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!

 

Who cares about Bronze match?

I assume that it's not entirely free choice but has to fit into the overall event schedule. Pretty sure that they would have preferred it to happen from Friday to Sunday instead of Thursday to Saturday.

Not me. I won't be tuning in for Viper vs Tatoh either.

 

Yeah, if that was the plan, then the tournament should've been steamed on Saturday and Sunday, instead of morning-evening EU time on weekdays, cause who's gonna come when dudes have to study/work during that time?

They can't just decide to do it on the weekend. Dreamhack has a whole lot of other events, The Grand Melee is not the main attraction there. My impression is that they got the opportunity to place a tournament on Dreamhack in this specific time slot and just jumped on it, even if it means making a few concessions.

 

Looks like the VOD is deleted now, I watch Viper/Liereyy live up to start of game 5 and was looking forward to watching the rest tonight before it was spoiled anywhere I go, but no VOD, can't find it. Anyone know what's the story or was it due to political comments made??? Pissed off anyway.

 

Looks like the VOD is deleted now, I watch Viper/Liereyy live up to start of game 5 and was looking forward to watching the rest tonight before it was spoiled anywhere I go, but no VOD, can't find it. Anyone know what's the story or was it due to political comments made??? Pissed off anyway.

Probably because of that political comment.

 

Best of 7 3rd place match? I hope Viper trolls every single game to make a statement about how dumb that is. Would be better to host a quick TG showmatch or even better, just play the final without some dumb time filler beforehand.

 

To be fair to Nili I don't think the comment was nearly as controversial as him being tournament coordinator during the organization stages for this tournament. I think Dreamhack was announced in Spring of this year. It's fairly likely that the organization of the LAN has been in the works for quite some time (though with the lack of organization I understand how one could think otherwise.) I'm guessing the unnecessary subterfuge over the group in charge of the tournament (GL) was over this fact.

This is the 2nd Nili(AOE4 N4C, Order of the Sheep being a GL front) tournament where Microsoft has funded Nili and/or his team (pretty substantial tournaments, $200k). This has received almost no attention thus far, however.

Most low level casters would never be invited to a tournament again for making such a comment, regardless what you think of it -- but certain streamers have certain priveleges. Clip/VOD is likely down for the joke, and the amount of chatter about the comment asking viewers to boycott the World Cup (probably not something GL endorses,) make me question if the VOD will return. The comment was unnecessary and at the very least unprofessional. Seemed rehearsed as if he was waiting for just the moment to spring it, especially with the boycott remark. I got a good chuckle and enjoyed it (I was waiting for Daut to remark about Germany's use of coal as to its impacts on the environment, or to reach back into the time machine perhaps a remark about a certain 1930's/1940's era.)

Loved Artosis showing what true commentary/introduction looks like and enhancing the production without really knowing anything at all about AOE2. I think he enhanced Dave's appearances, who as funny/relaxed as he is tends to cast to the level of his coasters, which can result in more loose commentary when paired with a long-time bud etc.

 

To be fair to Nili I don't think the comment was nearly as controversial as him being tournament coordinator during the organization stages for this tournament. I think Dreamhack was announced in Spring of this year.

Maybe I'm getting my tournaments mixed up, but didn't they say they were only offered the slot for this event in September? It was only announced to the public in like mid-November if I recall correctly. I don't think any of it reaches as far back as Spring time

 

why isnt the vod on twitch available?

 

Maybe I'm getting my tournaments mixed up, but didn't they say they were only offered the slot for this event in September? It was only announced to the public in like mid-November if I recall correctly. I don't think any of it reaches as far back as Spring time

The event itself was announced in Spring time. I don't believe in there being nothing done to the effect of just suddenly being offered a spot in Dreamhack. in Sept. unsolicited/without any communication between MS/previous and/or current tournament coordinator. There was likely necessary engagement much sooner along the lines/shortly after the event was announced/over the early summer. It's in Germany. MS had to approve such a large budget for a tournament. It sometimes takes months after tournaments for MS to pay up, let alone sign NDA's for its staff to speak with people -- let alone authorize $100K.

 

why isnt the vod on twitch available?

The VOD has been buried...(insert joke about migrant workers in Qatar + boycott the world cup.)

 

SO no way to watch the games? =( what happend? haha can someone tell me?

 

U can watch Vinchesters stream if you understand russian. But there is no game sound. I chose to watch OGN Empires Vod. Dont understand much. These streaming rules are awesome.

SO no way to watch the games? =( what happend? haha can someone tell me?

 

why isnt the vod on twitch available?

They removed the vod because of nili's joke 11. They missed one of the clips though

Twitch

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

www.twitch.tv

edit: apparently they're editing and reuploading it

 

Well taking off VOD while not letting any other english streamers to stream it seems quite a bit titanic. I probably won't be able to watch final tomorrow, so if some stuff like that happens I won't be able to recheck it after? Noice.

 

They removed the vod because of nili's joke 11. They missed one of the clips though

Twitch

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

www.twitch.tv

edit: apparently they're editing and reuploading it

The awkward silence from Daut is hilarious 11

 

How do u guys know it was because of Nilis joke? Respect to him though, i can always respect someone with other motivations than money

 

How do u guys know it was because of Nilis joke? Respect to him though, i can always respect someone with other motivations than money

Several clips of it have been deleted

 

I have it recorded in case it gets deleted again <3.

 

I enjoyed Nili's joke and DauT's silence
Also this docking Joke

 

Did someone make a clip where he said something in those lines "You finally see how economy looks like, unlike in Serbia"?

Personally I feel like that's bit unprofessional, doing that in your own stream is meh, but in such big stage such jokes bit akward at best.

 

Did someone make a clip where he said something in those lines "You finally see how economy looks like, unlike in Serbia"?

Personally I feel like that's bit unprofessional, doing that in your own stream is meh, but in such big stage such jokes bit akward at best.

Nili has a socially awkward personality. I don't get why he and others still believe he should be a caster for big tournaments. Guess this is one of the perks of being tournament coordinator

It's not the first neither the last time Nili has tried to be funny by being weird and awkward

 

Sure it's unprofessional but was there any intent of malice from Nili? ffs people in 2022 really can't take a joke. And agreed the second comment about boycotting was his personal opinion, maybe it was a bit too far, but just shows how passionate he is about it. Instead of being so narrow-minded and cancelling someone who was vocal about something important in the world - like human rights (albeit wrong place wrong time perhaps), maybe try letting it go?

Differences in opinions will always happen, we are social creatures with complex brains. I love football and I am gonna watch the World Cup Final regardless, but that doesn't mean I don't respect Nili and appreciate everything he has done for the community.

"ughhh a caster said something I didn't like which doesn't affect me or my life in any way" but i am still gonna go to aoezone and complain about it. like ffs learn to ignore things and do what you want.

 

Not that I even want to get remotely into what’s going on itt, but that clip reminds me a bit of the botez sisters (mostly one) talking about slavery in Dubai for the World Chess Championship last year. That was after a reporter tried to bait Magnus into the same thing. Seriously scary stuff tbh, glad for Nili he is in Germany and not Qatar.

 

Sure it's unprofessional

Could have stopped there.

I thought it was pretty funny, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why it doesn't belong in an S Tier event.

 

Some serious attention-seeking snowflakes around here. Vast majority of Twitch chat laughed in the moment at his jokes. Perhaps saying to boycott was a bit far. The Serbia joke, the wooden sticks one, the builders dying, I found it funny. I hate it when I watch football and the commentators are hamstrung into what they can and can't say (i.e. calling out blatant time-wasting and cheating). I think he's actually got a very intelligent sense of humour.