IeSF, Partnership with Zepetto, game developer of Point Blank

Press Release
Sender : Jay Shin, Business Department TEL:(02)715-6668  FAX:(02)713-2227
IeSF, Partnership with Zepetto, game developer of Point Blank

The International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) announced a partnership with Zepetto, the game developer of Point Blank, on August 11^th 2015.

Point Blank is a FPS genre game that has gained popularity around the globe, with more than 100 million active users over 70 countries. Zepetto hosts an anually Point Blank International Championship (PBIC) since 2011, and through the PBIC Zepetto has established a strong global e-Sports tournament system.

Zepetto will cooperate with IeSF, as well as IeSF’s 43 member national federations, to expand their user base and bring their e-Sports tournament system to all 43 member federations. Promoting Point Blank through IeSF’s member nations will allow Zepetto access to markets that they were not able to penetrate on their own. Especially, if e-Sports is adopted as one of the disciplines in an International Multi Sports Events hosted by International Sports governing bodies, such as the 4th Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) hosted by Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) in 2013, Point Blank will be the first officially recognized FPS game. IeSF will encourage its member nation federations to host national qualifiers for Point Blank to dispatch national teams to International Multi Sports events. Zepetto also expects to apply regulations, which international sports governing bodies will recommend after consulting with IeSF, when hosting Point Blank e-Sports tournaments such as PBIC.

Through a partnership with IeSF, PBIC will have more teams participating from IeSF member nations. Moreover, by adopting the dispatching system used by official national teams who are approved by their national governments and sport authorities, it is expected that Point Blank will be selected as an official title for International e-Sports Competitions among IeSF’s member nations.

IeSF president, Mr. Byung Hun Jun said “I am glad that this partnership will support Point Blank to become an e-Sports title in international events. IeSF and Zepetto will share their strength and knowledge to make e-Sports an official international sports title. IeSF will continuously expand to establish a positive system with game developers and provide various e-Sports titles with opportunity to be exposed to the international sports society.”

Results table: Day 4: E-FRAG.NET African Qualifying Rounds

Day 4: An uphill struggle!

Day 4 of the E-FRAG.NET African Qualifying Rounds started well.

Despite the MSSA only being informed by the organisers of the fixtures on Friday, 7 August 2015, the MSSA had everything in place bto award the team its Protea Colours at the Old Edwardian Society on the morning of Thursday, 13 August 2015.

To even get to this point there had been a lot of negotiations between E-FRAG and the MSSA apropos the servers.

The MSSA always knew that the 'ping' would be a problem and was requesting at least a 'best of two' where one game would be played on the designated server in Europe and the other on a designated server in Africa. Although not perfect, by any means, the organisers of E-FRAG came back and stated that half the game could be done on the designated server in Europe and the other on a designated server in Africa as E-FRAG did not want to move away from the 'Best of One' for the African Rounds.

The SA team was fairly satisfied with this.

However, with the final presentation of the fixtures, the E-FRAG organisers did a 'volte-face' and advised the South Africa team that it would all be done on the European server.

On hearing this decision, the MSSA considered sending the team down to Cape Town to play from the MWEB MCAVE (at a cost of tens of thousands) to get approximately 30 ping less. The committee felt that such move would not really warrant the expenditure as the ping would still be quite disadvantageous to the team. The Committee even considered sending the team to London in the UK, but various factors – more precisely the lack of lead time given – prevented such decision from being effected.

Even the Tunisian team complained that such decision was not fair to the South African team.

Nevertheless, the MWEB Protea eSports Team for CounterStrike: GO behaved like absolute troopers.

Not one complained against an obviously biased decision and sat down to the business at hand.

Obviously the first game against Egypt did not go well despite the team 'sticking in' and giving it their all. For older readers, it was like rewatching Tobruk. Nothing that the South Africans could do could work as they battled against both the Egyptians and a ping of 200.

With ping of 200, the South Africans were firing at opponents who were no longer there, and to viewers it appeared as though the South Africans were just standing around. 

Needless to say, the South Africans lost the game 16 – 3.

After the match against Egypt, South Africa went into play against the front-runners, Tunisia.

Tunisia took every advantage of the awful ping being experienced by the South Africans and worked it like the stars they are.

The South Africans battled on, but were again severely hampered by the ping of 200.

The triumphant Tunisians thus romped home to a 16 – 1 victory!
Although bitterly disappointed, the South Africans, at their post mortem, under the guidance of Johan Heymans, expressed their determination to soldier on.

