By: Jeremy Blye

 

As many of you know, we had our 3rd DePaul Summer Showdown last night. It was a crazy match between our squad and the St. Clair Saints. Luckily, this event did not keep us until 1AM. I enjoyed every aspect of it, and I thought I would take a deeper dive into both the actual event and behind the scenes.

 

 

Game 1: DPU vs. Saints (0-0)

This game was played on the map Haven, and it was hard to tell exactly what was going to happen. Both teams were extremely aggressive and they kept passing control of the map between one another. I think this posed as a big issue for both teams since it made it difficult for the other to know what to do. Even though both teams were aggressive, they also fed their opponents teammates and weapons. By playing extremely risky, it allowed for a lot of good to happen, but it also gave room for many mistakes. This meant that throughout the whole game, the score was basically tied. Eventually, we were taken to 3 overtimes until DePaul came out victorious.

 

Game 2: DPU vs. Saints (1-0)

We now were on the map Bind, and at this point I have to say I quite binded into the series at hand. Get it, see what I did there. Both teams were definitely all warmed up here, and had some sort of understanding of how to play against one another. Even with this information at hand, this is the point where I saw DePaul started to struggle a little bit. They may have been confident throughout every single game, but the Saints’ playstyles and rotations outplayed DePaul many times. This did not mean DePaul did not play very well. Yet again, we had another close game with a score of 13-9 with the Saints winning. I think within this game, we were able to witness some of the best clutches and plays by both teams. Players like kaz and Blitzbolt on DePaul and vCan and BlossoM on the Saints really proved what it means to have mechanical and mental skill.

 

Game 3: DPU vs. Saints (1-1)

With our final match of the night, we ended up going into Ascent. From the extremely small amount of Valorant that I have played, I have to say that this is one of my favorite maps within the game. So many of these maps you have to check 300 different angles to make a move anywhere, yet this map is a little less vertical than others, and it is also a little bit more linear. The Saints seemed to have been able to completely read DePaul and understand how to play around them. Although they may have not had the firepower to compete with DePaul in many of the early rounds, they were able to break through and take a huge lead within the first half of this game. Even with something like this happening, DePaul was playing very strong and attempting to stay in the game. Their confidence was still very high. This led to some crazy plays by almost all of the players. This was not enough to bring home the win.

 

Congrats to the St. Clair Saints for winning this match-up we hosted! It was a blast being able to commentate and watch what was going on!

 

 

So as far as behind the scenes, what exactly happened?

Well, I did do the production of the event, and I thought it was going to be pretty easy since I have it down to a science after COD. I unexpectedly had to step in as a caster with Kevin. Let me say that casting and doing production was extremely difficult. I do not know much about Valorant so I had to apply any game knowledge I had from CSGO to figure out what was even going on. It was still enjoyable, but it definitely was a little bit messy. I think being able to track everything I needed to do while still entertaining everyone who was watching was probably the most difficult part though. My mind already runs at 1000MPH. With last night’s event, I had to act even faster so I was definitely a little bit tricky. I am always glad to get more experience though, so there were a lot more positives than negatives. Even though DePaul did not win, every player took home my heart :).

 

Stay tuned for our next Summer Showdown which will feature Rainbow Six Siege on August 19th at 7:30PM CST! Hope to see you there!

By Jeremy Blye:

 

Note: This is a going to be a little bit of a new series where I interview one of our members within the Esports community. I also ask them about their experience within Esports and how this program has affected their personal life. P is Peyton. J is Jeremy.

 

Yesterday, I created the opportunity to speak to Peyton “Tangerine” Gatza for about two hours. It was honestly a great conversation and there was a lot that I was happy to be able to hear from him. I think allowing the community to voice their opinions and their overall feelings towards what goes on is extremely important to keeping a community strong and healthy. Let’s take a look into our little interview.

 

J: Who are you?

P: My name is Peyton Gatza and I am a senior at DePaul who is studying music.

 

(Look at this stunning lad, I definitely didn’t find this pic from his Instagram)

 

J: What is your involvement within Esports?

P: I am a part of Overwatch Varsity, I am a commentator, and I am a part of the Overwatch Board. I also do some solo-production for some events. I enjoy it, but it’s like a double-edged sword.

 

J: When did you start Esports?

P: I started my freshman year. I tried out for Overwatch when the team was extremely good. There were 30 people who tried out and I didn’t make a single team. It took 2 people dropping out to be able to make a team. It was super discouraging since they had 3 teams at the time. There was Varsity, JV 1, and JV 2. After a little bit of time, I got moved to the main tank of JV 2.

 

J: What is the team structure at DePaul?

