First blood was drawn this weekend in New Eden, as the tenth Alliance Tournament began with first round qualifier matches.
As is usually the case with these events, CCP is presenting everyone with a plethora of web and social options for staying informed on the outcomes of the matches. In addition to the official site (linked below), you can follow the results and ongoing community discussion on Twitter, hashtag #at10eve.
If you’re interested in a match-by-match summary, the folks at Definitive eSports has put up recaps for both days from this weekend. They’re worth a read if you want to get caught up quickly. Those with much more time on their hands who may have missed all (or some) of the fights can catch the full match videos as they go up on CCP’s YouTube channel.
One of my biggest complaints about the tournaments of the past has been nicely handled this year, and that’s the “what the fuck is going on?” factor. Lets face it: not everyone’s an expert at EVE, and there are plenty of folks watching the tournament who haven’t touched the game. At minimum, having some sort of UI overlaid on the action that shows some metadata from both sides in real time should be a requirement, and finally we have that.
It’s more eSporty this way, which in my opinion at least, is a good thing. More interest in these tournaments means more likelihood CCP will continue to put on the show and support them as well as they have been. This year’s streaming has been flawless for me, and the quality is entirely serviceable.
So far the commentary’s been above average, and since this is the qualifiers I’m hoping for good things as the tournament progresses.
Sources:
