Expect the unexpected

..and the unexpected is me making a post isn't it.

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Blizzcon Finals: Frustratingly Good

Howdy doody!

Well, Blizzcon was on the other night and in case you missed it there was some pretty good announcements made! There was also playable versions of the new Diablo 3 expansion, Reaper of Souls and Heroes of the Storm a Blizzard take on League of Legends/DotA and a Hearthstone competition.. but for this post I'm going to focus on the Blizzcon WCS Grand Finals!

Let me start off by saying how good the overall production/competition was at the blizzcon finals. As someone who hasn't been keeping too up to date with the professional Starcraft scene for some time, it sparked that glimmer of enjoyment and threw me from watching it passively into me being an avid watcher and I found myself watching the entire tournament(picking the matches I found most interesting from the two streams available).

I have to give a shout-out to all the host/casters because without their animated commentary, it would have been a much duller affair. The list of casters was rather huge, with the biggest names in the industry there to give their expert analysis - Day[9], Tasteless, Artosis, RotterdaM, Mr Bitter, , Apollo. I also loved the fact that when they weren't casting they were at the analysis desk with good old DJWheat, iNcontroL and ToD giving their thoughts about the matches that were going on. I also have to say that ReDeYe and Chobra did a great job, their hosting has become a welcome mainstay of the WCS competitions in my view.

As has been said before, there was a distinct lack of Zerg players in the finals and as a zerg lover myself I found it easy to get behind the two players who had succeeded where so many had not. Those two also happen to be veritable giants in the race; Woongjin_Soulkey and EG.Jaedong.

It would be easy for me to discount the other amazing players who showcased their skill in an attempt to become the worlds best player of Starcraft 2. Such players as Acer.INnoVation, ST_Bomber, sk_mc, MaruPrime and [A]NaNiwa.. to name but a few. Maybe it was the fact that it kicked off right after an amazing opening ceremony, I found myself enthralled and unable to not pay attention as the first game of the show kicked off and it was a Terran Vs Terran, perhaps one of the most uninteresting matches for me to watch.

There were numerous upsets throughout the tournament, which is always nice! Now I say upsets like that because as with any tournament there are players who are expected to do very well in the competition and those who are not. Technically though there shouldn't be too many players who are at a lower skill cap in the Blizzcon Grand Finals.

However, with that all said.. when the grand finale was kicking off.. one of my Zerg heroes Jaedong had fought his way to the final to play against the Protoss sOs.. something stirred in me that had long been a part of playing Starcraft 2.. an intense feeling of frustration and possibly helplessness, I think it stands as testament to how well SoS was playing and perhaps also stretching the limits of my understanding of the match-up, Protoss Vs Zerg.

Again, I have to say that I don't think the finals were bad at all, the level of skill shown in all the games was unreal and a lot of the time had be gawking at the screen with an unbelieving look pasted on my face. But it left me with a bad taste in my mouth and caused me to immediately switch over to watch something else when it was over.

Ah well.. What was the highlight of Blizzcon for you? Let me know your thoughts!

Ciao for now!

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N00bc0n Postponed!

As the title says, the much anticipated first e-sports event in Ireland has had to be postponed for undisclosed reasons. This was a sad thing to wake up to as I for one was looking forwards to this as a starting point for events in Cork and Ireland on the whole.

The CEO of n00bgaming posted this early in the morning to inform the world of the bad news.

Due to circumstances outside of our control, n00b c0n has had to be Postponed until a later date.

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused, and if there was anything we could possibly have done to make this event go ahead next week, you have our assurances that we would have done it. Unfortunately the issues we encountered were outside of our control and have left us with no choice but to reschedule the event. 

It is however, still our intention to help bring eSports to Ireland and we will aim to announce an online event in the next few days with similar players that would have been at n00b c0n, with €1000 prize pool, and are working hard to bring an offline event to Ireland in the near future.

Rest assured, all ticket refunds will be processed tomorrow.

Additionally, we would like to thank everyone who are working hard behind the scenes to make this event possible, and would like to confirm that we do still have the support to run this event in the future.

As I live in Cork myself, it doesn't really affect me that much but with only a week to go till this event was scheduled to take place, quite a lot of people are not best pleased with this move as they had booked hotels, time off work and even flights.

