The Grand Melee - Announcement and Discussion

Some time ago, the secretive Order of the Sheep teased us The Grand Melee, an Age of Empires II: DE happening in Hannover at the DreamHack LAN event, from the 15th to the 17th of December.

We are now happy to deliver the full message to you.

Settings specifics
The whole event will be played using the DWL game mode, also known as 9 villagers start game mode. It will allow for quicker action, while keeping the openness and strategic diversity of the standard RM mode.

Main event
The Grand Melee main event will consist of a single elimination bracket, featuring a total of 8 players.
15th of December
Quarter finals best of 5
16th of December
Semi finals best of 7
17th of December
Third place match best of 7 and Grand final best of 9

Participation
Firstly, as per their performance in the RedBull Wololo: Legacy tournament, Liereyy and TaToH has been granted an invitation to the main event.

Secondly, the other 6 participants will have to come on top of the entirely open qualifiers happening on the 3rd and 4th of December. The registration is already open and you can sign up here on start.gg

Prize money reward
The monetary reward will amount to a whopping $100,000 split between the 8 main event players as followed:

1st place: $40,000
2nd place: $20,000
3rd place: $14,000
4th place: $10,000
5th to 8th: $4,000

Where to watch?
The whole event will be streamed on Twitch at: https://www.twitch.tv/theorderofthesheep

On top of that, the qualifiers will be completely open to broadcast, so you can catch them live at your favourite streamer’s channel on the 3rd and 4th of December!

Details for the broadcasting policy of the main event will be announced soon. Stay tuned...

Join the Discord server now!
Chat with us and get all the latest updates regarding The Grand Melee at https://discord.gg/vT9NWJJtp5

You can also use this announcement thread to discuss about the tournament and to send your questions and feedback.

See you soon!

 

So uhmm, still no news about the timing of those three matches?

+1, there is 0 news ....

 

+1, there is 0 news ....

 

So uhmm, still no news about the timing of those three matches?

Today 16.00 UTC, all 3 sets casted on the order of the sheep main channel

 

On the contrary, I don't think the casual players care at all about which pro gets assigned which number in the next big tournament. Seems to be only the players themselves and a small section of the more hardcore fanbase that ever really talk about it. But, when those numbers can mean the difference in thousands of potential dollars, it is what it is

I don't know, if you take a look at the sheep people discord I believe Yo even told Miguel to "**** off," for lack of better terms after Miguel commented on certain tournaments that a demographic held as invite only.

Fans/people with vested interest will peep and screech the loudest, but the more amusing part was the circular reasoning pros preferred one method over another. While not able to articulate why favor for one system over another, they certainly were capable of advocating for one which seeded them higher.

I prefer tournaments stick to the golden rule in this case, where the "perfect solution," is impossible and frankly the subject arbitrary. "They who has the gold makes the rules."

 

Word salad

If all you got out of this topics first few pages were Nicov and Memb's posts you missed several other top pro players input which I feel fairly confident in saying led to the tournament changes regarding qualifiers. (Thanks again, Aoezone!)

I find the truly "objectionable," posts easily reportable and if competently staffed easily removable from the website. However, I also judge the "spam," posts constantly debating the subjective merit of non rule-breaking posts or dog piling on obviously objectionable posts tedious and frankly even less worthwhile to read. Those posts deserve to be flipped into the abyss more readily than most I have seen called for.

 

All this subsequent, useless whiteknighting from you and another poster isn't going to get either of you laid.

Given that I'm not into chicks, this means little to me

 

If all you got out of this topics first few pages were Nicov and Memb's posts you missed several other top pro players input which I feel fairly confident in saying led to the tournament changes regarding qualifiers. (Thanks again, Aoezone!

You are completeley ignoring the official discord, and official player's discord, that had many more comments and interactions from the organizers. Just because AoEZone made a post about something =/= responsibility for the change.

 

You are completeley ignoring the official discord, and official player's discord, that had many more comments and interactions from the organizers. Just because AoEZone made a post about something =/= responsibility for the change.

Nothing seemed to happen at all until the posts here.

