V random, but testing that link attribution works as expected for a work project. Would be a cool if one or two people clicked so I can check if it's working.

[IM DONE - link removed]

Some other random updates...

I'm working at Midnite (the link above goes to the website), a UKGC registered esports betting startup. I was somewhat sceptical about gambling when esports took off again last decade, particularly whether the "outside" influence of the big betting operators would hijack esports. Turns out, the small and agile betting startups can still compete and I believe gambling solves some of esports' fundamental revenue problems.

Planning marketing campaigns currently but before these kick in I'd just like to be sure the tracking works as expected.

linkme

Yea I know it's so cheap! I'm testing some SEO stuff out...

Yep, I put a link to my esports betting website at the top of ESReality. Damn power is going to my head!

I was looking at the analytics of this site recently and thought it was worth a try to improve the domain authority over at Luckbox and help push some of my marketing campaigns there.

I'll likely do some different things with it to annoy people less - maybe a button to make it disappear etc. I haven't put a lot of thought into it yet.

Hopefully this doesn't offend too many people. Feedback appreciated.

My god this was long...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KRAM4-vXqc

Shameless self promotion!

https://issuu.com/ggmagazineuk/docs/final_pro...ne_-_ellio

Pages 36-40

The magazine is a dissertation project but I quite like how the interview game out.

Hello ESR. I really haven't visited much in the last ten years, hope you're doing well. I did help keep the server running so there is that. I mostly fobbed off the moderation requests so if you emailed me asking to ban someone, sorry that I didn't do it.

It seems there might be a really good reason to visit this site more, particularly if Diabotical gets traction and builds a real community of gamers. I've been lucky enough to try out the game a few times, and I do genuinely believe it can be successful. The GD Studio, despite being rampant trolls and jokers, have actually built an impressive game and I love the attitude they've taken going into this project. They've made good decisions on gameplay and there's no-one else I'd want designing the esports portion of the game.

So if you haven't already done so, please check out the Kickstarter page and pledge something towards what will be a brilliant game.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/84288219...-gd-studio

Also if you have £300 spare, please go buy my experience where you get 2 hours of special Sujoy time. I'll also sweeten the pot with whatever I can think of (ESR status?) just because I don't want to be the only person left at the auction that no-one bid for.

Finally, I've bought a package for ESR so we can get some custom graphics into the game. What would you like to see in an ESR skin or tag?

Played some Reborn today. Engine was solid.

My Pebble watch just arrived today (I'm not cool enough for kickstarter). I keep looking at it waiting for something amazing to happen. Maybe I missed the point. I'll give it a few weeks to see if it's actually useful, or if it just means I have no excuse to ignore phone calls.

Made an ESR watch face for giggles:
http://www.watchface-generator.de/watchfaces/20130827/esreality/

I recently whined that my trusty old Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical 1.1a was letting me down, and someone from ZOWIE got in touch to see if I wanted to try out one of their mice. My first reaction was to politely refuse. In the past I’ve built what was probably the most rigorous mouse testing apparatus the world had ever seen. Yes, I spent months testing mice. I almost certainly didn’t have a girlfriend at the time. So to write a mouse review based purely on playing games with it seemed trite. The equipment was thrown out years ago and there’s no way I was building it all again. Most gaming mice out today have sensors that are brilliant and outperform the pitiful human on the end of them, so there’s no need to try and work out their top speeds anyway. The only limiting factor these days is the bleary-eyed gamer failing to hit mouse1 in time. The guy from ZOWIE wouldn’t take no for an answer though. He really wanted me to try out his mouse and was being far too nice about it. In the end I thought I’d give it a whirl and see what the kids are playing with these days. I'm calling this my Thoughts on the ZOWIE AM, since I can't really call this a review.


But why would I whine about the legendary WMO1.1a? Sacrilege I hear you gasp. That is, those of you who are not hypnotised by shiny packaging and don't gawp at boxes that are full of numbers. I got my hands on a new PC and 120Hz monitor recently and suddenly gaming was awesome again. For the past 5 years I’ve only been playing on laptop PCs at 60Hz and the low framerate made everything else seem quite insignificant. At 60fps, the average delay of the screen is high enough to make mouse performance pretty much irrelevant. In particular I had been playing with my mouse polling at the default 125Hz and didn’t really notice. When I plugged in my shiny new 120Hz monitor it was like being able to breath properly again. Playing at 120fps is just so much better you feel foolish for ever not doing it. Suddenly I noticed that my mouse was slightly delayed. I tried to whack up the polling rate on the mouse, but I just couldn’t find a way of doing it in Windows 8. So I was stuck, which led to whining, which led to a ZOWIE AM-FG arriving a few days ago.


