The Hits Keep Coming: DOTA 2 Takes Center Stage

Well things are certainly growing fast in the gaming scene for Jamaica. This week we introduce you to a young man who seeks to be the driving force behind the Dota 2 Community here in Jamaica. Even though the scene is still in its infancy, the group is passionate and enthusiastic about their game and seek to grow their community accordingly. Say hello to Prince Royal...

1. Politely Introduce yourself (Name, Game and community)

A. Hey I am Prince Royal and I'm a Dota 2 Enthusiast and Pro-Gamer. I currently lead the Dota 2 Jamaica community that hosts Dota 2 tournaments locally and within the Caribbean region.

2. How long have you been playing Dota2 casually and competitively?

A. I've been playing Dota since 2012 when my friends at UWI introduced it to me. I started playing Dota 2  late 2013/ early 2014 causally and then competitively later on in 2014.

3. Where do you want to see Dota2 in Jamaica go? Also what are you doing to help get it there?

A. I want to see Jamaican teams represented in the the official Dota 2 international competitions. What we're doing for Dota 2 in Jamaica is currently forming unions and recognizing local talents in Dota 2 through tournament hosting. We're doing this in conjuction with Tandem, Cyberbox LAN Center and Triforce & Co. with JA G.A.M.E.S. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/JamaicaGames/)

4. In comparison to the world where on the competitive scale do you think the Dota2 players in Jamaica are?

A. In comparison to the world on a competitive scale, Dota 2 players in Jamaica rivals among top players in the game. If you don't believe me be sure to check out "FIRST BLOOD"  a live Dota 2 tournament to be held in Kingston, Jamaica in March 2015.

5. Has there been an official Dota2 tournament in Jamaica yet? If not do you plan to host any and where if you do?

A. There has never been a Dota 2 tournament in Jamaica to date (not that I know of to say the least). But as I said earlier we are planning a major live Dota 2 tournament in Jamaica to be held at Cyberbox Lan Center for more details you can check out our Facebook page and join our community group "Dota 2 Jamaica" (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1530182720569138/).

6. How can we contact you (twitter and facebook) and where can we find your community here in Jamaica?

A. We currently don't have a physical location at the moment but we are looking at venues such as Cyberbox Lan Center and other potential venues that would be able to accommodate a healthy turn out for a Dota2 tournament. You may contact us directly through the Dota 2 Jamaica Facebook community page if you have any questions. I hope to see you at our tournaments in the near future! (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1530182720569138/)

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Here Comes A New Challenger: League Of Legends Is On The Scene

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, gamers of all ages; welcome to another interview with your friendly neighborhood gamer Zalgo_Cometh. Continuing our coverage of eSports and the various faces representing it here in Jamaica I present to you the driving force behind the League Of Legends community for Jamaica; Khadeed Fearon.

Q. Welcome to the blog, could you please introduce yourself for all the readers?

A. Hello, my name is Khadeed Fearon. I’m a League of Legends player in the Jamaica gaming community. I also play Street Fighter and I’m working on getting back into Counter Strike.

Q. eSports is becoming a movement in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean and a lot of people are stepping up to the plate to help lead in the task of setting up a foundation for eSports in Jamaica. What role do you play in the Jamaican eSports scene?

A. I work as a eSports Community Manager for Jamaica through an organization called “Jamaican G.A.M.E.S.” It stands for Jamaican Gamers Association in Multimedia Entertainment and Services. It used to be called Caribbean G.A.M.E.S. but it got changed recently for some reason due to something big that is happening in the Caribbean as a whole. The organization consist of the Island’s premiere tournament director and organizer Andrew Johnson. Wayne Benjamin who is the CEO of The LabVideo Game TV., Gregory Moore who owns Str8Games where you can find the latest video games on the Island and Triforce Johnson who founded the organization and is Jamaica’s eSports Architect and Consultant.

Q. The whole paradigm for eSports in Jamaica is rather diverse. What do you think are the games that will really push Jamaica forward into the future?

A. There are different types of gamers throughout Jamaica and we all play something differently, whether that may be competitively or casually. Based on my experience I’ve seen games likes Tekken, Street Fighter, Smash Bros. at our yearly tournament Mash Di Button. Although those games are popular in their own right, it’s really games like FIFA and League of Legends that pushes the island when it comes to eSports.