Without more details it's easy to jump to conclusions but really, doing that helps no-one and only really pushes us towards being in a worse state than we are already. I've seen already some talk that this has killed off any aspirations that Ireland has of becoming a new mecca for e-sports, but I don't think so. While I admit that it is a set-back, it's not something that the Irish scene cannot recover from.

There are a lot of dedicated people over here and with dedication and hard work, we can achieve anything.

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My stream and n00bc0n update

Well well well, that was fun! I only wish I had more stuff to give away! I hope everyone who got something got what they wanted!

In other news, the n00bc0n hype is starting to build up! They announced that they have a new sponsor.. none other than Riot Games(the makers of League of Legends for those not in the know). What does this mean for the tournament? Well I guess for anyone who had doubts as to the validity of the tournament it should quash them somewhat. It also means that they now also have a Riot caster for the League matches, none other than RiotQuickshot.

On top of this, I was casually informed the other day that the CEO of n00bgaming would be taking part in an interview on the RedFM radio station. As I expected, the DJ didn't really have a clue what he was asking but Paul sounded passionate about bringing a high level e-sports event to Ireland, which is super good!

My other half has also informed me that I should enter the tournament as a SC2 player instead of going along with a view to blogging about it.. so now I apparently need to learn how to play the game again.. I need to get over my addiction of playing against the AI and kick the ladder anxiety in the butt.. cause if I can't even ladder how could I expect myself to play live?!?!

In completely unrelated news, I have been streaming again for the past week or so and I have really enjoyed it. I really hope that I will be able to continue this when I start back at College on Monday. I also think I need to start to stick to a specific game in order to build a regular viewership.. I am thinking it might have to be Diablo 3 or Path of Exile because quite frankly I suck too much at the other games I have played!

In streaming news, last night I was messing around and found a handy little bot to sit in my chat and be a lovely moderator or something.. it also has some other features.. like it can enable users to request songs and place them in a list. The only problem I found with that is the volume.. it is too loud and it seems to me that the volume controls do nothing.

One thing that I need to do, is to commission some artwork/channel graphics so that my channel and things all fit together and don't seem disjointed as I think it seems now. So if anyone knows someone, point them in my direction and we can jam!

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Game Giveaway!

What's that? Free games you say? I'm there!

Oh, what do you mean they are for people who read the blog and I can't have them? :-( well I guess that's okay, as long as they are going to good homes.


Steam keys

• Bioshock Infinite GONE
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Gift) GONE
• Crysis 2 Maximum Edition GONE
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising GONE

Origin keys

• Dead Space GONE
• Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box GONE
• Medal of Honor GONE
• Mirror's Edge GONE

So yeah! It's exactly what it says on the tin.. 

All I'd like from you is that you follow me on Twitter and like my Facebook page! 

Enough of that, tell me how to get a game! Well shoot an email over to mcknublet@gmail.com with the subject "Knublet's Den: Gimmie a Game!" it's first come first serve and one game per person! You need to say which game you would like too!

I will update the list with what's left as and when they go.

Good luck!

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SC2 WCS: Good or Bad?

First off; with a little disclaimer, I had not been consistently watching competitive Starcraft 2 for at least a good few months. I have caught the odd WCS regional matches and ever since that, I thought something was hmm, off about it. Just today I was enjoying watching some games in one of the WCS finals for the first time in a while!

I will say this. For the most part WCS is a very good thing.. at least in it's essence.

Lets look at the positives firstly. In my eyes, having one gigantic 'premier league' tournament is a much better idea than having multiple tournaments all fighting to be the best of the best. As long as that premier league either feeds into those tournaments like some other sports do.. or the gigantic one becomes all encompassing and takes on all of the other ones(which would be sad, because of the history of said tournaments). Whoops, got a bit side-tracked there!

The casters, the whole production crews, the players.. all living up to, or even surpassing the standards that have been set in previous tournaments. When I have seen some of one the whole show appears very polished and amazingly well done.

But if the problem that I have with this tournament has nothing to so with the essential parts of the tournament... What is my problem with it? Why don't I get on with it, why can't I follow it..

My first thought was that it's because of the fact that there are far more names floating around than I remember, but no.. that's not a bad thing.. I have quickly picked up on a few players that I really enjoy watching from this new(not so new, but rather new to me) fold of players.

The next thing was perhaps how awkward it seems sometimes when someone is trying to interview a player and they either ask some completely random questions that nobody needs to know the answers to or completely pointless questions.. but again, I think I can forgive that.. to some degree.