P: There are 2 coaches. Both are from the organization Kaiju Corp. Cybele is a coach who focuses on the macro play with everything the team does. Cybele will go through VODs and to see what the team needs to do to play against the opponents. InsaneWaya is the other coach who helps micro-manage the team. During scrims and VOD reviews, he takes detailed notes of a single player to give them information about what they are doing. This helps the players improve individually while also improving as a team.

J: I find it quite interesting how the teams function so similarly, yet games like Rocket League and Overwatch are so different. I’ll bring it up later when we talk about discipline within Esports, but I’m not surprised this is how part of the team functions internally. This is a little bit off topic, but with Overwatch competitive, do they enforce certain roles within the game. I remember when I used to play Overwatch, I hated the update where they added the role queue. (Then we start “reminsicing” on previous metas within the game haha).

P: Nowadays, all Overwatch competition forces the 2 Tank, 2 Support, and 2 DPS meta. Since we were talking about the structure of the teams, this is how the roles function together. Tanks are the most important followed by the support players. 1 Tank is in charge of making the calls in the middle of the fight while everyone else echos it and follows around. The other Tank plans the upcoming fight and how they are going to take the fight. The Support player is the ultimate tracker. It is basically how it sounds. Ults are the most important abilities that can swing the tide of the fight in a moment’s notice.

 

J: It seems that you are passionate about Overwatch. You obviously are knowledgeable about the Esport you compete in. One sentence I hear all of the time in Esports is this: “I hate (insert game)”. Why do you think it is?

P: People say this because of these 2 reasons:

One of them affects lower leveled players. This comes down to their mindset. Many people do not approach the game with a growth mindset. When they hit a skill cap from not pointing out their own mistakes, they just rage and get upset. A lot of times people get mad when they get rolled over and over and nothing gets better. These players struggle to move past this skill plateau.

The other side of this affects higher leveled players. Overwatch has not been historically great with the updates they have made. These updates can cause complete changes within the game. This dev team has a solid understanding of how to cater to both the competitive and casual scene, yet they go towards the casual players. Skill plateauing for these higher leveled players is even more frustrating. The players tend to dissect their gameplay at every single point of a game. It is so taxing mentally since they know the instant they make a mistake. Being a perfectionist is what makes you the best.

J: It’s funny that you bring up the raging thing for the lower-leveled players since it is something that I have experienced. My coach and teammates have helped me slowly change that mindset. This is the one thing that I think makes many of these players be unable to change their mindset. When you are gaming, you have complete control of what you are doing. It’s not like a sport where there are external factors that may change what is going on. Yeah, there is lag. That is the least of someone’s worries for competition. Yet, when you think you have control of whatever you are doing, it hurts so much to see everything get stripped away from you. Many of us put hundreds-thousands of hours into the games we love. At different points, I have definitely said, “I hate Rocket League”. For me though, it is much more than just the game itself.

I have definitely contributed to the problem Rocket League has, but the community is the most toxic out of any game I have played. I never thought I would say that this game is more toxic than CSGO, but it is. I think the little rage-inducing comments or the way people can BM you pushes me to a whole different level. I’m primarily talking about when I am playing outside of competition.

P: You know one thing that has helped me get past all of the negativity within a game is realizing I need to focus on me and not everyone else. That is the best advice I have been given when talking about this subject. I have definitely had to deal with this throughout my experience within Overwatch and gaming as whole. I just try to move away from those toxic individuals to make myself the best player possible.

 

J: While we are on the topic of negativity within gaming, do you feel that the stereotypes that surround Esports held you back when you were joining?

J: The reason I’m bringing all of this up is that I feel it is important for every part of Esports to have some light. I’m sure you know, but I think the pros and cons of anything are important to go over. As far as the question I just asked, I feel that these stereotypes have affected me. My mom hasn’t been extremely accepting of gaming until she has been able to see what I have done with it at school. You can even look at this whole issue in a general sense. Ever since gaming became somewhat mainstream, there have been games like DOOM that have only brought out negativity from the world. The media thought this game was promoting the devil due to where it was taking place in. It seems as if gaming was blamed for many different events throughout our lives.

P: To answer the first part of what you brought up, these stereotypes have affected me at some points. There are definitely times where I have felt that I could be doing something different with my life. I don’t want to. It makes me happy. I have fun. Over time, I have learned that I will do anything that brings me happiness. I will do it even if people are not necessarily fans of it. There are still plenty of people I know and care about that will game with me. In life, you can’t appease everyone. This is a skill that has taken years to develop.

People who try to deny people from feeling happy is wrong. I will never judge someone for liking something because it is unconventional. It is societally wrong and disgusting.

