Anti-Cheating Systems And Open Tournaments: How Event Planning Has Changed Within CS:GO
With the recent coach bans and worldwide pandemic, some of the biggest tournament organisers are changing things up, such as new rules to prevent coaches from cheating, and a series of online tournaments. Flashpoint, DreamHack, and BLAST have all made it very clear that they’re doing the best they can to combat this year's challenges. All three events are well recognised by fans of competitive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), and plan to keep their well-respected reputations. Besides the bigger venues, a handful of smaller tournaments have even helped up and coming players throughout these tough times. No need to ignore issues within esports when they can easily be fixed.
ONLINE IS THE NEW LAN
Flashpoint Season 2 is sneaking up on everyone and will begin November 10. The million-dollar tournament will consist of twelve participants, such as Team Envy, Gen.G, and forZe. A seven-figure prize pool is bound to get people excited. The series was founded in 2020 as a team-owned league. The seven founders are made up of Cloud9, c0ntact Gaming, Dignitas, Team Envy, Gen.G Esports, MAD Lions, and MiBR. Flashpoint Season 1 was a hit after MAD Lions came out on top earning fourteen hundred BLAST Premier points and five hundred thousand dollars. Compared to other events, Flashpoint is made for high rollers.
Flashpoint Commissioner MonteCristo has mentioned that their Season 2 tournament will include some highly anticipated features. With COVID-19 he’s stated that the tournament will stay as an online event for the time being to keep players safe. While wanting to keep viewers entertained between matches, the Flashpoint staff will record a series of player documentaries. This way, commentators will receive a break as well. This also goes for the players since the interviews will be pre-recorded and discuss a variety of topics instead of post-match conversations. MonteCristo has admitted that Flashpoint is aiming for casual gamers to check out their matches. To do this, they’re going to continue to produce featured fragmovies and drive the players to banter with fans.
NO MORE CHEATERS
BLAST being a pillar of the esports community, continues to update their events. Like Flashpoint, they were also founded at the start of 2020. Due to the most recent ESIC coaching scandal, BLAST has made it their goal to patch this issue before another event. Team coaches will now be required to stream their POV from Discord during every match. All of the recorded information will be recorded using logs within MOss, an anti-cheating system for PC gaming. Screenshots will be taken to track coaches during matches and even halftime. Coaches will upload their logs thirty minutes after each match, and GDrives will be provided to obtain these results. Admitting that MOss isn’t the best, it’s definitely a start. BLAST was happy to announce their latest feature and will proceed with this process throughout the following year.
With all the ups and downs players have faced this year, things are looking up. All the bumps in the road are being smoothed out for future events. As for those who watch these competitions and most likely play CS:GO, DreamHack has announced a series of new open online tournaments.
Click to enlargeOPEN EVENTS
Starting November 26, DreamHack will release a lineup of open events. With two hundred thousand dollars on the line, people are excited about what's to come. The November event will bring in teams from multiple esports platforms. Two highly ranked ESL teams will receive invites along with two ESEA qualifier teams. The tournament winners will be invited from the ESL Championship in Poland and the Elgiganten Ligaen S15 event. So far, the only confirmed team has been KOVA, a Finnish team looking to have their breakout year and become a big-league team. As for the December event that’s slightly different.
From December 10 to 13, DreamHack will hold its second online open. Except this time, four teams will come from the ESL world ranking list rather than two. The qualifiers will be invited from ESEA and the DreamHack Spain qualifier. A team by the name of Originem has been confirmed for participation. Originem’s all-female European roster went 3-0 at the DreamHack Showdown Summer tournament. With an undefeated record, this is a must-see team. Both tournaments will allow new players to prove they're worthy of high tier CS:GO and help form some new careers. For viewers, it’s a great chance to watch a variety of smaller teams duke it out for huge cash prizes.
The competitive CS:GO scene has become a centre for daily tournaments resulting in competition. To earn profits, events must somehow stand out and steer away from already established groups, if that’s with the help of popular team invites or the chatty casters promoting the tournament. Either way, it’s important to constantly move ahead and provide fresh content. After all, millions of viewers are always relying on good matchups.
Images via BLAST Premier | DreamHack
