Yesterday I went to check out an esport tournament here in Taiwan since another exchange student, Eric Fleck kind of knew some of the people who were going to play in the tournament there. The tournament went on until today, so I went there again tonight. It was epic.
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The game they're playing at the tournament is called SF Online - Special Forces Online. It's an FPS (First Person Shooter) game very much like Counter Strike and it's pretty big in Asia. Especially in Taiwan in which it is developed.
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I arrived there some time past 6 pm today. This was just the time at which the final and biggest (probably also longest) match went on. Eric had been there all day so he kinda knew what was going on. If you're lucky, he's going to blog about it. (You can see his blog in my blogroll at the right panel of my blog.)
This fight was between Japan and Taiwan. I was a little surprised actually. Because yesterday Japan didn't seem to be doing really super well. They beat China out of the competition but as far as I was informed, they would be out of the competition themselves if they lost the last game that day. Because of that, I actually thought Japan would be out by the time I got back. Korea was pretty good and even beat the Taiwanese team that won the two last years competitions yesterday, but today it seemed they were beaten so badly they didn't even get a prize.
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Just btw: This is Eric and me with the Taiwanese team Spider. It's taken yesterday and awfully blurry. Wah. I got a shirt with their logo that day though. For free even. And I think the main reason was that I looked like an American. Yay!
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The match between Japan and Taiwan was really exciting. The Taiwanese team, Spider, had already won the two previous annual contests so they were the favorites, but still the game was very tense as Japan seemed to pose somewhat of a threat to Taiwan. Very few Japanese supporters were there, so Japan didn't get much cheer. I feel sad for them, because their opponents on the other hands got an immense noice from thousands of fans who would scream and bang their balloon-whatever-stick-something together every time they shot a japanese guy. They even had a team of guys running around the hall with big flags imprinted with their logo every time they won a round.
On the above photo, the Taiwanese team are the guys in yellow, while the blue guys are the Japanese team.
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And that's Eric Fleck. He's pretty good at knifing people in the game he says.
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You might have notices the many screens around the place. If you're wondering, the screens above the yellow frames are the ones showing the screens of each player. Above those there are some bigger ones projected onto the wall which will change between showing an enlargened screen one player, footage from the cameras zooming around above the crowd and inside the gamers rooms. Above the panel of commentators in the middle of the scene is a minimap overview of the game. Also, when there is a break between matches the screens will be used to display advertisements, mostly for ingame related stuff or showing key moments captured earlier in the tournament.
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The teams are lining up for picture taking and prize handovers.
Third prize go to Thailand.
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I didn't get any photo of the second prize handover unfortunately. Also I just realized I forgot to get any close up pictures of the showgirls with almost no clothes running around the place carrying the prizes and dancing, but if you click some of the pictures to get a closer look, you might be able to zoom onto some of them. You can also just go ahead and have a look at the yootoob vid below.
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Okay okay. I'll tell you now.
Taiwan won again. The hole building exploded in cheers and everything became quite a memory to me.
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This picture kind of proves that the Asian internets does have girls. There's even two of them on the team who won. Although they didn't actually play in the tournament. I think they might be reserves or maybe just some way of getting more fan attention. I don't know. (Actually the Korean team had one girl on the team who were indeed playing - while wearing a little red ribbon in her hair even - talk about appealing to the crowd.)
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And there they are, the Koreans. Struggling with technical difficulties again.
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All the participants gather up for group picture as the party is over. Or - for some of them, just started, obviously.
Afterwards I went with Eric to the private VIP area which no one were watching over while everyone was in the main hall and did illegalties. Then we ran away and ate dinner before we went home, and now I am going to get some sleep. Have to stay awake during three hours of chinese school which I don't understand anything of so I have to get at least a little energy.
Perhaps there'll be more content later on when I find out how to navigate the Taiwanese sites dealing with the events. Until then, here's a bunch of links you may want to run through google translator if you dare (they have some pictures anyway):
http://wayi.com.tw/news/news_article.aspx?idno=3789
http://www.wayi.com.tw/news/news_article.aspx?idno=3790
http://sf.wayi.com.tw/event/world_championship2009/
http://www.esports.com.tw/doc.php?id=985
http://sf.wayi.com.tw/event/world_championship2009/media/index.asp?sq=217
http://sf.wayi.com.tw/event/world_championship2009/media/video_page.asp?sq=208
Goodnite pyplz.
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