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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsEnsidia and Method to compete in Ulduar timed run
by Eliah Hecht 
Jul 14th 2009 at 7:00PM
Live PvP competition is old hat. 2009 appears to be the year of PvE (if you ask me, every year should be that year). At the Games Convention Online, in Leipzig over the weekend of July 31 – August 2, two of the strongest PvE guilds in the world, Ensidia and Method, are competing in a timed run of Ulduar.
It's going to be on 10-man, which is kind of strange, given that most people (and especially hardcore raiders) seem to think of the 25-man version as the "real" version of the raid. Maybe they wanted it to be easier for spectators to follow the action.
Points will be awarded for killing end bosses of a "zone" faster than the other guild, with points increasing from zone to zone. I'm guessing that by "zone" the press release refers to the Siege, the Antechamber, the Keepers, and the Descent into Madness, but the translation is not perfect - I could be wrong.
The Ensidia/Method matchup is going to be on August 2nd; as a prelude, two German guilds (Irae AoD and For the Horde) are going to compete on the same event on August 1st. Apparently the raids will be streaming live on allvatar.com, although I can't really get very far on that site - WTB English translation. Does anyone know if it will be free to watch or not?
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
Kylenne Jul 14th 2009 10:53PM
I'd hit it.
Morningbell Jul 15th 2009 1:26PM
I'd hit it purely on account of his character's Armory profile.
And I'm a guy.
Mmmmm.
uncaringbear Jul 15th 2009 2:23AM
Kungen looks like Boomhauer from King of the Hill.
Kryren Jul 15th 2009 8:00AM
Agreed!
Dightkuz Jul 17th 2009 9:59PM
@uncaringbear
I think he looks alot more like DJ Tiesto. Or atleast 10 years from now.
Nathanyel Jul 14th 2009 7:19PM
There is no mention of paying for the stream, actually I think they'll just be showing a moderated version of the official stream from www.gamesconvention.com, which they also mention to broadcast those timed runs.
Nathanyel Jul 14th 2009 7:23PM
http://www.allvatar.com/rex/1220-0-Plantronics-Battle-of-the-Best-GCO-Leipzig-Ensidia-Method.html
Battle of the Best Rules in English:
The Instance will be Ulduar non Heroic:
As we did in our last Battle in Naxxramas, we will split Ulduar into sections and reward the won sections with points. Due to the tight scheudule we will let the guilds clear Flame Leviatan up front and skip the optional bosses Ignis, Razorscale und Iron Council
* The point-distribution will look like this:
o The Siege of Ulduar (just XT-002): 1
o The Antechamber Ulduar (just Kologarn und Auriaya): 2
o The Keepers of Ulduar: 3
o The Decent to Madness: 5
* The first guild to achieve 6 points will win the match.
* It is up to die guilds if they engage the bosses in normal or hard mode.
* Before Auriaya is pulled, it is only allowed to clear the two trash-packs to the left and right of the platform behind the shattered walkway.
* There are no limitations concerning consumables Consumables, all potions, flasks und gimmicks are allowed.
* The boss order inside the "wings" is up to the guilds.
* Each section will be started simultaneously i.e. the faster team may have to wait for the other team to finish the preceding section. The Guilds have to wait for the pull command from the moderators.
* Clearing up of all the trash-mobs is not needed
* Substitution of players during the raid is not allowed
* Setup can be chosen freely
* Every help from outside the raid is not allowed (for example soul-stone rotation with other players in front of the instance which are not part of the raid...)
Nathanyel Jul 14th 2009 7:25PM
BTW hereby applying as a correspondent for anything involving German/Germany :P
Ted Jul 14th 2009 8:02PM
Dude, very nice.
lilernie01 Jul 15th 2009 5:48AM
From poking around that site a bit, it seemed to me that such competitions are a bit more common in Germany, and that they actually enjoy watching this sort of thing. Their comments are about the anticipation of such a battle and how they should be suspenseful. I personally think it's cool that their community is a bit tighter knit and can have guild vs guild competitions rather than just generally all the guilds competing, then again, we're talking about a country about the size of Montana, so it makes sense.
Nathanyel Jul 15th 2009 6:04AM
We always used California for comparisons, but yeah, Montana is closer in size. Then again, Germany has nearly a third of the population of the whole United States, with ~7.4 times the population density ;)
So talking about the mere area of countries is moot.