I’m a part of the growing League of Legends community and I’m working with them to push their tournaments throughout Jamaica. I use social media tools like Facebook to help me. There are gaming groups like LoLJa (https://www.facebook.com/groups/LoLJa/) and websites like http://lol-swallowtail.rhcloud.com/ that we use to support and foster the community. For the most part that is what is used for League of Legends. 

Our country’s main game “FIFA” is literately headed by Empire Arcadia’s FIFA team called The Silverbirds. The Manager’s name is Dean Barnnett and he has been running 90% of the FIFA tournaments long before I even got into the whole eSports thing. There are other games like Call of Duty, I don’t want to leave them out as the community has run a few tournaments as well for them. Most of these tournaments listings can be found in the Facebook group communities; mainly FAJ (Fighters Allegiance Jamaica).

Q. From your point of view what is the status of the progress coming along for eSports in Jamaica?

A. Before 2014, it was just local tournaments we could run from the community. We have one widely regarded yearly major and that’s Mash Di Button. Andrew Johnson has been doing that for about 3 years now I think. When Triforce came down to the Island earlier this year he and Andrew teamed up to revolutionize and commercialize the eSports exposure to the masses. It was obvious that some significant events were in the making.

Digicel and LIME, both of which are our telecommunication giants got involved and hosted a couple of tournaments between the two of them. You even have non tele-communications companies like Intcomex who have been hosting a yearly LAN tournament. Not too long ago we helped organize a League of Legends tournament at the Cyber Box Lan Centre with more to come in January 2015.

Q. Can you explain to my readers how does your group operate to get things done for eSports in Jamaica?

A. We’ll start from the top, first you have Triforce who set up the structure for it. This is his primary role as our eSports Consultant. From what I can say, he designed the whole system and  positions based on our strengths and that allows us to complete the task that best serves the community. He also brings in foreign help in terms of sponsors and supporters of the tournaments such as soon to be major supporter MVG (Multimedia Video Games).

Next you have Wayne Benjamin who pretty much covers all the media for us. Honestly without him the true coverage of eSports throughout Jamaica is impossible. If you look at his work on Youtube or TV on Channel 100 Flow you will see that he gives us the true professional coverage that we need so that people can look at our scene with respect and integrity. Not to add to fine a point on it but communication is key and through his media resources he is able to provide the entire country with info about the community, new games and tournaments.

Then there is Greg from Str8games. Greg takes care of all our tournament gaming logistics. He has supplied LIME for their eSports integration challenge that they had in the fall through J.A.G (Jamaica G.A.M.E.S) and even before in past tournament. He has a game store in Sovereign Kingston and he’s our go to guy when it comes to that.

There is myself, which I mentioned earlier in my role as the Community Manager for League of Legends.

Finally you have the head of FAJ Andrew Johnson, a core piece to the whole strucutre from what we're doing. Everything that's done has to be relayed to him as he's the organizer for the grand scheme of things for the future Esports' Tournament lifestyle. As I stated before he’s our fearless leader and overall tournament director (T.O.). I gather relevant information on established or up and coming gaming scenes and present that information to Andrew who takes that and ascertains how to best support and incorporate that scene.

As you can see, the system works and although it’s very young it serves our scene well. I can see where we can and will improve. That alone brings promising results for future for eSports in Jamaica.

Q. What are the big eSports tournaments that you think we should look out for in 2015 in Jamaica?

A. For 2015 based on what I know when I last spoke to Andrew, you obviously have our premiere yearly tournament "Mash Di Button". Then there is foreign company called MVG that Triforce is introducing to Jamaica in hopes of being our first and primary international sponsor. Intcomex I think is going to be running a LAN tournament again. Then you have the big boys LIME and Digicel that will be hosting something again for 2015. Now that they have some time to prepare I think it’s going to be bigger and better this time around. Finally you have tournaments for League of Legends that I’ll be helping to run along with COD and more. 2015 is going to be a BIG year for eSports in Jamaica.

Q. Do you have anything to say in closing?

A. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview with me Zalgo_Cometh. I know you do a lot for Jamaica behind the scene. You’re invaluable and a huge player in this whole thing. I also want to thank the gaming at large, all the supporter both corporate and otherwise and finally my friends and family for supporting me and all I do.