J: As far as unconventional, what makes watching TV or reading any different from gaming. They are different activities, but in the end they are just hobbies.

P: It seems at points people are just using gaming as a scapegoat for the world’s problems.

 

J: Since Esports and gaming is attacked so often, how do you feel it is affected by this?

P: This hinders the community that Esports is trying to branch out to. For example, look at Overwatch League. It is streamed on ESPN 3, which is one of the main ESPN channels. Everyone watches it, and the people who do not like gaming will be up in pitchforks about it being played. People who are not even interested in Esports will see this on social media and will be discouraged to be a part of the community. Hopefully in the future, this mindset will diminish. Everyone feels that they are a critic.

(This next part is my favorite thing Peyton said in our whole call)

As a musician who is going into my fourth year of studying music, it makes me very upset when I hear people try to say a tangible remark about a piece of art. 9.9 times out of 10, they are most likely not qualified to make objective statements about art. I don’t think I am incredibly inclined to say anything objective of any art piece or music. I don’t think it’s right even though I have studied it for 4 years.

This is a mindset that has held Esports from growing even bigger.

J: I have always found it interesting how people can be dead serious in hating on someone for their opinions. Music is a bigger problem for this idea. If you look at an artist like Tyler, the Creator, you will see people bashing one another for liking certain parts of his discography. I joke with people about why they like a certain artist or album, but I would never be so serious about it. I also have never understood people not liking something when they have never participated within whatever activity it is. This is prevalent within gaming during COVID. Gaming has been given a lot of good and bad spotlight because there is not much going on in the world.

P: Communities within gaming have been shown within the light much more. Look at Animal Crossing. During a pandemic, floods of people were trying to buy a Switch and people (gamers and non-gamers) were coming together to play some random game. It was crazy how many people were interested into what gaming posed for people.

J: Hopefully by the time we are back in person, more people will be able to bridge the gap that holds Esports and gaming from the potential it holds and carries every day.

 

J: Before we end off today, I have one more question for you. What is the potential you see out a program like this at DePaul?

P: Looking at what we have now, we are given a tasted of what could happen if we had more. You can take a look at the ranks of our players. You can look at the scoreboards on how teams compete. There are incredible numbers that these teams have without much sustainable coaching. They rely on the communities that they have built off of to get to where they are today. If there were more resources invested into Esports, some of our teams could be some of the best in the world.

 

Thank you so much to Peyton for taking quite a bit of time out of his day to talk to me about these topics. I honestly really enjoyed this conversation we had. It was more of a conversation than an interview to be honest. We were able to go back and forth with ease. I look forward to doing my next interview soon.

Make sure you stay in tune at DePaul Esports to see what we have planned. At 6PM CST today, we will have a DePaul Gaming League event. It is Skribbl.io. On top of that, we have the next DePaul Summer Showdown next Thursday at 7:30PM CST with Valorant!

 

By: Jeremy Blye

 

As you all know, we had our second DePaul Summer Showdown last night from 7:30PM all the way to 1:30AM. What a night is one way to describe this event. Even though it was much longer than anticipated, I was extremely happy with how this event went. We were able to include a variety of teams, include a decent amount of casters, and work through any technological bugs that decided to pop up out of nowhere. Let’s take a deeper dive into each of the series I watched and my perspective as running the production and some of the casting throughout last nig

 

 

Round 1: Butler vs. Oklahoma State (0-3)

Within this series, you could tell who was hungry to compete. This team was Oklahoma State. They played so aggressively it posed some difficulty for Butler to keep up with them. Going into this game, I heard about how strong Butler was and how they outplay their opponents with ease. It seemed the Oklahoma State was the one who came out with the victory no problem. They took out Butler within the first 3 games and they did not let them win a single one. Two players that really stuck out to me within this series was Royal on OKST and Plasma on Butler. They definitely led their teams on each game with kills and set the pace. Even though Butler was unable to come out victorious in this series, they were able to prove how strong they were by their attitude within the game.

 

Semifinals: DePaul vs. Oklahoma State (3-0)

After watching Oklahoma State play spectacularly, I was a little nervous to see how our DePaul squad would play against them. This should not have been a worry for myself since DePaul came out hot and absolutely showed Oklahoma what it means to be a part of our program. The synergy between players such as Krizzy and Vennitt helped prove why this squad works together so well. I do have to say that Oklahoma State ran DePaul for their money. Just within the first game of Hardpoint, the end score was 250-228. Each game put me on the edge of my seat, but I was glad to see my squad continue on to the finals.