I think the fact you think this is more common around here is that most of today's bigger online gaming websites only came to popularity in the last 3 years (mostly through WoW, of course) and still there are pretty few, while you can find dozens of websites of this kind in the US/English-speaking area. Those websites probably do a similar amount of contests, but you don't notice them that much unless you check every of those sites on a regular basis.
vinniedcleaner Jul 14th 2009 7:21PM
My guess is that this is just another way for "Ensidia - the cure for the flaccid e-penis" to dupe people into thinking they're important and badass....
vocenoctum Jul 14th 2009 7:25PM
I would rephrase it as "trying to show that they're still relevant", but yeah.
They should have points for time, and a hard mode should add points. Let them figure out if they want to zerg the easy or go for the fast hard mode kill to really win.
Also, invite more guilds and run the entire thing at once. WTF is this 1 on 1 crap?
Lemons Jul 15th 2009 2:07AM
Damn. it.
What a fickle public...you miss out on a few world firsts and suddenly you're not even relevant anymore? Just goes to show being famous is barely worth it because people will notice you for about 5 secs before declaring you old, tired, and outdated.
Valandilv Jul 15th 2009 9:13AM
They *are* tired, old and outdated: just take a look at their own (in)action. They couldn't face up to a challenge that Blizzard set them (Yogg-Saron + 0). They could have trained at it and worked out a strategy to beat it, like Stars, Paragon and Premonition respectively have done.
Instead, they used "Maths" to show it was "Impossible", then declared "Algalon is the only thing that matters lol!" They're trying so hard to dictate what is relevant and what is not, because it suits their own lack of ability and their laziness to do so. The only reason people still pay attention to them is because they've built up a sycophantic fanbase who will listen.
Ensidia is going down the path of Death and Taxes -- they don't care about this game any more because it has superceded the limits to which they are prepared to go in order to be #1. But, instead of bowing out, they're trying to hold desperately on to their ball by arbitrarily declaring that certain challenges "Don't count".
Their rejection by public opinion is not because of the fact that they missed out on World Firsts -- it's because they got to Alone In The Darkness first and then *gave up*; but, not only did they give up, they used the clout provided by their previous successes to belittle pre-emptively the extraordinary feats of those guilds who were able to overcome it. Being #1 in the world is not just about world firsts -- you're right -- it's also about attitude. Ensidia has a crap one.
Aquanda Jul 14th 2009 7:48PM
this is a joke without hard modes.
Task Jul 14th 2009 7:39PM
I agree with vocenoctum, why not have Stars, Paragon and Premonition in on this as well? Or is it based upon the fact that both Ensidia and Method respectively cleared the content as soon as Ulduar was live?
If that's the case, then let Premonition, Paragon, Stars have their own Free for all as it were, doing their own timed 10 man runs with the voluntary option of Hard mode.
If these 3 guilds did their own timed run (video included of course), I wouldn't be surprised if 1 of them beat Ensidia's or Method's timed run; pending when we get to see the videos after.
" * There are no limitations concerning consumables Consumables, all potions, flasks und gimmicks are allowed." Does the "gimmicks" refer to what exactly? Anyone know what the interpretation is?
Otome Jul 14th 2009 9:22PM
Remember how when the faux world-first of Alone in the Darkness was done and when the exploit was made known, people countered with 'But Ensidia uses little tricks like that too!"?
Those would be the gimmicks, I believe.
Anyway, I agree with getting some of the guilds who actually did that achievement, instead of the ones who haven't. 'Battle of the best'? Nothing against Method, but Ensidia isn't 'the best' anymore, mainly because they claim that Yogg+0 isn't worth the time. I'm far more interested in the lesser known guilds who keep showing them up.
jfofla Jul 14th 2009 7:40PM
Now we know why Ensidia has not completed Alone In The Dark, they have obviously been busy training for this event. That, and pouring over videos to see how the other guilds exploited the mathematically impossible encounter.
This event is the kind of thing Superstars past their prime consent to do.
Elry Jul 14th 2009 8:20PM
I was thinking the same thing myself. Its like the tennis matches at Wimbledon between the famous players of yesteryear. Fun to watch, and can be quite interesting matches, but you know they just couldn't compete with the newer up-and-coming "Stars" of the game (excuse the pun) :P