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Everyone Be One Be On Dat Soccer Hype

Welcome to another random Monday blog. Feel like i'm running out of topics I wanna actively talk about on this blog on Mondays so this kind of devolved into a recap or summary type of thing. So the big thing for the last couple weeks and going forwards for now is the 2014 FIFA World Cup. You know this shit is serious when even a country like USA that doesn't really give two shits about Soccer comes out in support of their national team. Personally there is only one team to back which is Argentina but let everyone have their fun in the spirit of competition. Shit is so real even corporate business places are filled with the gasps, sighs, and cheers of workers watching the matches and enjoying the hype in the typical work day. Shit is so intense my department has a betting pool going on for each stage of the tournament. I tried it out for the first section but they upped the stakes from $500 to $1000 so I had to fall back from that cause i'm not about that life. Hopefully your team that you are carrying or bandwagoning with is still currently in the tournament; if not then tough shit better luck next 4 years. Here is the current standings as of typing this blogpost:

Switching gears a bit but still on Soccer news; Digicel is spearheading an e-Sports related event in tandem with the current World Cup fever sweeping the world. I present to you the Digicel FIFA 2014 World DigiCup Ranking Tournament sponsored by Digicel Jamaica; endorsed by Empire Arcadia and organized by Fighter's Allegiance Jamaica. This tournament is Digicel's first venture into the realm of e-Sports and competitive gaming in Jamaica. This tournament will see 32 selected finalists compete in a virtual world cup with each finalist representing one of the 32 teams qualified for this years World Cup competition. The eventual winner of the tournament receives $100,000 and a Samsung Galaxy S5 courtesy of Digicel Jamaica; second place walks away with $50,000 and third place takes home $25,000. Digicel Jamaica is the leader of technology and innovation in the telecommunications field and as such saw it fit to take it upon themselves to be the first major corporation to take the initiative to join the world of e-Sports. Check out this wrap up footage from the event by one of the attendants:

Anywhore i'm going to just leave this here as this is and go test this El Gato capture card I got. All the best and hope to see you come out and support the event on the various tournament dates on July 5th, July 6th, July 12th, July 13th. Stay tuned to our Facebook fan page, Fighter's Allegiance Jamaica and Empire Arcadia for further news concerning the event. Quick side note; I realize my life is getting a bit more hectic and as such I doubt I will be ale to do video game reviews every week so ill be aiming to do one game review every two weeks instead. Thanks for understanding and as always "keep on gaming"...

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Time To Start Catching Up

Guys!!! Girls!!! Animals of the jungle!!! Lend me your ears... I'm back in the booth; haters still lying but your boy is da truth. I am finally getting back to blogging for those that care, it's been nearly a month since I stopped blogging due to a wide variety of activities and time constraints but now that things are simmering down we can get back to basics. Keeping this short and sweet as best as I can; with that been said first up is Mash Di Button 2014.

Mash Di Button

I wont get into too much details in regards to the event since I already covered that in a previous blog. Sad to say I couldn't take first place in the Injustice tournament but instead got third place. This was the main reason I took a break from blogging since I was trying to make as much time as possible for training. Glad to see it paid off and i placed top three. On the bright side though I guess I'm consistent since last year I got third place in the Street Fighter tournament. I would have liked to have video footage and pics to show you but I was also a judge during the competition and forgot my camera so I have no personal footage to share. Thankfully I got the hook up to some pictures so you can enjoy. Click the picture below to open up the Facebook picture album.

Guild Wars 2

Recently a fan/friend bought me a copy of Guild Wars 2 and as with most MMORPG's it took over my life. This is partly why I don't review MMORPG games when I do reviews because they are far too time consuming and easy to get addicted to. In any case I finally hit lvl 80 recently and got most of the gear needed for my character so its with perfect timing now that i can start to ease off the crack pipe called Guild Wars 2 and get back to doing video game reviews. Had fun while it lasted and even streamed it on the twitch channel. You can check that out below...

Watch live video from The_Ghost_Who_Walks on TwitchTV

FIFA 2014 Digicup Gamers Challenge

Since roughly about last year august I have been trying to work on getting Digicel to embrace the realm of E-Sports. Alongside influential entities both local and overseas such as Fighters Allegiance Jamaica and The Empire Arcadia respectively we have started planting seeds. Seeds we hope one day grow into big burly connections so that the realm of E-Sports can be embraced on multiple levels of Jamaican society. It has been a long and arduous road that has had its fair share of growing pains. This however is beginning to form and take root as Digicel finally put together an E-Sports event to run alongside the currently ongoing FIFA World Cup. As things progress we hope this will be a clear cut sign to other entities in Jamaica to take a closer look at the potential and market reach that ventures into E-Sports holds for them. Now that the preliminaries are over the next step is the Finals on the 28th of June; hope to see you all out in full support of what is shaping up to be quite the event.