There was one post by a nominal tournament organizer on the tournament discord several weeks before and nothing came of it. I'm pretty sure they will agree that the words of 4-6 pro's and a high profile caster here did more to spark change than that. I don't care to reach out into every silo'd discord -- I do know that there was a reaction to what was said here.

Sounds like your constant rumor spreading regarding the death of aoezone is greatly exaggerated.

 

Nothing seemed to happen at all until the posts here.

There was one post by a nominal tournament organizer on the tournament discord several weeks before. I'm pretty sure they will agree that the words of 5-6 pro's and a high profile caster here did more to spark change than that.

Sounds like your constant rumor spreading regarding the death of aoezone is greatly exaggerated.

As long as you live and breath, 10,000 word posts will always exist, AoEZone will live on

 

As long as you live and breath, 10,000 word posts will always exist, AoEZone will live on

This must be one of those productive and non-toxic posts people keep telling me this website lacks.

 

This must be one of those productive and non-toxic posts people keep telling me this website lacks.

1

 

- I saw someone posting criticism of a particular caster and I happened to remember another offensive moment from the caster. So I posted about it.
- They saw my criticism, and responded with what I believe to be a sufficient explanation of the incident. I "like"-d their response. Misunderstanding resolved. We move on.

I'm still not going to like their casting, and they don't have to like me as an audience, but a grievance was addressed. This is how adults communicate.

All this subsequent, useless whiteknighting from you and another poster isn't going to get either of you laid.

Whilst I generally agree with what you said, in terms of moving on being good. Going unnecessarily rude, as you went in the end isn't ideal either...

 

Some actual good Drama! good one guys
Also...
Artosis??
Also who the **** is he? what the hell is doing hosting the tournament?

Anyways, like some dude said, the wasted potential of this tournament is in another level...

Microsoft should take responsibility to host an actual aoe2 event. Throwing money at prizepools and letting organizations just do ****ing whatever wont be a good plan on the long run.

 

Some actual good Drama! good one guys
Also...
Artosis??
Also who the **** is he? what the hell is doing hosting the tournament?

Anyways, like some dude said, the wasted potential of this tournament is in another level...

Microsoft should take responsibility to host an actual aoe2 event. Throwing money at prizepools and letting organizations just do ****ing whatever wont be a good plan on the long run.

I need to stay calm - I already deleted my first post because I got triggerd hard. I thought I'm here with nerds in an special rts forum?
Nick "Tasteless" Plott and Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski casting starcraft for a long time and maybe the greatest caster esports duo that exist. They had the honour to cast legendary games of jeadong,flash and slayers_boxer - if you don't know these name you should check them out. lovely rts fellows
Tasteless and Artosis were so passioned about starcraft and casting they lived in korea for a long time. I remember how in the morning I enjoyed watching them with gom player on afreecaTV. blizzard rts was endlevel back then <3

 

I need to stay calm - I already deleted my first post because I got triggerd hard. I thought I'm here with nerds in an special rts forum?
Nick "Tasteless" Plott and Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski casting starcraft for a long time and maybe the greatest caster esports duo that exist. They had the honour to cast legendary games of jeadong,flash and slayers_boxer - if you don't know these name you should check them out. lovely rts fellows
Tasteless and Artosis were so passioned about starcraft and casting they lived in korea for a long time. I remember how in the morning I enjoyed watching them with gom player on afreecaTV. blizzard rts was endlevel back then <3

You are one of the specials i see. I know google buddy, the comment is in reference that this is FREAKING AOE2 TOURNAMENT not a Starcraft event.

 

Some actual good Drama! good one guys
Also...
Artosis??
Also who the **** is he? what the hell is doing hosting the tournament?

Anyways, like some dude said, the wasted potential of this tournament is in another level...

Microsoft should take responsibility to host an actual aoe2 event. Throwing money at prizepools and letting organizations just do ****ing whatever wont be a good plan on the long run.

I got excited about artosis (he and I are from sc2) but looks like he's just there for hosting/postmatch discussion. Which is not entertaining for me unfortunately. maybe it can lead to him doing live casting in this game sometime though. He could teach other casters a lot about passion!

