Sri Lanka’s Online Game Ladders

Sri Lanka's gaming scene in has risen up another notch. Recently two of the gaming websites have thought of conducting game ladders. LCGZ (Lanka Cyber Game Zone) has already opened up their game ladder site called gameladders.lk and opened up registrations for COD4 (Call of duty 4). The other site that is preparing to open up a gaming ladder is lankagamer.com. According to sources they will also open up registrations very soon and says that it’ll be better than the rival game ladder.

            Wikipedia states that “A game ladder is a series of ranking levels used to measure playing skill in competitive games.”  It goes on to say that, “Game ladders are an integral part of the playing experience for many games.”     

            So what these guys are doing will undoubtedly increase the gaming experience of our novice Sri Lankan gamers.

              LCGZ.lk is planning to hold gaming ladders for

• Counter Strike - 5v5
• DotA (Defense of the Ancients) - 5v5
• COD 4 - 5v5 – Can go register your clan/team @ www.gameladders.lk

 My 2 cents:

            Sri Lankan Gaming community is really small as at now and it is limited to the Colombo region and some are from the Kandy region. Having 2 gaming ladders for the same games might be too much for the gamers. Many might opt to go to just one gaming ladder because of the time constrains and for other reasons. Thereby the whole point of having a gaming ladder (To rank the all of the current teams/clans) will be going out of the window, since no ONE ladder will consists all the clans/teams in Sri Lanka as at now.  

Therefore might I suggest if any of the organizers looking at this blog post to come together and host one gaming ladder for one game. Thereby the whole purpose holding a gaming ladder will be persevered. 

Thanks for Reading. Await a post on the outcome of the GCDL Season 1.

WCG Sri Lankan National Finals

            WCG Sri Lankan National Finals came to an end on the 4^th October 2008 at the BMICH committee room B after two days of heavy battling. After the preliminaries, only 4 out of 20 teams remained in the contention for the national championship.

The teams were: - Xfire, Contrabanded, FFB (Funky Funny Blades), and Team Liquid.

            At the semi finals Contrabanded had to face Team Liquid and Xfire had face FFB. And Team Liquid and FFB came out victorious from their respective semi final matches to become the finalists.

            There was also a matchup to find the third place and in that Contrabanded were able to beat Xfire.

            The final was best of 3 maps. The maps were de_tuscan (This map was declared an official WCG map this year), de_train and de_dust2.

            First map of the finals was de_tuscan. The 2 teams were neck and neck up until the 6^th round but after that all the things went in favour of Team Liquid and they managed to keep the FFB under control. They went on to win that map 16 – 3.

            Next up was the map de_train. After a couple of winning rounds there was no holding back the “Team Liquid” as they cruised their way to a 16 – 0 victory.  It was sad to see that the finals was so one sided.   

            Presentation ceremony began after a short break. Dean of the IT faculty of the Moratuwa University Prof. Dileeka Dias graced the occasion as the chief guest.  She gave a very inspiring speech for all the gamers who were there at the presentation ceremony.

            An exhibition match was played between the finalists and the winner was chosen the first team to win 6 rounds in de_dust2 map, and in that match too Team Liquid was the first team to win 6 rounds giving only 2 rounds to the opposing team.

            The schedule for the day went a bit off track when Team Liquid challenged a team from the audience for a friendly encounter. And the challenge was accepted by 5 fellow gamers that were in the audience.

            This game was just as one sided just like the last map of the National Finals. The last score was 10 – 0 in favour of Team Liquid.

            As the last item for the presentation ceremony, medals were given off for the winners of the competitions. Amidst all the cheers from the crowd the winning team “Team Liquid” received their medals. So did the second and the third place winners.

            Here is a picture of winning team (Team Liquid) after receiving their well earned medals and the trophy.  

From left to right :- Faiz “Blaze” Ariff, Thushan “Gladiator” Hettiarachchi, Shawn D. “intdr” Wijesundera, Amri “Crusade” Anver, Mohomed Rukhandeen “Rila” Rila

 

WCG Sri Lankan National Finals was thus concluded.

            Here are some photos from the Preliminaries of Sri Lanka WCG Qualifiers. All photos displayed in this blog post are courtesy of Lanka eSports (hosts of the National Finals)

 

Above pic :- Officials explaining rules to the participants

Above pic (middle) : OMGitsRyan with an OMG look! :D

Above : The Death Company Team playing the first match of the preliminaries.

Above : Team Xfire on the second day of the preliminaries

            I have a small request from my dear readers. The winning team is currently trying to find sponsors for them to go to WCG 2008 which is to be held at Cologne Germany. So please be kind enough to ask your company to sponsor our National Team for the Finals of WCG 2008. (Team Liquid Web site )

Here is a youtube video of the interview that was broadcasted onair via MTV Sri Lanka on the show "Planet Pulse". The captain of the Team Liquid, and Directors of Lanka eSports were interviewed in this show. 

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for updates on the GCDL tournament which is currently underway.