominated the tournament as it hopped around the globe. The CPL World Tour was played out over ten stops held in nine nations around the world throughout 2005. Top players at the tour stops won places in the grand final. Players took each other on at the Painkiller computer game."

Comments

Painkiller?

[Ligur]

Didn't that game like... suck?

Re:Painkiller?

[-kertrats-]

Gamerankings has it listed at 82%. Not bad.

Re:Painkiller?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Yeah, it was first in a series of CPL's gamehopping.
CPL: Hey, They say painkillers going to be awesome, lets use it as our new game!
{painkiller is released, isn't horrible, but lacks balance among other things}
CPL:..Oh, but dude, did you see that doom3 trailer? LEETSAUCE! lets have a doom3 tourney instead! its going to be awesome!
{doom3 comes out. shadowboxing: not the most fun to watch. gigabyte sized demos: not good for tourneys}
CPL:..Whoops. But check out F.E.A.R! The screenshots are so pretty, this is the shizzle, yall.
{FEAR comes out, sucks.}
CPL:..my bad, but wow, quake4! made by the same people that made the only good DM game(quakeworld)..wait, whats that? Raven software isn't idsoftware? oh..but heretic! that was fun singleplayer, so this must make a good multiplayer game. tourney time!

Meh. Refine something good rather than hopping around to something untested.

Re:Painkiller?

[KDR_11k]

From the announcements it went more like:

CPL: "Hey, Doom! Everyone will want to play that! How about some sponsorship, iD?"
ID: "We're not giving you money to play our game."
CPL: "Oh... Uh..."
DREAMCATCHER: "Hey, we got this cool game, 'Painkiller' and here's your donation!"
CPL: "Ladies, we have a new official game!"

Re:Painkiller?

[jackbird]

oh..but heretic! that was fun singleplayer, so this must make a good multiplayer game. tourney time! Heretic 1 (Doom engine) is the most tightly balanced multiplayer game I have ever played. Not appropriate for competition in this day and age, but don't knock it.

Re:Painkiller?

[HD Webdev]

Gamerankings has it listed [gamerankings.com] at 82%. Not bad.

Unfortunately, only 15 people are playing it online right now.

Those ratings must have been based on the single player. I have rarely seen good comments from people who have played it online.

Of course, that's not to say that Fatal1ty isn't an incredibly skilled player. I just wish that the CPL would use a game that has more people playing it online worldwide at one time than a number that can fit in my garage.

Re:Painkiller?

[Deliveranc3]

Very few players play 1 vs 1. It has the steepest learning curve, when you try for the first time you will be rocked again and again and again.

I played a tournament with my friends 1 vs 1 on Quake 1.

Scores were 16 to -5 26 to -6 etc. And they were experienced players, really a tiny diffrence in skill translates into a huge diffrence in score.

There aren't a lot of noobs as a consequence, people think they want to play tough thinking games and learn from losing but there are less people who can consistently do it and call if fun than you'd think, there are too many excellent players wasting their time pwning noobs.

If you're good find a good server where people are BETTER than you and play there till they aren't, find people who play consistently on one server.

Re:Painkiller?

[Blakey Rat]

They should play OG Tribes. Rock on.

Broadcast of the CPL finals on MTV

[zhenga]

MTV will broadcast the television special "From Game To Fame: The CPL World Tour Finals" on Saturday, November 26, 2005 at 8:00PM ET/PT and 7:00PM CT/MT. This is the first USA television broadcast of a Grand Finals e-sports event. Both MTV and CPL have been collaborating on the production of this show.

Furthermore, CBS 60 Minutes is expected to air a segment on esports and CPL on Sunday, December 11, 2005. Check local listing for broadcast time. Over 10 million people watch 60 Minutes every week.

Prize Money

[vmardian]

From the article:

He took home $150k.

Year to date for him is now $230k.

Re:Prize Money

[StupidKatz]

... after taxes and gasoline, he had just enough to buy a Snickers and a Red Bull. ;)

Link to the video coverage

[rAiNsT0rm]

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?name=games - Absolutely amazing to watch firsthand. Twitch doesn't even begin to describe the action, and even more amazing is that the announcers do a good job of covering the action! Worth checking out, however it does require IE and MS.

Re:Link to the video coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth checking out, however it does require IE and MS.

And thus, sadly, not worth checking out. ;-)

How to become a cyberathlete

[Anonymous Coward]

To qualify for the Quake 4 tournament you need to go to Dallas, Texas in December. The qualifying round has 250 gamers registered so far. Maybe someone can clarify if these gamers already sponsored, or if they fork the money out of their own pockets to come to these events?

Re:How to become a cyberathlete

[Antony.S]

Majority of gamers who attend these events are sponsored, a handful do it out of their own pockets (acelethal from the UK paid his own way to some stops last year)

The Winter CPL tournament isn't required to qualify for anything, it will give some autoberths for the first World Series stop next year I guess, as well as improve seedings to give you an easier run.

It's not a purse!

[John Napkintosh]

It's a man bag.

Re:It's not a purse!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope,

its a carry-on,
its european!!!

No way.

[-kertrats-]

There's no way what I just watched was from MTV. There were no commercial interruptions, the gameplay was on the screen 95% of the time, the announcers knew what they were talking about, there was no product placement, they showed the full duration of the match-besides having to use IE and WMP, there was no intrusion whatsoever. This cannot be MTV.

Re:No way.

[rAiNsT0rm]

I was just as amazed. I thought something must be wrong, or the devil is now wearing ear muffs and mittens.

MTV's overdrive is actually pretty solid all around, which is pretty noteworthy... however it could also be that it is just new and they haven't figured out how to crap it up yet.

I saw Fatal1ty playing at QuakeCon...

[idonthack]

...and he is crazy good. When people say "he's not human", they're not kidding.
 
Most people that went against him couldn't stay alive for more than five seconds.
---
I'm actually just a script.
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey

Re:I saw Fatal1ty playing at QuakeCon...

[Rabid_Llama]

he is good, but he is an asshole. V0o is much more professional.

doesn't work for me

[killa62]

Is that why there were no interruptions and product placements?
yup, this is why its MTV

Painkiller? Still?

[DeadboltX]

That game didn't deserve more than a years lifetime in the dark hearts of people still longing for another Serious Sam, much less be the method of determining a "video game champion"

Re:Painkiller? Still?

[hopopee]

It doesn't really matter what the game is. The point is that these guys will learn to play any game better than we could ever hope to.

any one else

[cyrax777]

never heard about this game?