The mistakes were reviewed and the team put in some last minute practice for Day 5 when the team will face Morocco (13H00), Algeria (14H00), and Lybia (15H00).

The MSSA Committee to has looked very carefully at this type of competition, and has already put steps in place that should South Africa participate in an African Qualifying event again, to send the team to Europe so that at least the team will have a level playing field.

Until then, it is all uphill!

Day 3 of the E-FRAG.NET African Qualifying Rounds for CounterStrike: GO

Results from Day 3 of the E-FRAG.NET 2015 World Championship African Qualifying Rounds are:

Egypt (16) vs Algeria (9)
Tunisia (16) vs Lybia (6)
Lybia (15) vs Algeria (15)

Egypt and Tunisia still demonstrating their dominance and leading the pack.

The MWEB Protea Team eSports South Africa makes its first appearance on Thursday, 13 August 2015 against Egypt.

The schedule of games can be found on http://esportscommentator.blogspot.com/2015/08/african-qualifier-set-to-start_8.html

MSSA Proposed Calendar of Events for 2016

It is that time of the year when the MSSA starts preparing for its Annual General Meeting in December and to finalising its Calendar of Events for the next year.

Yes, the work behind the scenes never stops, and the draft Calendar of Events is always published in August so that every member may comment on the calendar.

Not only that, but members are also given the opportunity to:

1. Offer to host events
2. Decide when they wish to host their own events,
3. Decide if they want to host any Regional Championships.

This is YOUR opportunity to make yourself heard.

After day 2 of the E-FRAG.NET CounterStrike: GO World Championships

After two days of play in the E-FRAG CounterStrike: GO World Championships, the results of games so far are:

 Algeria (15) vs.  Morocco  (15)
 Morocco (16) vs.  Lybia (6)
 Lybia    (10)    vs.  Egypt    (16)
 Tunisia  (16)   vs.  Algeria   (12)
 Morocco  (3) vs.  Tunisia  (16)
 Egypt  (16)      vs.  Morocco     (6)

Egypt and Tunisia a demonstrating their dominance.

The MWEB Protea Team eSports South Africa makes its first appearance on Thursday, 13 August 2015 against Egypt.

The schedule of games can be found on http://esportscommentator.blogspot.com/2015/08/african-qualifier-set-to-start_8.html

Brazilian and Russian Draughts

Just seen on the MSSA facebook that the MSSA may be sending a player to participate in the 2015 edition of the Russian and Brazilian World Championships for the Brazilian and Russian variations of Draughts.

Such 2015 World Championships will be played in St Petersburg, Russia from 2 to 11 October 2015.

Few are aware that the championship carries prize money of 3,600,000.00 roubles (approximately US$64,000.00).

While it is unlikely that any South African, at their first ever foray, will end in the prize-money, the opportunity to go to Russia is fantastic. St Petersburg, often referred to as Venice of the North) is a truly beautiful city and is much steeped in history. 

History that changed the world, and which still reverberates in South African politics today!

Although the variation is different from the very much more static Anglo-American that is more popular in South Africa, this trip offers huge benefits for the person selected to go as well as for South Africa as a whole.

Brazilian Draughts has a great deal of similarity with a version played in South African townships, and is offer at the Western Cape Championships that will be played at Fairmont High School on 22 & 23 August 2015.

The rules are easily available:

Brazilian Draughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_draughts
Russian Draughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_draughts

Who will go and represent South Africa?

AFRICAN QUALIFIER SET TO START

The MWEB Team eSports South Africa has its work cut out for itself when the qualifier rounds for the spot to represent Africa at the 2015 World Championships for CounterStrike: GO begins on 10 August 2015.

Egypt, Morocco, Lybia, Algeria, Tunisia and South Africa are all located in the same group where they will play each other in a best-of-one format while after each team play five group stage matches only one will qualify for Global Finals in Belgrade, Serbia. Travel and accommodation costs are covered by E-FRAG.NET. 

Although the qualifying rounds for Africa begin on 10 August 2015, it is not until 13 August 2015 that South Africa will take to the field.

Thus South Africa will play all four of its matches on only two days!

Thus while some may argue that the MWEB Team eSports SA have an advantage in that they can see how the other four countries play, there is a great deal of concern in the South African camp apropos the effects of fatigue among the team members.

