*I lost my notes when i was at CGS, i was writing down day by day what happened, so i may of missed some bits out but enjoy*
Well I thought I would write a blog about my CGS Experience from Friday the 21th of September to Sunday 23rd of September! So here it goes
Friday 21st of September 2007! The Start of my CGS Experience
Arrived at Reading Train station at 8:30am from my home of Winnersh, got ready to board a Virgin train to take me to Birmingham ST Train station…but this is where the problems started, I got told I have to “RESERVE” my place on these trains and to do so there would be a SMALL… remember this SMALL Waiting time….so from 8:30 – about 10am I was sat around and then I get told the next train I can board is at 2pm….I was seriously pissed off but I just shrugged it off, I was even more annoyed to see how I watched 3-4 trains go by with over 50 seats with no one in… I am damn sure I could of boarded one of them but o well…
So I got on the train at 2.00pm and went through my journey, getting anxious, couldn’t wait to get to CGS, then my mp3 died on the way up and my mind drifted ^_^
Arrived at Birmingham about 4:50pm and got on the phone to theSGL Uzi who directed me to Omega Sektor, where CGS was held.
Got in the center where I found Uzi smoking his life away and he sorted my out by taking me upstairs, getting me my staff branded CGS T-Shirt along with staff badge, showed me around the venue and I went on a browse of the place.
At this time different teams from fnatic to Infused Gaming, Dignitas to NoA where playing CSS and practicing, my first thoughts of Omega Sektor was “Woahhhhh!” if I remember correctly ^_^ Its really well set out, with decent personal Omega Sektor Death Adder Razer mouse’s and Razer Mantis speed mouse mats, along with Razer Keyboards (I didn’t get on to well with the Keyboards because it was as if everything was shifted to the right lol)
I didn’t do to much admin work that day, only helped Adam with the DOA4 (Dead or Alive 4) matches, doing the female games where Snuggles came 1st, an amazing woman who was 50 something years old, really humble and always smiling, defiantly a candidate for CGS. The DOA4 Matches where really nice to watch, as I haven’t touched DOA since DOA3, to see what it looks like now, added to the stages things like Cars can change the outcome, as on one map you are fighting in the street and cars can come across and just take you out, bringing some interesting play.
We Finished admin work about 9/9:30pm where we then cleaned up a bit and where able to take use of the PC’s, Me, Dave, Corin, Teal and BiGjD went to the main stage, with screens above for anyone watching to see a good view of what we have on our screens and we played a few mixes and had a good laugh, shouting loud, pissing about but acting like we where some Pro team hahahaha!
Well about an hour after this, Me and BiGjD went to some nightclubs.. but failed to get in due to me not having any shoes…don’t think they really cared about ID for my Age…=]
But we ended up finding a bar, having a few drinks, then getting hold of Uzi and drunk the night away. Ended up staying in room 507 at the Britania Hotel with Matt “L@TeRz” Carrier, which was funny =]
Saturday 22nd September 2007! Day 2, Things get interesting
I woke up about 8am, got my self in the shower, Matt woke up about 8:30am when he got him self together and we walked down to breakfast… ^_^
We then headed over to the center and got set up, I browsed the usual pages, SK Gaming, UKCT, CGS and theSGL, waiting for the matches to get started.
Today’s matches where the General Managers match ups, this was where Michael O'Dell, Sujoy Roy, Emil Christenssen and Jonas Vikan asked to see players play so they could see what they are made of, our job was to make sure these matches happened with the enforced CGS rules and made sure it all ran smoothly, plug in controls, install configs all that stuff =]
Then as the day went by, more and more games where played and I ran into the One and only Emil “HeatoN” Christenssen, who I spoke to for a while and I was happy to find out he remembered me from my time working at NiP. He was really cool and a happy guy, not as arrogant as a lot of people seem to say.
The GM games where played all day, the finals of the Project Gotham Racing, Dead or Alive 4 (male and female) and CSS where played, you can find all the scores at www.thecsg.com =]
I enjoyed this loads, I was admin of all of the Project Gotham Racing games and got to chat with a lot of the players, they knew the maps inside out and the race’s had more to it than I thought with team tactics instead of just full out racing =]
In the evening we went to a local pub with creative CSS team from France, really nice guys, Uzi and Me talked to them for a while before heading back to the hotel, we found Corin and Teal sat in the lobby, drinking from the hotels bar which was open all night, they were sat with the Legend himself Brian from CGS, he makes the website run and he worked from 9am-6am then got 3 hours sleep and did it all over again! (GIVE HIM A PAY RISE!) Then after having to pull Matt off the slot machine where he won like £80 and we went to bed watching Family guy ^_^
Sunday 23rd September 2007! The beginning of the end
Sunday was the last day of the event, the EU teams where to be drafted and the UK teams to be pre-drafted to 40 before going to London for the draft!
The draft day was slow, not to much happened, had my co-co-pops for breakfast, went to Omega Sektor, checked sites, waited around a lot, took a few pictures, got a picture with Emil, a few more last minute General Manager Matches took place, then game the main event!
The pre-drafts for the UK, we had to go through what happened at first so it was perfect for the cameras, us staff made sure people went the right way, no wires got knocked out and all the pc’s where ready to show off the logos.
Redeye read out the drafts, everyone walked up, people clapped and that was that! But the bit that had everyone holding their breathes was the EU Draft, this was the decider, HeatoN and BSL had to choose who they wanted on their team, HeatoN leading the Stockholm Magnetiks and BSL Leading the Berlin Allianz, the main choice of course was the CSS Teams and as the tension built HeatoN announced he would take EYEBallers CSS team and about 10minutes later, BSL took longer than allowed to choose his team but ended up picking NoA, the other picks can be found at www.thecgs.com
After the picks, the press had their way with both captains and teams, all members where given clothing consisting of a cap and team t-shirt in the colours, all this happening around me made me really think CGS is the definition of professional gaming, Sky TV, Salaries.
After all the press the ViP Lounge was open with free drinks and food which was a nice surprise, I only managed to stay for about 3-4hours after all this and left Omega Sektor at about 7:50pm to get on my train at 8pm.
Overall I must say CGS at Omega Sektor Birmingham was truly amazing, it showed me how professional CGS has made gaming, shown me how CSS can be played at a competitive level and also gave me a good look at what I will be doing in the future for CGS and others =]
I would like to thank Uzi from www.thesgl.com for giving me the chance to attend, Radical and dTm for giving me a great opportunity, Simon for being a legend, Brian for all his hard work and putting up with me being drunk and not knowing where we can get food at 11:30pm at night, Corin for being..well Corin, Dave for being my love child, Teal for being my KFC buddy, BiGjd for my party man, L@TeRZ for being my room mate, Omega Sektor for hosting the event and CGS for paying for everything!
^_^
James ‘BanKs’ Banks