 

Losers Finals: Oklahoma State vs. Kennesaw State University (3-2)

Throughout the whole night, this series was my favorite to watch. If the last series had me on my toes, I have no clue what to even consider this one. It was like a game of cat and mouse between these two teams. It was amazing to watch the events of this series happen. Oklahoma and Kennesaw were the perfect match for one another. Each had their own strengths and weaknesses, and I think Oklahoma’s aggression is what helped them take the win over Kennesaw.

 

Grand Finals: DePaul vs. Oklahoma State (3-0)

NO WAY THERE WAS A REMATCH!!!!?!?!??!?!? So it looked like there was going to be a rematch from the semifinals between these two teams. It was very similar to the previous series except you could tell that fatigue was settling into all of the players. At this point, the event was going on for about 5 hours, and I knew that these players were just ready to end it all. Obviously, DePaul wanted to win and end it so we were able to see some spectacular performances from the whole squad. Even though there was a little bit of some back and forth between round wins, DePaul was able to figure out how to get around Oklahoma State to take home the victory.

 

 

My Perspective:

As the main producer for this event, I was quite nervous. I was nervous since I had never done this before. There is a lot that goes into making sure the event and the transitions go and look smoothly. Luckily, I got it all figured out relatively quickly, and I was happy with the result. Even though things did go smoothly (for the most part), I was surprised how well I handled the mishaps. Of course there were issues with lag and connection so there had to be different hosts of the game internally. I kept having issues where my mic would be muted and the casters did not hear when I was going to transition. That was a lot of fun to deal with. There was even a point when Kevin’s PC stopped functioning, and I had to step in as a caster. I have no clue how to play COD. I have no clue how I was able to cast a whole game. Did I do a good job with it? I have no clue. Yet, I was able to get the production complete on top of casting for about 20 minutes. Overall, I felt this event went extremely well even though it went on much longer than I intended. I for sure am looking forward to what we have in store next for DePaul Esports.

 

I hope you all enjoyed this read and have a great weekend!

By: Jeremy Blye

 

Throughout my time at DePaul, I haven’t seen anyone share a deep perspective into their involvement with a specific team, and I thought I would make some room to share my own thoughts. To give a little bit more insight, I would like to take a deeper dive into how one of our Esports Teams functions. More specifically, this team is our Rocket League team and the progress it has made since September of last year.

 

As an incoming freshman, I had no clue of what I wanted to do with college. We were in the middle of the pandemic. We were stuck in our homes virtually every single day. We were stuck with a stagnant life. I decided to make a change to that. When I joined this program, I was not too sure as to what game I would like to be a part of. I knew I wanted to join an Esports team because I have a passion and love for video games. I also tend to find myself to be okay at gaming and wanted to elevate my skill. I also missed being a part of a serious team/organization and luckily this program has helped fulfill some of my own wishes. I ran cross country and track within high school, so this program helped fill a spot in my heart. By the first week or so of being a part of this organization, I decided to join the Rocket League team.

 

As being a new person within the team, I knew I had to earn my respect and prove that I deserved to have some sort of a spot within the team. These are some values of discipline that had been engrained into my head by participating in other sports. It was interesting to see how many of these values I lived by translated nearly perfectly within a video game. While I was growing up, I was always surrounded by negative pictures of video games and what “negative” consequences came from putting in time into gaming. By taking a hobby much more seriously, I was able to see the how participating within an Esports team had many more pros than there were cons. Although I was sitting on a computer and just looking at a screen, I was able to take a passion of mine and improve it to the best of my own ability. There was now this opportunity for me to figure out how I could elevate my skills as a gamer and person overall. This team has allowed for my own personal growth as a player and as a person overall.

 

So far with this post, I have been relatively general with how I have put together my thoughts. I think it is extremely important in a field such as Esports and gaming to give as much background information as possible before going into specific events and providing exact details. It allows me to demonstrate a year worth of events without taking away too much from your day (Even though I know you all love reading what I have to say, I understand it could be a lot). Without going on too many more tangents, let’s take a deeper dive into this Esport.

 

Rocket League as an Esport at DePaul

 

I was quite surprised when I found out how similar Esports is to what many consider traditional sports. Each has its own unique attributes, but they function relatively similar. Rocket League in its own is in a somewhat similar boat. This game even follows suit of what makes one activity a part of a club and one a part of a team. I am referring to how seriously the players take what they are doing. With any activity, anyone can just participate. What matters is how far one may take it and what they may do to reach whatever goals they may lay out in front of themselves.