A full list of all five African nation's teams participating in the African Qualifier are:

Egypt	Lybia
Rami 'Dare_Dev1L' Rahman	Auos 'Frosty' Alojaly
Ahmad 'Ahmad' Khaled	Abdullah 'Josh4tw' Albarsha
Seif 'STK' Tarek	Ali 'Espio-Fed-' Sallak
Wael 'LogaN' Mahmoud	Abdullah 'dA-DvL' El Gallal
Amr 'GreWolf' Assem	Mohammed 'Crocodile' Farina
Rafeef 'Hunter' Natiq	Muhimen 'nONOLINHO' Battor
Ahmed 'AbuFasT' Mohamed	Abdelrahman 'MeryDith' Tarbah
Ehab 'Mickeykatze' Mohamed
Rami 'Dare_Dev1L' Rahman - (M)	Auos 'Frosty' Alojaly - (M)

Algeria	Tunis
Toafek 'Hydromeister' Hayder	Bahaeddine 'Attiaz' Attia
Walid 'ColdNess' Haddou	Mohamed 'torr' Hamdani
Nacim 'GGta' Khalfi	Alaeddine 'Potei' Chaari
Achraf Sami 'Nier' Serrai	Mehdi 'edge' Zouaghi
Racim 'MvRiK' Boumalit	Oussama 'Reina' Khediri
Anis Fawzi 'Blaq' Abdelaziz	Yessine 'Vins' Hammami
Bilal 'Atilla' Ghemari	Najd 'w33dh4x' Khemiri
Akram 'Saylar' Zeghimi	Hakim 'SHOGUN' Ben Tanfous
	Adel 'Remind' Guermassi
Chakib 'Cursed' Boudjakdji - (M)	Hatem 'SHEVA' Guermassi
	Oussama 'MTLC' Reguez
	Salim 'moNster' Mansouri
	Bahaeddine Attiaz Attiaz - (M)

Morocco	South Africa
Yolussef 'razoR' Bousetta	Johan 'Zaphire' Heymans
Nadir 'vespeR' Laroussi	Wilmar 'Invert' Krügel
Ali 'Alislak' Hibatallah	Cornel 'Random' Venter
Tarik 'SaAtaN' Naciri	Michael 'Swagrid' Boucher
Youssef 'cactu' Ait Amghar	Duncan 'Paratex' Smale
Mouhamed 'yoshy' Ouarid	Bastiaan 'MellowPanda' van Wamelen
Hakim 'haks' Tadlaoui	Jason 'Jay' Batzofin
Salah 'Salah' Moujeb	Thyle 'CyberTron' Nortje
Amine 'poggY' Benbada	Thomas 'Chippy' Brown
Oussama 'Almighty' Barazzouk
Salah 'Salah' Moujeb - (M)	Ryan 'Snowflake' Boyes - (M)

The schedule of games from August 10-14 is:

Algeria	vs.	Morocco	Aug 10	14:00 CEST	(BO1)
Morocco	vs.	Lybia	Aug 10	15:00 CEST	(BO1)
Lybia	vs.	Egypt	Aug 10	16:00 CEST	(BO1)

Tunisia	vs.	Algeria	Aug 11	14:00 CEST	(BO1)
Morocco	vs.	Tunisia	Aug 11	15:00 CEST	(BO1)
Egypt	vs.	Morocco	Aug 11	16:00 CEST	(BO1)

Lybia	vs.	Algeria	Aug 12	14:00 CEST	(BO1)
Tunisia	vs.	Lybia	Aug 12	15:00 CEST	(BO1)
Algeria	vs.	Egypt	Aug 12	16:00 CEST	(BO1)

Egypt	vs.	Tunisia	Aug 13	14:00 CEST	(BO1)
South Africa	vs.	Egypt	Aug 13	15:00 CEST	(BO1)
Tunisia	vs.	South Africa	Aug 13	16:00 CEST	(BO1)

South Africa	vs.	Morocco	Aug 14	14:00 CEST	(BO1)
Algeria	vs.	South Africa	Aug 14	15:00 CEST	(BO1)
South Africa	vs.	Lybia	Aug 14	16:00 CEST	(BO1)

Entire tournament will be streamed on multiple languages on Hitbox.tv including English on E-Frag TV so tune in on time to watch best African players in battle for Global Finals of $100,000 The World Championships 2015. In addition, all matches will show up on the right side of the E-FRAG.NET homepage with all information including starting lineups, maps, result, time and date.