Well that's basically everything that has happened  thus far. Special thanks to all those who stuck around wanting to see more and all the new likes we got on our Facebook fan page. Glad to see you back here reading again and until next time; keep on gaming.

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It All Boils Down To This

Greetings good people out there in the interwebs; welcome to another random Monday blog fresh off my awesome weekend going to my first FGC Major tournament. That's me pictured above in the black  jacket chilling with one of my newly found Kingstonian friends who just so happened to place in the top three for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Matthew Marshall I respect your Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom skills especially since you team doesn't tier whore like most the other competitors. Anywhore enough about the epicness that is me and my friends; we are here to talk about Mash Di Button.

So this event was the first of its kind on such a large scale and I must say it was quite the success; I wish i had gotten more pictures and maybe done an interview or two but I was more focused on being a participant than covering the event. Plus there were more than enough people already dedicated to covering the event so no worries; i'll just update this blogpost as the Fighter's Allegiance Jamaica group makes all the necessary footage and what not available. You can go ahead and join their Facebook group as well as subscribe to their YouTube channel for future fighting game content and more. Special thanks to those that came out and supported both casually or in the tournaments; your presence was duly noted and greatly appreciated.

A special thanks to Caribbean Video X Games St. Marten The Spot Sports Bar & Grill Enhanced Realizm Studios Str8Games and Yardie876Gamers who was on site with casual gaming stations setup for one and all to experience the joys of gaming on a Playstation 3. Feel free to go visit his Facebook page for more information related to purchasing video games.

Honorable mentions for the tournament games played are as follows:

Mash Di Button Results 

Mortal Kombat 9:

1: CGE JAIYSONX

2: CGE KYHMIST

3: CGE JOKR

SSF4 AE 2012:

1: JUS BLAZZE

2: CONRYUKEN

3: ZALGO COMETH

TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT 2:

1: MR. TEKKEN

2: RICKY-6-KILLER

3: LLPK

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3:

1: MR. LEE

2: EVIL TOASTER

3: MATTMASTER

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All the grand finals matches were played on stream to be uploaded to the Fighter's Allegiance Jamaica YouTube channel so you can go ahead and subscribe like I told you before to check out those super hype matches once they are uploaded. I know that the internet does not like to wait however so in the interim please accept these as an offering to hold you over until the FAJ gets everything up and running. First up we have the Instagram account for the FAJ which shows off some of the competitors.

There is also a few pictures on our Facebook fan-page that you can check out as well as like the page and support our gaming addiction at www.facebook.com/Zalgo.Cometh so our community of gamers can grow. So our first place winners Mr. Lee and Mr. Tekken will be receiving round trip tickets to St. Marten to participate in the yearly VxG fighting game tournament with a chance for more prizes and surprises in store proudly representing Jamaica. We wish them the best of luck as they have proven themselves to be the best of the best and we know they will represent the country proudly. So on that note I will bid you all adieu and leave you with this footage I personally recorded of some of the matches myself and friends played in for the Super Street Fighter 4 tournament. Enjoy....

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The Answer Lies In The Heart Of Battle

Welcome to another random Monday blog here on In The Mind Of My Mind. Your friendly neighborhood gamer Zalgo_Cometh here with some interesting news for one and all. The FGC (Fighting Game Community) of Jamaica is holding the islands biggest gathering of epic proportions. Anyone can be a member of the FGC from the young to the old so its no surprise to see both young and old at events like these. Our little island of Jamaica has been home to some pretty epic events so it seemed only natural to add an event of this caliber to our roster. So I sat down with the Fighters Allegiance Of Jamaica for an interview to help educate the masses on who they are and what they are trying to accomplish. So without further ado...

Tournament Play, though it has been around for a while, has only recently reached the mainstream spotlight. For some titles, such as Starcraft, the rise to prominence is truly remarkable. The rise of Major League Gaming has made strides to legitimize video games as a sport, and it's not uncommon to see game tournaments awarding cash prizes in the upwards of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, this rise in popularity has not gone evenly across the board. Completely distinct from MLG or "E-Sports" is the Fighting Game Community—a niche which is slowly but surely becoming more "mainstream", changing the video game community quite a bit. It is now time for Jamaica to stand up and be counted with the world in yet another battle of skill and prestige. As a famous man once said "The answer lies, in the heart of battle..."

https://www.facebook.com/groups/fightersallegianceja/

PROUD SUPPORTERS OF THE VxG

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