• 28Nov 09

  About the E-Sport in Taiwan

  I wonder how many of you pay attention to E-Sport, let me make a small introduction of the status of E-Sport in Taiwan.

  There's TeSL, "Taiwan eSports League". Currently, there're two games of competition, Kart Rider and Special Force Online.

  Kart Rider is a MMO racing game whileSpecial Force Online is a MMO FPS, known as "Soldier Front" in US. Both of these games are fromKorea.

  Kart Rider

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpYnRceAWxc

  Special Force Online

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeNzOqmXdwU

  TeSL has kicked start for a pretty long while, but the main issue of it is that these two games do not conform the major competitions throughout the globe. It's like a frog hiding in the well, regardless of the immense ocean. That's why TeSL is harshly criticized by many gamers who care about the future of eSport in Taiwan, since eSport ought to be a global industry/career.

  Then why not choose the exact games applied in other major esport leagues like CS, Starcraft, Halo etc? Frankly speaking, all result from fund. Gaming in Taiwan still is not provided with a friendly environment by government and society like South Korea is. From time to time, articles criticizing games appear throughout mass media, needless to say, government and society hardly think highly of eSport.

  Therefore, to survive and prosper, TeSL needs to find its own source of fund. Game companies are the sponsors of the league and the teams. That's why Kart Rider and SF Online are the items of TeSL- They are carried by TeSL's sponsors. By competing these two games, they can be promoted so the firms can make more money.

  That's why TeSL is flamed by gamers, since everything it does needs to consider the profit of the sponsors first.

  Recently there's a voting event to increase the competition items of TeSL. What are the games?

  World of Warcraft

  Left 4 Dead 2

  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

  Team Fortress 2

  Need For Speed

  NBA Live 10

  Red Alert 3

  CS Online

  War Hammer Online

  SD Gundam Online

  Warcraft -Dota Allstar

  There're another two items of Warcraft but I dunno how to call them in English. Anyways they are two mods of Warcraft, "Warcraft -信長之野望" and "Warcraft -真三國無雙".

  From the list above we finally see some "international games", but some games apparently not suitable for esport still appear.

  Korean MMO games (often called online games in TW) require players to pay cash to buy weapons and armors while after a period they will be overdue, so players have to buy again. This is a business mode for the game companies to make endless fortune. For the players, since the default weapons really don't defy the paid weapons, they often have to pay to buy if they want to win.

  Take CS Online for example.Note that this is nether CS1.6 not CS Source. This is a remake by Korean game company, Nexon.Players having to pay cash to unlock rent new weapons is the difference between CSO and CS1.6. Paying cash to unlock and rent means this is not only a game about skills, but a game about the size of your wallets. What's more, the company doesn't actively take care of cheaters. Roughly speaking, CSO is very popular among young/casual gamers but when it comes to serious esport, games that require endless buying weapons will ruin the balance of the competition. The same concept also goes to SD Gundam Online as well.

  Now,Warcraft -信長之野望, CS Online and SD Gundam Online take up the most percentages of the votes. Affirmatively they are the most popular games in TW now, and they probably will become the new items for TeSL, but the result won't change the esport atmosphere in TW nonetheless.

  Many gamers who look forward to the change of TeSL are disappointed, but we can't do anything - that's just the environment.

  I myself once look up to the development of eSport in Taiwan, but now I know were the environment not bettered, eSport in Taiwan would never make its significant step toward the international gaming competition.

  • Posted Nov 28, 2009 8:20 pm PT
  • Category: Sports
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• 9Oct 09

  No more PC games(I) System Requirement

  Now that I have consoles, I think I won't be buying PC games any further.

  The latest PC game I bought is Left 4 Dead and the other one I play is Quake Live (free).

  I've been a PC gamer for a long time. Playing games on PC can be pretty convenient -- since you can switch between browsers and games with just a click. However, I run into prices as well.

  Prices? Yeah, prices. First of all, system requirement.

  System Requirement

  I have to update the hardware to keep up the pace or I'll be left behind.

  When I went into college, I bought my own PC and a video card, 6800LE. Seen old nowadays, 6800LE could handle most of the games that time, like UT2004, Half Life2, Guild Wars, etc. Until I bought this card did I find that the AGP video card has been gradually replaced by PCI-E, so my main board, AGP 8X, is actually an bit old standard.

  As time went by, more and more "computer killers" has been released. Crysis is an obvious example. I realized my machine would not handle new games any further, and as I intended to keep this PC until I graduated from college, I wouldn't largely upgrade the computer (or I could just buy a totally new one instead), so I could only stick to my 6800LE.

  It was not over, because my will was challenged. A famous game, Left 4 Dead, was released. I have had Xbox360 that time, but I wanted to play the PC version because mates I know all went to PC version. Knowing my 6800LE was an outdated veteran, I should look for a decent video card.

  It was February of '09. Seeking a video card has become a hard quest. nVIDIA GeForce 7 series would be just fine, but every store I stepped into had already sold out and wouldn't refill stock anymore, since PCI-E is the mainstream now. The AGP 8X cards left are only 6200, weaker than my own.

  Out of desperation, ATI cards came to my mind. Yeah, why not try ATI cards instead? I spent hours looking for nVIDIA cards, but ended in Radeon HD 4870 within less than 5 minutes.

  Taa-Daa! A new video card, which however appeared like an old man in his mid-forties when he stood among 20-something dude crowd.

  My hardware: P4 3.0GHz, RAM DDR 1GB, HD 4870 (AGP 8X). The man in his mid-forties can handle old tasks easily but fresh ones inadequately. I needed to adjust the graphic of L4D to lowperformance to merely afford a 1X Frame Per Second.

  I've played Left 4 Dead and Quake Live for so many hours. I'm satisfied, but I don't want to take efforts on upgrading computer just for games no more. I'm a lazy person, not passionate enough as to keep my computer shiny and tidy.

  This is the first reason why I am thinking about quitting computer games. The other reason will be in the next blog. Thanks for reading so far

  • Posted Oct 9, 2009 9:44 am PT
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• 3Oct 09

  FaceBook

  Are you into FaceBook?

  We all know that FaceBook is flooded with countless options of web games and mental tests and my buddies on FaceBook seem never stop playing them. In addition, FarmVille is so popular that even news and newspapers have reports about it. It has become an "everybody game" as it seems.

  The games and tests are popular, fun and even addictive. People are willing to get up at 6 am only to steal vegetables from others' farms. Nonetheless, I don't think that's the initial purpose of FaceBook.

  Isn't Facebook the platform for people and old friends to connect together? I add many people into my FaceBook friends list who are my classmates and friends. I joined FaceBook, only wanting to read their usual murmurs, care about how they feel, know how they've been even we've already separated into different domains of life.

  The reality is, they're playing games and tests instead of leaving messages. The "wall" of FaceBook is always spammed with the results of their games and tests.

  When i just joined FaceBook, I was intrigued by the games and tests as well, but after some time, I found them a bore to a fair-thee-well.

  Right now I've already stopped playing the games and tests, and gave up expecting messages on the "wall". I've turned to Plurk, which is message only just like Twitter, so I can be in touch with buddies on Plurk.

  The rare ones who leave messages on FaceBook will still catch my attention.

  • Posted Oct 3, 2009 10:31 pm PT
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