Chasing the unknown [CLOSED]

[PotatoFarmers]

This is a closed RP thread, mainly for solo RPs. Apart from me, the user, only invited guests & moderators doing mod duties are allowed to post in this thread. Any questions and feedback, please telegram me on this account, or to DM me on Discord, Freg#0420.

Chasing the Unknown
An Story about Youth, Enthusiasm, and the lesser-known sports

Introduction: In this multiverse, we have professional athletes chasing glory in the biggest international competitions. The Summer & Winter Olympics. The NationStates World Cup. World Bowl. World Cup of Hockey. International Baseball Slam. GCF World T20. And other competitions out there. But what happens if you are competing for a sport with little to no international exposure? What if you are playing for a sport that is not even considered a sport to some? This is a story about youth chasing their dreams. This is a story about one's enthusiasm for a sport. This is also a story about a special field of athletes in Poafmersia & the multiverse - our mindsports players, and our eSports players.

Warning: This is a roleplay storyline that is likely to last quite a long while, given the breadth and depth. There is immense potential for collaborations, but the fruits of the collaboration might be queued for some time in the near future, given the current timeline. As there are a number of story threads around, there is a possibility that roleplays are not considered in chronological order. As such, please refer to the given content page to navigate to the RP you are looking for. RPs posted along the same storyline, but by different nations in different competitions, will be compiled here for reference.

Link to Story Threads (coming soon)
Thread A: Mindsports - Chess
Thread B: Mindsports - Contract Bridge
Thread C: eSports - Glory of Masters (MOBA)

[PotatoFarmers]

Reserved for Content Page

[PotatoFarmers]

As posted in CoH84

Thread C: Glory of Masters
Part 0: About the game and the League.

To even talk about the glorious eSports scene of Glory of Masters (no pun intended, mind you), we need to talk about the history of the game, and how the eSports competitions came about. And this part 0 aims to do just that - to delve about into some facts surrounding the formation of the competitions, as well as some details about the format, the teams, that might help you for the story later on.

In the past, Poafmersia never had a really popular home-grown game. There are some indie game developers out there, but most of the game genres have been one of three types - Turn-based Strategy Games (TBS), Real-time Strategy games (RTS), and Role-playing games (RPG). That's about it. TBS and RTS typically take too long to play, lasting around 60-90 minutes on average, while RPGs don't suit many people. As such, even if there were competitive TBS and RTS scenes, participation was mostly limited to a niche group, and viewership was equally limited. Until the year 2092, when a group of game developers came together and decided to create a new genre of game. Known as the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), it started off as a 3v3 version on a smaller map; before they designed the 5v5 map as part of open beta, and it was the 5v5 that proved to be a hit among the various players. This game was later officially released in 2097, and we will know it as the Glory of Masters, to-date Poafmersia's most popular home grown game.

Around the similar times, the Ministry of Arts, Sports and Culture (MASC), in a bid to gather the mindsports and the eSports players of the country, formed two separate associations, known as the Poafmersia Mindsports Federation (PMF), as well as the Poafmersia eSports Association (PeSA). The former was a natural occurance, given the growing community of chess and contract bridge players, while the latter was much of a surprise given how niche the community was. Nevertheless, the government saw this as a growth area in sports, and the PeSA was seen as an avenue for small communities of TBS and RTS players to get funding for their national competitions.

The interest in Glory of Masters was ridiculous. Within 3 days of the official launch, the game broke 1 million downloads, and quickly it swelled to 10 million downloads within 2 weeks, and then 50 million downloads by the end of 3 months. With such a huge player base, gaming clubs started considering whether some of these young players wanted to play the game professionally. And with the PeSA eager to organise their first competition on its own, the Glory Professional League (GPL) was born.

The GPL started out small, but not quite small as you may think - 12 teams. In 2100, with the professional scene still building up, they only had 2 seasons yearly. It was straightforward - double round robin, with a single elimination bracket to determine the split champions. But the popularity was so huge, within 4 years, another 10 teams joined, leading to the creation of the conference system in 2104, with teams split into 2 conferences based on location of their registered home. Just a year later, the single-elimination system was scrapped, and in came a chaotic "Bubble + Double Elim" format which many fans were supportive about. In 2104, only 12 teams made it into the playoffs, 6 per conference. In the new format, 8 teams per conference could make it in, with the "bubble format" deciding who gets eliminated before they reach the final 8 and change to a double-elimination. It was utterly crazy, yes, but teams loved to watch the upsets, such as in the Summer of 2106, when 8th placed Sarim Potato EC in the North Conference defeated 4 teams, including GPL giants Mancodas Gaming, to make it into the final 8. The twice yearly format switched to a thrice-yearly format, with a new Glory of Masters Season Championship rounding out the year. But the increase in popularity never stopped. It was in the year 2108 did they establish a new second tier, known as the Glory Challengers League, and it was in the same year the mobile version (which was only created a year prior) had its own league known as the Glory Professional League (Mobile). This created a contrasts for the viewers - while the computer league had more variety in terms of T0 and T1 heros, as well as team strategies, the mobile version was faster and created really fast-paced games, including an all-time GPL record of a 7:30 match, between Edward Gaming Club Mobile (EGCM) and Team Nova, in the Fall of 2109.

While the number of big franchises didn't increase, there came a trend of smaller teams aiming to make a breakthrough in the franchise-system of the GPL. Stunned by this rise, the PeSA quickly established the National Cup, a biannual tournament which sees players form teams to fight their way into the GCL playoffs. Later, the GPL expanded to 24 teams, and for the first time ever, doing a promotion-relegation system to the GCL and further down into the National Cup. This was the first time franchise teams can fall into oblivion; getting into the GCL for any of the 20 main franchises was seen as a disgrace. But it doesn't mean franchises are the kings - it was during the Fiskadaha Major of 2112, the most recent Major, where All Champions' Gaming, a club that started just 2 years prior, won the Major for the second time in the club's history. Of course, that story of the ACG deserves a separate chapter on its own.

The GPL eSports league also presented the multiverse with 2 inventions, one of which quickly got adopted by the Basketball community in the PBL, while the other is an invention that really should be considered among the rest of the MOBA communities out there. The first is the invention of the SAB mini-league system. Apart from the promotion & relegation at the end of the regular system, the mini-leagues was also an avenue for promotion & relegation within the league season. Teams will only play other teams within the same mini-league, with the lower-ranked teams at risk of relegation between round-robins. The mini-league system was seen as an avenue for teams to get a good test of whether they are improving, as they are playing against teams with similiar standards based on prior results. The second invention was the Global Ban-Pick system. In 2106, facing a challenge of trying to create a more diverse hero field, and trying to find a way for more t1 and t2 heros to be played on the competitive stage, the game creators proposed the system, in which a hero will not be used for more than one game during the match. This created some controversy early on, but the adequate amount of warning (this was done with 2-3 months warning) meant that teams had some time to adapt to it. But it was the team coaches that have the most headache, with a larger pool of heros to pick from and trying to figure out which set of heros can be better used to counter which other set of heros. But this turned out to be really successful, and games slowly changed from the best-of-three conquest mode (standard Ban-Pick procedures) to best-of-five conquest mode. Originally, the finals used a best-of-seven global ban-pick system; but it was the creators who felt that there needs to be more excitement, and the final game in best-of-seven matches was changed to the "Elite Battle" format. Now, teams need to also practice a set of t0 heros to its maximum potential do be able to do well in the Elite Battle, should it be needed.