 

The reason our Rocket League Esports team is considered a sport/team is because of the mindsets that help bring this team into fruition. Too often, there are those negative mindsets that gamers are lazy and do not do anything productive. I was again surprised to see how many of the traits that made me love being a part of a team be translated seamlessly into the program. The way the coaches work with the players is virtually the same as a normal sport. Same with how players interact with one another and how one goes about improving within the game. One may be good with solely a mechanical aspect of one of these games, but that does not mean that they have a firm understanding with how to become good mentally. The mental side of the game covers more than just understanding the game. This is learning how to become a smart player and how to control emotions.

 

The level of “intelligence” that comes from playing Rocket League comes from how one approaches the game itself. One can simply just play the game. This does not mean that they are necessarily a smart player. They have to be able to make split-second decisions that may make or break the game. They also have to know when they can take risks. If a risk is made and the game starts falling apart because of that, then this means the play was not necessarily a good or smart one. Not only do players need to understand what they are doing in game, they must understand how to react to those around them (both on the same and opposite teams). This means players need to have good synergy to be successful and be able to read their opponents to further that success.

 

In gaming, it is hard to become emotional especially when one becomes attached. I know this from experience. I find it extremely easy to become frustrated or angry with a video game since it is something that I have complete control with. Every I do is up to the inputs I have in my controller/keyboard. This is unlike running where I had other factors that I could not control. In gaming, it is so important to be able to control my own emotions and feelings to be able to bring out some form of success. It just poses difficulty sometime when I know I cannot control something I believed could be.

 

Not only is the mental-side of the game important, the physical side must be addressed as well. Just like in normal sports, there is some form of a training regiment to be able to have some form of improvement over a certain period of time. Even though this is done completely virtually, one player must train specific aspects of their mechanics within the game to be able to improve. This is something that should be obvious to any observer, but I never noticed the level of seriousness one must take to improve with a video game until I actually did it.

 

Conclusion

 

First of all, I hope you made it in one piece. I understand that this was quite a bit to read. I think in future posts, I would like to dive into more specific aspects of each of the teams and express with other people or more of my own work. I think it is interesting to see how similar gaming is to what we consider traditional hobbies, and I would like to do my best at informing others on what I know and how I feel. I think it is good to start with a relatively general piece before going into crazy specific aspects on how these teams function. It allows anyone to get a start into understanding how these Esports teams work. Thanks again for reading and I’ll see you in the next post!

By: Jeremy Blye

 

First of all, I hope everyone’s 4th of July went well! As we reach the second week of July, I thought I would give a little bit of a check-in and an update into what we have going on within the next 8-9 weeks of the summer. As you obviously know by now, we have the DePaul Summer Showdown and the DePaul Gaming League alternating each week. What that means is that we will have a Summer Showdown NEXT THURSDAY NIGHT!!!!!

 

 

I honestly cannot believe we are already moving onto our second Summer Showdown. The first one went extremely well, and I am excited to showcase our Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War team against 3 other extremely solid teams (Oklahoma, Butler, and one other team TBD). This time instead of having myself cast, Kevin “Tenacity” will be taking the ropes from myself while I work more on the production side. Because of how well last Summer Showdown, I hope to see this transfer over into the next week. I also hope to see the same amount of people if not more show up within the stream. I had a lot of fun interacting with the chat here and there, and it is always fantastic to have our Esports community be represented in virtually everything we do.

 

With the DePaul Gaming League, Matt “Matt Beach” has some huge plans in the making. From my knowledge, I know that he is planning on having a Chess event, another Among Us event, and possibly some Valorant pick-up games. All of these events are appetizing to myself. As a competitive Rocket League player, I tend to find it difficult to enjoy gaming outside of competition. Having these laid-back and relaxed gaming sessions is something I truly look forward to. Many of you will most likely see me participating within at least a few of these events, and just like in the prior paragraph, I hope to see all of you there.

 

I think it is quite interesting how easy being able to do these events is. It is such a great way to bring people together. In general, gaming is an extremely easy way to bring people together. The way we are able to bring these ideas into fruition is another aspect that just fascinates me. This is part of why I went out to apply for this position. The fact that I can do something I love with a community that makes me feel at home makes me ecstatic. Any idea that either myself, my coworkers, or the community has can be put together and made into something special. This is exactly what we have done with this summer, and this is something I could not have asked more for.

 

As far as upcoming events, we will be continuing This Week in DePaul, Jerm on the Streets, and Streamin’ Demons. Dates for these will be coming up shortly. Make sure to check out our Instagram and Twitter pages. We will keep everyone updated as soon as we have confirmed dates and details for every single event. Also, if you would like to add your own input or suggestions, feel free to reach out to any of us over Discord. We are more than happy to be able to support every single person as much as possible. I hope you all have a great day, and the rest of the week treats you well!