I was given a choice of mouse, so it was natural for me to pick one similar in shape to the WMO. The AM is almost identical in overall shape, if a little more pleasing to the eye. My only niggle was that the edges taper outwards very slightly making the grip feel precarious. I wouldn’t say it was hard to hold, but the WMO inward taper seems to be much more sensible for when you need to pick up and reposition the mouse. The body is a glossy plastic but the surface is actually quite grippy. It’s also glitters in the light. I don’t mind the glitter, especially at this time of year, but it seems a strange finish for the material. Maybe it’s just the natural backlash to the black rubberised texture and crazy light show on most gaming peripherals on the market. Ok I’ll give you that ZOWIE, you’re breaking new ground by not being me-too-geek. I think you might regret the glitter after Christmas though.


There are buttons galore! I guess you have to have buttons everywhere these days. I don’t use them personally but I suppose it’s another number to put on the box. There’s the usual left and right click, wheel and two additional buttons on either side. Thankfully they don’t get in the way for anyone that doesn’t want them, and I even started using the thumb button as a push-to-talk so at least one of them turned out to be useful.


Finally the feet - there’s basically a top foot and huge bottom foot. Seems like quite a lot of foot when you look at it, but the teflon slides nicely so the end result is medium drag on an average cloth mousepad. Pretty much exactly what I wanted.

Plug in the mouse and it fires up at a default 450dpi and 1000Hz. Lovely! It feels like the mouse cursor is zooming off before I move the mouse. I guess that’s the effect of getting used to mouse lag, when it’s gone it feels like your computer is anticipating what you want. Weird at first, but a definite improvement. Best of all, you are not required to install any additional drivers. You just plug it in and off you go. I love hardware that does that. Maybe I’m obsessive but I’m guessing a lot of gamers feel the same way and don’t want to have any bloat on their systems. It’s easy to change the settings. There’s a sensitivity button on the base that toggles through 450, 1150 and 2300dpi. You can even change the polling rate by holding down various buttons before plugging in the USB cable.

On to the important bit now. How does it play? I’d love to tell you that it improved by frag count by 20%, but I didn’t have any statisticians around to monitor the results. All I can say is that it’s an absolute pleasure to play Quake Live at 125fps on a 120Hz monitor with a mouse that does exactly what it’s meant to, and this mouse does what it says on the box without any fuss. The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of really good gaming mice out there. You’d have a hard time finding a bad mouse. If you have somehow got your hands on a bad mouse, then you’ll probably love the switch to a Zowie AM-FG. If you like glitter, you’re also in luck. I really quite like this mouse personally and if you're comfortable with the ambidextrous shape you'll also be happy with one of these. But if I found a hack to get my WMO running at 1000Hz in Windows 8 I would probably just stick with it. I'm loyal like that.

Update: I've been told that ZOWIE make several versions of this AM mouse, some of which do infact have black rubberised finishes. So you manly gamers out there can get one without the glitter.

I write this journal with bleary eyes, nausea and a splitting headache. A successful Saturday night all round.

Gamescom is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. I mean Gamescom. My hotel is pretty close the South entrance, but it's a long hike to get to each hall. Publishers are showing off new games as you'd expect and the audience are lapping it up. I'm not all that interested in seeing game trailers so I skip most of the halls and march off in search of Carmac.

The ESL area of Hall 9 is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely... well you get the idea. I arrive fairly early at 10am but the League of Legends audience has already packed out every seat of their stage two hours before the first game is due to start. Esports seems to have gone mental here. I have watched LoL in the past but I don't really get it. I have to figure that non-Quakers watching Quake feel the same way. Next door to League of Legends is the Starcraft 2 stage. While I know very little about SC2 at least it's slightly familiar, so I sidle over to a more comfortable game. The stage configuration is good. Players wear in-ear headphones and construction headphones on top to isolate themselves from the commentary. The commentators are at the back of the audience to create some atmosphere when their camera is on. I like the way they have two tag-teams of commentantators to keep the energy up. The audience seem to love the whole show.

As the crowd part Carmac finally appeared.



The guy is basically running the IEM now. And yea he's still Carmac, at least to me because I still haven't figured out how to pronounce Michal. Is it Mi-kal? Michael? Carmac is easier. He conducts the activities on stage, back stage and in the commentary area while at the same time stopping to catch up the last 5 years with me, and also threatening judo chops to spectators trying to break into the booth to touch their hero casters. Carmac is good at his job.

And more familiar faces appear. Two of them gurn against the back of the commentary booth glass.



It's no surprise to find Redeye hosting some stage activity - really good to see Paul again - but it's awesome to meet Jarett from Pure Pwnage. The book I'm writing has some roots in the Pure Pwnage mythology. Serious. I didn't spend all that much time with him but first impressions are that he's open, friendly and very likable.