Then I actually realized.. I have absolutely no idea what any of it means. I do get that the Global finals are played at Blizzcon and the person who wins that should be considered the SC2 big daddy boss man.. it's all the regional finals, season finals and points systems in between that I don't really understand - whenever I open up twitch it seems that WCS are streaming a final and it starts to lose any real sort of meaning at least to me.

Maybe(I have no illusions this will happen) they should re-evaluate their system and make it easier to understand for those who don't or can't follow every single broadcast or maybe(Kinda more likely) I should just do some research and try a bit harder to understand the points system and the leagues and finals..

I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this please either leave a comment on here, tweet me @McKnublet or even throw me out a comment on my Facebook page..

Anyway, Ciao for now! I'm off to bed!

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GTA V: My thoughts

I finally finished the main storyline missions and I have to say, I love the game.. I won't go into what it's about, because well I think most people already know what it is about.. and if you don't, what rock have you been hiding under for the past month! Go get it and play the heck out of it!!

I found the difficulty level to be okay for the most part with me dying stupidly probably at least once in most missions or shamefully losing the target that I had to chase. There was one side mission that I attempted three or four times before I left it and carried on with the story, then went back to it and managed to get it right.. the one where you have to keep the camera on a person in a car that is chasing you. This was difficult for me, I think because my stick skills(aiming) are intensely rubbish!

One thing that really gets me mad is how easy it is for you to die. I don't remember the other GTA games letting you die so easily! Maybe I need to go back and play again just to make sure.. but I'm sure you could survive more in the older ones!

Apart from that one thing, the game is very polished and plays extremely well from start to finish.. I often found myself playing for a lot longer than I intended because the story was pulling me into it and I wanted to see what was next in the game! I guess that is why a lot of people have likened the game to a movie, because it's extremely well written, the script and voice acting is what I would call flawless.

Great game. Next I need to get Xbox live so that I can try out the online version.. I am told it is intense fun..

Let me know what you thought of the game in the handy comments section below!

That's me out, ciao for now amigos!

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n00b c0n - An Irish e-sports extravaganza

For as long as I can remember, the Irish gaming scene has been.. well let's just say that for as long as I have been around here, it's been somewhat lacking. I mean there are a lot of gamers here in Ireland.. I can name four big games studios off the top of my head that have offices here.. but even with all of that, there has been nothing going on here and it's all been very disappointing in that regard.

However! All that is set to change with the upcoming arrival of an eSports event based in Cork, Ireland. When I first heard someone mentioning that this start up called n00bgaming were planning to host an event, I will be the first to admit to being dubious to the nth degree.. but ever since I saw the "poster" on TeamLiquid a fever has been growing in my loins head err..heart?

One of the things that makes it easy to become hyped about this is that Nick "Axslav" Ranish and Alex "Axeltoss" Rodriguez have agreed take the trip over to Ireland from the states to cast the tournament side of this event. This is notable because the pair cast as a duo for Major League Gaming(which is kind of a big deal).

On top of that, there is the announced prize pool.. which is insanely high for a first time event, so I'm told! There will be four different game tournaments each with a different total prize pool. I'll go through them here and let you know what it is! So here goes!!

1. Fifa 13 - €1000
2. Halo 3 - €1000
3. League of Legends - €2000
4. Starcraft 2 - €10,000

Yep, you read that right.. €10,000 euro prize pool for SC2.. for a first time event. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has extremely high hopes that this does well.. and if it does I'm positive there will be many more and the more there are, all the better for the Irish gaming scene and I guess the economy or something like that. They also appear to have some solid backing though with sponsors like Ozone gaming gear, Microsoft and Happauge!.

They have also announced at least one pro sc2 player who is going to turn up and that is Elfi.. I hope some more turn up cause well, it'd be pretty easy money for him if no other pro players go! So come on guys, sign up! Ireland is great and we'd love to have you all over here!

The tournament is set to take place in Cork City itself, and the location is fantastic because it's only a few minutes away from a lot of pubs. It's happening on the 16th and 17th of November at O'Callaghan Properties, Half Moon St, Cork.

This is their post on TeamLiquid. You can also check out the Facebook page here, follow them on Twitter for regular updates.

That's me done, so as usual drop me a comment or three if you have any thoughts or want any more information and I'll do my best to dig it out for you!

Ciao for now!

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