 

I didnt want to comment on Ellie but things like these just make me want to turn off the casting.

Twitch

Twitch is the world's leading video platform and community for gamers.

clips.twitch.tv

Yes Ellie, Britons vs Poles, Britons stables make sense, Oh no, its actually Briton longswords opening vs Poles.
???

 

I'm assuming the details are elsewhere but can someone clarify to me what is meant when we say that the main event is 'closed' streaming? I'm assuming they can't actually stop streamers from pulling up the main broadcast on their stream and having a 'watch party', correct? Does closed streaming just mean that since the games are LAN, people won't be able to spectate them and cast over them in real time without watching the main stream and thus having to deal with the audio of the main stream casters?

I feel like I am missing something here, but unless there is some form of copyright people would be hit with for streaming a watch party of the main stream, the whole idea feels much more controversial to me than it should. Its extremely commonplace in the other games I know for these watch parties to happen with many different people for big events. And I hope I am wrong or missing something, but it only seems to be controversial for AOE because the pool of high profile talent is rather small compared to many other games that get this big of a streaming audience.

Personal opinion, but sometimes I significantly enjoy the viewing experience more when watching something that is relaxed, like a watch party, where the host isn't in 'full caster' mode, but rather adding his opinions and insight over the top of the main broadcast and able to interact and joke with chat.

I want to be clear, I mean this as a general thought across the AOE2 scene as a whole, not targeted towards one person, so I when I use an example I mean it just as such. But seeing Memb stream 1v1s while the replacement qualifiers were happening today sucked for me. Sure this tournament has flaws. But it also a giant prizepool LAN, with many top names from the community. It exists, and people care about it. It felt more like 'we love this game... when I am contracted to be involved' as opposed to 'we love this game period'. Also, in general I absolutely love Memb and his passion, but sometimes the hype casting is too much for me and I actually prefer a more relaxed and interactive watch party atmosphere than a pure 100% in the zone cast. If nothing else the options are good for the audience, and the scene as a whole.

Again, I admit I may not fully understand the situation, and that this tournament isn't perfect. But I also hate seeing the full community not embrace a big moment for the game in spite of those flaws. If there is something preventing a true watch party type scene during the main event, I think that is a shame and should be changed. If it is just something that means not everyone can cleanly solo cast the games at a LAN, that seems completely reasonable to me. Either way, I'd still like the community to rally around a big event like this, if for no other reason than the fact that we do love this game, and we like to have the options to watch our streamers, and get their opinions even if they can't be directly involved 100% of the time. That all being said, way longer than I meant for it to be, I'd love to hear contrary views and opinions, and also to understand the situation better.

 

[...]

Here are some base-level definitions:

• Open Streaming:
  • Anyone can both spectate the games through the ingame client, stream them, and add their commentary on top.
  • This, usually, comes with the caveat that said streamers need to show the sponsor's logos or have a set of chat commands.
  • Looped into this, is recorded streaming, in which the organizers make the recorded games available to everyone as the main broadcast streams the event.
  • Not strictly unique to AoE, but also not common across the board.
  • Subsets:
    • Open (everyone can, but there are requirements, eg logos on screens)
    • Free (everyone and no overlays needed)
    • Recorded games (organizers releases the games simultaneously)
• Closed Streaming:
  • The organizers are, on paper, the only people allowed to have an observer in the game for the purpose of casting the matches.
  • Recorded games may not be given out freely and instead through a partner system.
  • It may be open for casters in other languages.
  • This is very common in major esports.
  • Subsets:
    • Closed (only the organizers can cast the games)
    • Language Exclusive (English cast is closed, but other languages can broadcast)
    • Partnered (certain casters may broadcast as selected by the TO, usually with certain limitations like ad reads, videos, etc)
    • Co-streaming (the main broadcast can be transmitted by either anyone or a select few for broadcasting in their channels)
• Licensing:
  • In some scenes, organizers offer people a "license" to co-stream their events, this format is particularly popular in Fighting Games, as 90% of them are locals, so they need a feed or there is stream they can pull
  • Subsets:
    • Locals are free (casters from the local scene gain a license for free)
    • Charity license (casters pay out of their goodwill for the license, even if its offered at $0-$10 for the general public)
    • Timed/Slot licenses (casters pay for particular slots/time, say for example, casting the qualifiers is dirt cheap, but Grand finals carry a higher cost)

___

Not all of these are relevant to this case or to AoE in general, but I figure it would be worth putting definitions down to avoid confusion. Also, these are not strict, there is some wiggle room in each for exceptions and what not.

