Massively speaks with Crovan about EVE Alliance PvP Tournament VI Part 2
Beyond being competitors in the tournament, what are some of the ways that players watching the event can get involved with Alliance Tournament VI?
Down the road in a future tournament, you could try to become a commentator the way that we have. There's other things as well -- the volunteer program that CCP runs, ISD. They've got people on the field watching the matches and doing coverage live to post on the forums for people who missed the matches. If you want to actually be part of helping produce the alliance tournament, that's an option that's available to you.
Also EVE Radio and the EVE-related radio stations do quite a bit. EVE Network News were liveblogging the entire tournament. If you can't listen to the live audio stream you can still read up on it and contribute to the conversation as it's happening. There's also IRC on the Coldfront server which is the semi-official EVE IRC server where all the people hang out. I'm in there a lot of the time, some of the other experts are in there sometimes. You can get a lot of conversation both during, between, and after matches about what's going on. There are a lot of different ways you can get involved, even if you're not flying.
Obviously there's no live video feed until the last weekend. But there is live audio, and the videos tend to go up on YouTube pretty quick. I was very impressed with the turnaround.
What about the player-created advertisements and betting?
I think it's wonderful. I've always thought that the BIG betting system is a great addition to the tournament, it adds that element of realism. For the Americans out there, this is the EVE equivalent of the Super Bowl. For everyone else out there, this is like the EVE equivalent of the World Cup. It's kind of cool to see the community buy into that and do what real people do -- spend lots of money [ISK] advertising during it and gamble on it. And it's just really cool that goes on and there are people interested in it.
So the qualifying rounds last week and this weekend had audio commentary, followed by a quick release of the matches on YouTube. The last word I've received was that the final rounds will be streamed in live video through EVE TV. Is that still the case? How can people tune in to listen to your commentary on the PvP matches?
It's absolutely correct. We'll be streaming the matches live on February 8th and 9th via EVE TV. The way you can get a hold of that is there will be links shown on the EVE Online website. You can go to www.eve-online.tv and what you'll see right now are old episodes of the weekly EVE TV program, but once it's time for the finals you'll actually see the actual live feed here: http://www.eve-online.com/evetv/tunein.asp
But if you're looking to tune in to the matches without streaming video, you can still listen to the commentary live via one of EVE's fan-run radio stations. Those being EVE Radio, SI Radio, and New Eden Radio. I believe they will be streaming the commentary live as we see it from our camera ships.
Is there anything else you'd like to say to Massively's readers about the Alliance Tournament?
For me, one of the things that the tournament represents is a point of accessibility for people who are not familiar with the game. Because at the end of the day, it reads like a sport on the screen. You're watching ships fly at each other, and missiles and explosions. It looks like a scene out of Star Wars and so it's a good point of accessibility -- if you're new to the game, aren't familiar with the game, want to see how it plays out, or if you're trying to convince a friend to come to the game -- showing them the Alliance Tournament is one of the greatest things you can do.
Because what happens at the Alliance Tournament isn't the pinnacle of gameplay. 10-man on 10-man gangs is considered small fleet combat. So within a few months you can be in that size of a fight out in the wild in EVE, be a PvP-er and become a part of that. Within a year you could be a tournament competitor.
So I think it definitely gives something to shoot for and that eSport appeal really comes through there, as a means to bring the game to a new audience. That's also one of the things I think is great about CCP putting this year's recorded matches up on YouTube, it gives that exposure to a new audience...
Honestly the second Alliance Tournament is one of the things that convinced me that I wanted to be a PvP-er and that I wanted to stick with the game. And that it was something truly unique in the MMO space... You hear all these generalizations made about MMOs and how they are, how people within them behave, and what the realities are. 90 percent of the time I find myself saying out loud if I'm listening to a podcast or something, "Well, it's not that way in EVE."
I think EVE is truly a unique animal and the Alliance Tournament is the best representation of this that I can think of, on a number of different levels.
Thanks for speaking with Massively, Crovan.
