Competitive COD 4 Gaming in Sri Lanka

Call of Duty 4 (COD 4) is relatively new to the multiplayer gaming scenario since it was only released in late 2007. Even though this game has taken over as one of the most played games in other countries and having many gaming tournaments Sri Lanka is still in the early stages of playing the game competitively. Sri Lankan gaming scene is still in the primitive stage but slowly but surely coming to the international standards. There are many up coming tournaments and one day Sri Lankan gamers will be ready to take on the best of players of other countries as well.

            The first online COD 4 server in Sri Lanka was up and running thanks to LCGZ.lk. And it is still the only COD 4 server running 24/7 in Sri Lanka. Thanks to this server many talented COD 4 players emerged.

            Sri Lankan gamers were exposed to some online gaming competitions for Counter Strike 1.6 but they had little chance of showing off their COD 4 talents because there weren’t any COD 4 tournaments being held. Few of the Sri Lankan clans had COD 4 teams namely Infinity Gamers (IG), Death Company (DC), nOOb Alliance (NA) but they didn’t have a tournament to play online. However Death Company COD 4 played some matches with an overseas COD 4 clan. Because of the lack of tournaments the leader of IG, Razeen aka DirkBlack thought of hosting a tournament with his own internet connection. It’s barely enough to hold 10 players on the server and that is all what is needed. So November of 2008 saw the first online COD 4 tournament in Sri Lanka with the mod PAM 4. This tournament was called “Call of Duty 4 Friendly Tournament”. Death Company Team Reds, calling themselves DC|Reds won this tournament. Runners up were the hosts, IG. The winning DC|Reds lineup was as follows

• Shafrox - Leader
• Madhatter
• Exwife
• Pirate
• Psycho

  Second season of “Call of Duty 4 Friendly Tournament” is currently on going on DirkBlack’s server. I had a little chat with Dirk and when asked who is the favourite to win the tournament he said that DC|Reds are the favourites to win (being modest). He went on to say that the new mod used for COD 4 matches couldn’t be used for this tournament because it required more bandwidth to hold 10 players.

He also gave a surprising bit of news. He will be leaving IG soon. But that is for a better cause. He will be joining the first Lanka COD 4 team managed by Thilina Pinto aka Cipher and the team name is “Team perks”. The team was announced on Gamer.lk today. The team is as follows. The team tag will be "Perks"

• Shafrox
• DirkBlack
• Pirate
• Madhatter
• Exwife
• Psycho 

Best of luck, “Team Perks”, win many international matches. If there is COD 4 for next WCG this team might represent Sri Lanka. So all you readers keep your eyes on Sri Lanka and Team Perks.

            Ciao.

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.

SLCG (Sri Lanka Cyber Games)

The first ever Cyber Games to be held in Sri Lanka.
This is going to a beginning of a new era for gaming in Sri Lanka. This may well be the platform for Sri Lankans to go and compete in the most prestigious event for gamers, WCG (World Cyber Games).
This event is being organized by Gamer.LK & Rotaract Club of the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo.

SLCG will be held on the 15th, 16th and 17th August 2008 at BMICH Committee Rooms D and E.

The games that being played are:-

• Counter Strike 1.6 - 5v5
• Call of Duty 4 - 5v5
• DotA (Defense of the Ancients)- 5v5
• Starcraft: Broodwar - 1v1
• FIFA 08 - 1v1
  

Media Sponsors - Art TV, 101.7 TNL, The Sunday Times..

For more Information :- SLCG Official Website & Gamer.lk