I'm still looking for 2GD. Finding Harding is hard. He's ignoring my phone I think. I recognise a few people in the press area and say hi to Gonzo from Heaven Media, who gives me some pointers on catching a Jay. Then I spot Hellspawn who offers some more clues. Something about 2GD being in the hospital with broken balls. Not sure what to make of that. Then I get Trance's number to finally discover that they're still in the hotel and 2GD is asleep. It's late afternoon now so that's impressive. I give up the hunt and go off to finally do some business.

Back now to Hall 8 for the ESL Party and a British table quickly appears where I meet Redeye, Odee and various other people with names I can't hear over the music. And lo he appears all Jesus-like, apart from the booze and fags.



Can finally talk about how Quake > * for a little while with Trance and also Stermy who seems to be moving and shaking in Italy. I look sad.



And photo overload as Griff arrives. Quake players will rule the world one day.



I'm still a little sad that only a few people know who I am. Hey don't judge, I'm just spoiled from going to a lot of events where everyone recognises me. To combat this one of the Dota players decides to tell everyone I'm Icefrog and that I invented Dota. Is fun for a while, but Trance wants to ditch the party and find another place in the city instead.

Much drinking, dancing, indoor smoking (oh how I miss indoor smoking), outdoor kebab and taxi riding later and I'm back to the hotel to watch the sunrise. I can't be sure but I think I've only slept about 3 hours. Was a good night, a judo hold being the only thing missing.

I'm back in the thick of things here at Gamescom. It's been a while since I've visited one of these mega-expos so I thought I'd try to write a journal in the hope that something interesting happens over the weekend. It won't now, I've jinxed it.

I decided to come at the last minute so most of the hotels were fully booked. But then the Hyatt Regency popped up on Expedia and I had flashbacks of The CPL back in 2000. Nostalgia got the better of me and I booked it without even trying to work out the daily rate. Easyjet were giving me a good reaming on the cost of the flight anyway.



This really is a slick hotel, and I've been spoiled in the last few years. The view is incredible. Inside it's all black glass, velour, chrome and fountains.



I managed to get into Razer's private party on their stand in Hall 9 last night (thanks Arlene). It was odd to visit the expo after closing time. The floor was covered in glossy flyers scrunched up and marked with footprints as a lone cleaning man slowly cleared a path with a huge broom. The Razer stand was converted to a VIP zone in this sea of dead flyers with a strangely cool looking bunch sipping beers and smoking cigarettes with good looking girls hanging around them. On the other side a less cooling looking bunch were hanging out with their beers. I'm no critic of esports but it was pretty obvious which group were here for the stunt ramps, and which were playing video games. Ok that's not fair, I didn't go and talk to the LoL team they might have been awesome.

By this point my head was throbbing in time to the music so I called it a night to enjoy my hotel room a little more. Am hoping to catch up with Carmac and 2GD at some point this weekend, and maybe Griff too at the ESL party. Do these people even go by their nicknames anymore? Will the ESL party be a geekfest? Will Carmac judo-hold someone upside down? All this and more will be revealed.



I forgot to take any pictures in the Razer party so here's one of the flowers I planted outside my flat.

Haven't been online gaming for a number of years and need updates please. I tried playing a game the other day and I had no clue what people were talking about. What's this "boss" business and why are some people considered "boss"? What else is new?

Apparently BF3 is awesome.

Now, the first thing I have to say about BF3 is this: The game is eye-meltingly gorgeous. This is not a random metaphor, my eyes are literally melting. Having played the game non-stop for a week, I can feel the gelatinous centres beginning to bubble.

http://www.thegamingcyclist.blogspot.com/2011...gamer.html

In other news I discovered you only need to go to the Quake Live website to play the game. Who knew? Turned out "Sujoy" and "Suj" were both taken so that's me screwed. I've never played a game without my own name. I eventually got over it, picked a suitable fakenick, and played Quake for the first time in five years. I was suprised that the game felt totally natural. I didn't even remember that my last game was Quake 4. I guess Q3 lives on even after you leave it behind. I've only got a laptop to play on, a shabby old mousepad, and a WMO that cuts out for a few seconds every five minutes... and it's still loads of fun. I can tell because my girlfriend was complaining about my "gaming addiction" on the very first day. I'm going to find another WMO and mousepad in my boxogoodies that's been gathering dust in the cupboard and get playing properly soon.

In a bout of shameless self promotion, allow me to point you in the direction of Gamerbase to sign up for a free (London) gaming session to play Warhammer Online. The players who rack up the most experience in the three-hour session can win a range of prizes.

Going to see him on Friday at the Hammersmith Apollo. Anyone like Neil Young, or am I just old?

Gametype: Team Game
Map: Various Maps
Mod: N/A
Viewpoint: Purri
How to play back Q4 demos


Eurocup XV Finals between FOE and Evolve.

Purri and Liefje

and some random girls...

More Swedish support than French from this audience!

Casting on Giga.