As for TGM , as far as I understand it, the main event is meant to be Closed Streaming and just closed. Though they have at times talked about things that make me think they are thinking of a partnered approached.

 

I'm assuming the details are elsewhere but can someone clarify to me what is meant when we say that the main event is 'closed' streaming? I'm assuming they can't actually stop streamers from pulling up the main broadcast on their stream and having a 'watch party', correct? Does closed streaming just mean that since the games are LAN, people won't be able to spectate them and cast over them in real time without watching the main stream and thus having to deal with the audio of the main stream casters?

I feel like I am missing something here, but unless there is some form of copyright people would be hit with for streaming a watch party of the main stream, the whole idea feels much more controversial to me than it should. Its extremely commonplace in the other games I know for these watch parties to happen with many different people for big events. And I hope I am wrong or missing something, but it only seems to be controversial for AOE because the pool of high profile talent is rather small compared to many other games that get this big of a streaming audience.

Personal opinion, but sometimes I significantly enjoy the viewing experience more when watching something that is relaxed, like a watch party, where the host isn't in 'full caster' mode, but rather adding his opinions and insight over the top of the main broadcast and able to interact and joke with chat.

I want to be clear, I mean this as a general thought across the AOE2 scene as a whole, not targeted towards one person, so I when I use an example I mean it just as such. But seeing Memb stream 1v1s while the replacement qualifiers were happening today sucked for me. Sure this tournament has flaws. But it also a giant prizepool LAN, with many top names from the community. It exists, and people care about it. It felt more like 'we love this game... when I am contracted to be involved' as opposed to 'we love this game period'. Also, in general I absolutely love Memb and his passion, but sometimes the hype casting is too much for me and I actually prefer a more relaxed and interactive watch party atmosphere than a pure 100% in the zone cast. If nothing else the options are good for the audience, and the scene as a whole.

Again, I admit I may not fully understand the situation, and that this tournament isn't perfect. But I also hate seeing the full community not embrace a big moment for the game in spite of those flaws. If there is something preventing a true watch party type scene during the main event, I think that is a shame and should be changed. If it is just something that means not everyone can cleanly solo cast the games at a LAN, that seems completely reasonable to me. Either way, I'd still like the community to rally around a big event like this, if for no other reason than the fact that we do love this game, and we like to have the options to watch our streamers, and get their opinions even if they can't be directly involved 100% of the time. That all being said, way longer than I meant for it to be, I'd love to hear contrary views and opinions, and also to understand the situation better.

Watch party is still possible.

In theory there's nothing organizers can do to prevent streamers from broadcasting the tournament games as well, considering they're not generally in private games and released as recorded games only. However, it's a bit of an honor system / if you're found breaking these rules you obviously may be less likely to be able to participate in other tourneys, broadcast other tourneys easily with recorded games etc handed to you, and so on.

If I understand correctly, you're fine to personally / with a small following rebroadcast the main one, but let's say T90, for example, took the main broadcast and added his comments for his own stream. I have a feeling he'd be penalized by that unless the organizers approved it.

 

Watch party is still possible.
...
If I understand correctly, you're fine to personally / with a small following rebroadcast the main one, but let's say T90, for example, took the main broadcast and added his comments for his own stream. I have a feeling he'd be penalized by that unless the organizers approved it.

I'm not sure I understand this. What does size of following have to do with it? If someone with 50 viewers can have a watch party, T90 should be able to as well. I guess sure, even if there is no 'official' enforceable penalty, it might mean that the organize is less likely to work with that person in the future, but that would seem pretty petty to me on behalf of the organizer. Just like it would seem petty to me for people not to have interest in streaming this event if they aren't contracted to host/cast by the organizer. I'm still unclear as to if outside streamers can have watch parties for the LAN main event. I can't see why not, and I'd like to encourage them in the AOE community, since they seem so rare, yet so common in virtually every other game/community.

 

did anyone get to the bottom of who s really organising this? is it GL or is it GL using a vessel team to stop the back clash from closed streaming?

 

I'm not sure I understand this. What does size of following have to do with it? If someone with 50 viewers can have a watch party, T90 should be able to as well. I guess sure, even if there is no 'official' enforceable penalty, it might mean that the organize is less likely to work with that person in the future, but that would seem pretty petty to me on behalf of the organizer. Just like it would seem petty to me for people not to have interest in streaming this event if they aren't contracted to host/cast by the organizer. I'm still unclear as to if outside streamers can have watch parties for the LAN main event. I can't see why not, and I'd like to encourage them in the AOE community, since they seem so rare, yet so common in virtually every other game/community.

I mean if it's closed streaming doesn't that make it harder to control point of view?

Also if you deliberately excluded other streamers why would they go out their way to promote your tournament

 

If all you got out of this topics first few pages were Nicov and Memb's posts you missed several other top pro players input which I feel fairly confident in saying led to the tournament changes regarding qualifiers. (Thanks again, Aoezone!)

I find the truly "objectionable," posts easily reportable and if competently staffed easily removable from the website. However, I also judge the "spam," posts constantly debating the subjective merit of non rule-breaking posts or dog piling on obviously objectionable posts tedious and frankly even less worthwhile to read. Those posts deserve to be flipped into the abyss more readily than most I have seen called for.

It’s still the same point that it’s only the pro posts had something to do with it and not collectively aoezone. As if to say, it’s not “we”, but them. Maybe even a tweet about it could accomplish the same thing.

I can’t take the report function on any forum seriously. I’ve never reported anyone, even during my teenage years in 2003 when I was on many forums. It’s as if I’m tattle telling and expecting a teacher to command a misbehaving student to put their head down on the desk for 15 minutes of quiet time.

 

I mean if it's closed streaming doesn't that make it harder to control point of view?

Also if you deliberately excluded other streamers why would they go out their way to promote your tournament

Right, a watch party is you watching the main stream (or sometimes multiple player streams depending on the event) with your audience, so obviously you wouldn't control the point of view of the game. This is very very common in almost every other game/esport etc.

I just don't understand the viewpoint of your second line. You aren't deliberately excluding other streamers, you have an event with x number of spots for players/hosts/casters etc. Obviously no event can include every single person. You watch the event with your audience because you enjoy the game, and the event just like any other fan of the game. And people will watch that streamer, because they want to see their take on the event, and their personality. I know there is no direct comparison to AOE, but take for example a game like Valorant/COD/Fortnite/Apex. There are hundreds of teams/players for each of these, and dozens if not hundreds of hosts/casters vying for the work at the major LAN events. Most of them won't be able to play or host/cast at each event. They just simply can't include everyone. But many of the big names in those games will still have watch parties for the big events because they enjoy the game and want to share it with their audience. They don't seem to (maybe they do, but most don't show it) take not being included so personally. This is why I said that I think it because the high level talent pool in AOE is so small that there is this mindset. If there are 3 spots and 4 options to choose from, the 4th person is more likely to feel slighted, but it has to be someone. But in these other games, where there are maybe 3 spots and 50-100 people who are decently high profile with casting/hosting experience, its much easier to not take it personally I guess. I don't know, I just feel like if you truly enjoy the game, want good content to stream, and want your audience to enjoy it with you, you would still want to watch party (assuming it is possible of course) a big 100k LAN event that is a major event for the community. Its not like it wouldn't benefit the streamer too, its not ONLY 'promoting their tournament'. I'd love to try to understand this viewpoint more if you still disagree with me, this is just something I can't wrap my head around.